Diet

I really hate that word... but I am trying a new one starting today. One of the ladies I sometimes work with has had a lot of luck dropping a decent amount of weight quickly using the Fat Flush Plan. She just uses the initial 2 week detox part of the program once in a while when she feels she needs to loose some weight then goes back to her normal routine. That isn't how it's supposed to work, but that is how she does it and she thought it might help me to at least get things started. So I checked out the book and spent the last week looking it over to determine if this was something OI could do or if it would interfere with my meds and all too much. It seems promising, though it's a good deal more complicated then what she does if you look at it long term.
We will have to see how this goes. So far I am on day one and have done well so far, though, honestly, I still feel hungry. The first 2 weeks you can't have sugar, starches, or dairy of any sort and I'm pretty sure those are what I am craving right now.I am so addicted to dairy.. and wheat.. If I follow the plan beyond the initial 2 weeks, I am allowed to slowly reintroduce all of those things I'm not allowed one at a time. The theory is that a lot of people can't loose weight because it's not fat they are holding on to, but a hidden food allergy that is making them bloated. This, sadly, might be the case. Years ago I had a series of allergy tests done then was on shots for about 10 years. One of the many many things I tested positive for was wheat, but it was never much of an issue, or at least it wasn't pressed at the time, that I avoid it. This, however, might now be coming into play for me. This will stink though, because, next to dairy, I love baked goods, breads, pastries, etc.. At least there are a lot more gluten free options now then there were back then, but it will still stink. So, here's to hoping I don't show any reactions when I reintroduce.
Meanwhile, I figured this would be a good way for me to keep myself honest and on track about it, and should get me blogging more as well, which I also need to start doing.

2011 HERE WE COME..

Ok, so I was just reviewing and saw that it had been a month since I posted.. so, it's about time.. My only blogging goal for the year is to post at least once a month on each of my blogs. We will see how that goes.
I did finally get my computer kicked back into shape. A good old fashioned turning it off and on seemed to finally do the trick. Why is it you never think of trying that sort of thing first?? (OK, so I did, but was afraid there might have been some sort of virus that would take hold on reboot, so put it off..)
Anyway, Christmas came and went. I survived working for 2 weeks straight over the holidays and have been in once since then. I was supposed to have gone another time as well, but, I wound up sick that day so didn't go.
The weather has been insane this winter. Every time we've had snow, the winds have come and blown it all away to the south, then the bitter, bitter sub zero temps have come and frozen us all, then it warms up to over 40 and melts what little might be left, then gets cold again.. then snow and repeat... we finally have snow again and I really am hoping it stays this time. It isn't a proper winter without snow. Tom is taking advantage of this and has gone skiing today, though he should be home soon.
Tomorrow we get our new stove at long last!! After having spent most of the last year with the oven not working properly and making due with a large toaster oven, a crock pot or two and an electric roaster oven (thankfully the burners worked! though once in a while you'd have to start them with a lighter...) we are finally getting the new stove we've been saving up for. It will be so nice to actually be able to cook again! And this one is a nice 5 burner, double oven stove. I am seriously so excited. I have no idea what I will cook first on it. I ordered it New Years Day and it will be showing up here just days before our anniversary. I told Tom if he was smart he'd try to make it a Christmas and Anniversary present, but he's even smarter and says he doesn't count major appliances as presents.. Which is almost sad, because he has one of the few wives who would totally count it. lol
Health wise, this week has kind of sucked. I feel fine, actually. Blood pressure and everything are all fine, I've just been dealing with a LOT of pain this week, and that just drains me physically and emotionally. Though so far, at least emotionally, I've been able to bounce back quickly after the worst of it eases up. Just makes housework that much more of a hassle.
Things are brewing with the kids.. most of it I don't feel I can talk about quite yet, though we are waiting to hear back from lawyers regarding options for trying to get the younger 2 up here full time..
but, the eldest has big news.. they finally found a house they felt they could put an offer on and it looks like they might just have a place to call their own soon, if all goes well with inspections and what not. It would only be about 15 or so miles from us, so that's not too bad at all.

facebook withdrawls....

I haven't properly been on Facebook since, like Thursday of last week. This is not my doing, but for some reason, it loaded fine Friday morning, but we were in a rush to get Hubby to the airport for work, and when I got home later that afternoon, it wouldn't load properly and I haven't been able to get it to behave itself all weekend. It is hitting me pretty hard.. all my long distance friends are there, some I don't even have proper email or regular mail addresses for. It's the week before Christmas and so much is going on that I want to read about or share with friends and family (not to mention it's about my only means of contact at present with my 2 youngest step daughters..) and it's driving me crazy. I've been trying to get the spare laptop to let me on, but so far, no luck there. I'm about to go drag out the kids' computers (They usually get shuttered when they aren't here) and try them.
Meanwhile, if any of my friends from there are checking in.. I'm not ignoring everyone, I'm just locked out :( hoping I can find my "keys" soon. I know they were doing updates again recently and suspect I might be a "randomly effected account" in some mess up from that.. problem is, I can't even get to the part of their pages to complain about it... sheesh..

otherwise.. Merry Christmas!! Happy New Year!! Happy Holidays in general!

Thanksgiving and etc...

I have been meaning to post about Thanksgiving, but other things keep happening and I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
Our clever original plan was for Bailey to host the festivities on Saturday. She and her sisters would be going to their grandparent's for Thursday. The younger girls got in Wednesday evening and their father wasn't going to be home until Friday afternoon, so we were going to have our stuff on Saturday. This also worked well because Saturday was the grand baby's 3rd birthday. Then, of course, things happened and with about a week's notice, we had to move things back to our house and for later in the day. (The father of one of Bailey's friends had passed away and the funeral service was set for the same time Saturday.) So lots of hectic cleaning and moving of stuff occurred here to make enough room for the big group we were expecting to have. We had moved out of our master bedroom the month before so we could get ready for some remodeling, so it was hastily turned into a dining room.
Things eventually turned out quite well. Bailey and I split up the cooking duties, though, with her being at the funeral, I wound up with most of it, which is fine, since usually I do it all. (This is the first year she's been up here.) We had more then enough food and no one went away hungry. Not everyone was able to make it, their grandparents and aunt/uncle and cousins were all out sick, so we only had 8 instead of 14 people there, but it was a fun time. After dinner we had presents for the birthday girl, as well as Christmas presents for the younger step daughters since they won't be here for that. Then everyone went into the living room and played games.
Next year, who know what we will be doing. The younger girls won't be here, but hopefully Bailey will have her own house by then and maybe she'll get to host the day.

Holiday Prep: Jams

So, as part of my preparation for the holidays this year, this week I am making jam. Had intended to start earlier in the week, but, well, life happened, so I'm really just getting started today. Earlier in the year, I mentioned making Watermelon Jelly/jam. Today, thanks to the miracle of the freezer, I am doing so again. Last August we bought 2 watermelons, intending to eat one and turn the other into jam, well, we wound up eating only about half of one and the rest of it all got pureed and tossed in the freezer. (I did pre-measure it all so I know each bag will do a double batch.)
Today I pulled it all out and am making the jam. Some of it will be distributed in our yearly Christmas Gift baskets, cuz it's just cool enough and different enough to make a great addition, plus it's nice to have that little flavor of summer while buried under the cold and snow here in Alaska.
Tomorrow will likely see the strawberry and mixed fruit batches, but today I wanted to share the Watermelon Recipe I found and liked so much.

First, you will need watermelon puree. Just cube and seed a watermelon, run it thru the blender a bit til it's a nice smooth puree.
For 1 batch:
2 cups watermelon puree
3 tbsp lemon juice
3 1/2 c sugar
1 pkg pectin, dry

Mix the watermelon and the lemon juice. Add pectin + 1/4 c sugar. bring to boil, add remaining sugar and return to boil. boil for about 1 minute then bottle and process as you would any other jam.
I have also seen an almost identical recipe that said to add all the sugar first, bring to boil and then add the pectin. I haven't tried that version, so not sure what difference that might make.

I've gotten the first double batch done. Have to say, it's not quite as good as the batch I made this summer, when the watermelon was fresh. It's been in my freezer since August, though it could have also just been a less flavorful watermelon then the one we used for the first trial batch back in July. Though I have to admit, I didn't really let it cool before trying. 4 more double batches to go.. a batch only makes about 4 half pints though.

Recipe Time: Tomato Bacon Soup

Ok, so Tom came home this hitch and wanted me to try making Tomato Bacon Soup. He'd had something similar up at work and thought it was good and something I should add to the menu rotation if we could figure it out. And with snow now, finally, falling, a nice warming soup is good and would make a change to the usual stews and chilis.
Well, we succeeded and he loves it, so figured I'd better a) get the recipe down while I could remember it and b) share it with the world.

So, here's what went in to it (though I can't be 100% on amounts as I really didn't measure it..)

1 can (large, but not huge family size type) Crushed Tomatoes in juice
1 can (regular) Italian style diced tomatoes (the kind with basil, garlic and oregano)
4 fresh tomatoes chopped, seeds, juice and all
6 green onions
a bit of green bell pepper
a couple sprigs of fresh thyme (cuz I had it, if you don't have it you can use dried)

6 strips of thick cut pork bacon
6 strips turkey bacon

So, put everything except the bacon in a pot and let bubble and boil til it all cooks down nicely. Run that all through the blender to puree it good and smooth.

I then split it into 2 batches (I am on a low salt diet and don't really like pork much, so I did the turkey version for me and pork for him. You are free to do as you want.) and then started frying up the bacon. I chopped it all up into small pieces and fried it til just crisp then added it and the fats to the soup. Stir well. I then let it sit until dinner time (about an hour and a half or so) then reheated to eating temperatures and served with garlic bread. It is good. I would probably add a bit more onion and bell pepper and maybe some mushrooms to it next time, but hubby thinks it's perfect the way it is. This is definitely going to be something we add to the regular monthly menu.

food storage!

Ok, so, I can't remember if I've mentioned this here or not, but, our oven doesn't work. It stopped working properly this past spring. We will eventually get a new one, but, there always seems to be more important things to spend the money on. The stop top works just fine, and I bought a huge toaster oven to tide us over and between that, the electric roaster pan and the crock pots, I've found that, for most things, I don't really need the oven. (Though it's certainly easier to have one, and we will still be getting a new one, eventually, but we're waiting until after the big contract switch with hubby's employment..)
Anyway, so I've been wanting and needing to play around more with the crock pot and also working more on usable food storage recipes. Especially now that it's getting colder, nice hot meals are going to be welcome, and while we're trying to hoard money for various things (riding out any employment pauses between contracts, that new stove, home repairs we've still got to do, and all those adoption costs we've still got to deal with...)I figure now is a good time to use up some of the many food storage items we have in the basement. Always need to rotate that stuff anyway, and even better if you know how to use it. The wheat might be difficult since we still don't have a mill (another thing we're saving for..) but I might be able to come up with something there with enough poking around.. :)

Anyway, my first attempt was making beef stroganoff. The hamburger helper variety is a family favorite, but I wanted to try making my own. I think it could still use a little tweaking, but I've gotten a good starting point worked out. I've tried this with both noodles and rice and it was good with either.
1 can cream of mushroom soup mix it with only half a can of liquid if you want the sauce thicker.
1/2 lb ground beef, ground soy, or tvp. I used ground beef since I had it available, but this would work with any other ground meat or meat substitute. I need to dehydrate some meat one of these days and try it with that. It should work just fine. Use what ever you have and like.
big dollop of sour cream
mix them all together, heat, serve over the noodle or rice. Personally, I think it could use a little more seasoning, but I've always been one who likes lots of herbs, spices, etc.. so I will have to wait and make it when someone else is home for a better take on that.

Today I am making slow cooker stew. I forgot to take the stew meat out of the freezer yesterday, so made a last minute decision to make it a meatless stew and threw in assorted soup beans instead. Really basic stew. Onions, tomatoes, celery, carrots, green beans, the assorted soup beans and lentils, beef broth and a little pepper and Mrs Dash seasoning. I don't use salt if I can avoid it due to issues with my blood pressure so I try to keep as low sodium as I can.. Since this batch is for this week, I also added 2 small bay leaves and a few sprigs of thyme. No one will be here except me this week, so I can get away with it. (Hubby hates thyme...) Might add a few other herbs as it develops through out the day.

Hubby has mentioned that apples are on sale at a good price at one of the local stores, so I might be going out to pick some of those up later today. If this is true, I will likely be making apple sauce later this week, perhaps even making some apple pie filling and doing some more bottling. I've not bottled apple sauce or pie filling before, so that will be a fun new challenge. I've still got to do jams here sometime soon as well. Can't wait to do more watermelon jam and I'll also be doing some mixed fruits, maybe some strawberry and peach as well.. (I can't quite remember what all is down in the freezer waiting at the moment..) I've been waiting for it to get colder before doing the jams, since it's a nice way to heat the house as well. :) But the weather keeps not cooperating and we still haven't had any snow yet. Very disappointing that is.. it will be here soon though.

I did get over 4 dozen pints of pickles done though. (A dozen of those have already been claimed and left the house... the perils of adult children living nearby.. and their friends.. heh..) and did a few small bottles of jalapenos as well. So we should be well and truly pickled for the coming year.

pre-winter storms...

Well, winter will soon be arriving here in Alaska. How do I know this? The pre-winter storms have started. Thursday night the wind started. Friday we woke up to continued wind (according to reports, 50 mph with gusts of up to 100) and to find that half of one of the trees in the back yard had broken and fallen over. Not much of a surprise for this poor tree. We had tried to support it, but, years before we bought the place, someone had tied it and forgotten. Over the years the wire had cut in as the tree tried to grow around it. It has lost bits in the past, either through winds or though pruning we've done to try to save the tree. We don't know if it will survive the most recent damage. We will try to repair it for the winter and see how it does next year, but this might have been the last straw for it and we might have to cut it down.
As if the winds weren't enough fun, Friday also saw Tom heading back up to work, so no, he didn't have time to deal with the tree, so I will get to do that later this week. (hoping to get the son in law to do most of it, actually...) Then Saturday morning, at 4 AM, I got woken up by an earthquake. Felt pretty big, but, after listening to make sure it didn't wake up the grandbaby who was staying over, I, and everyone else in the state, rolled over and went back to sleep. Turns out it was a 5.4 centered about 89 miles north of here. I know, to those of you use to California quakes, that sounds huge. Up here, they are generally so deep that, while things get shaken up a bit, there's rarely much, if any damage, cept maybe to knickknacks.. I spent most of Saturday cleaning the last of the garden stuff off the back porch. One or two things still to take care of in the yard and things should be ready to go for the winter.
And today I discovered that my bell pepper plant that has been kept in the house with the tomatoes, is infested with spider mites... *sigh* So far it doesn't look like they've spread to any of the other plants and it is now in isolation in an attempt to save it. I've gotten 2 peppers off of it so far this year, and it has several more in development, and, darn it, I want those peppers! This is the first year I've gotten one to actually produce viable fruit and I want em!
Probably the hardest storm was today at Church though. I was running late and arrived just in time to hear someone talking about how important it is to have kids while you're young enough to keep up with them, not when you're older and tired. That kinda stung, but I could deal with it. I know that these people have no clue of the heartache I deal with because of infertility and I know I wasn't their intended audience even if I was in the audience. But then, class was all about the importance of teaching in the home and our roles as mothers. Ok, twist that knife a little more.. I was able to participate without too much problem, but by the end, I was really feeling that, although I know the role and have been granted a small, part time part, I still feel as if someone out there is saying that I'm not worthy enough for a full time gig. And it hurts, it hurts so badly. Tom always jokes and tells me that I didn't need the practice and that I'm one of nature's grandmothers, and I adore the grand daughter, but, darn it, I want to be Mommy! I'm tired of waiting, of finally getting started on adoption paperwork only to have something new pop up to put things on hold again. Why can't my body just work for once!?!
On the way home from Church today, there were tiny little snow flurries. They left no trace and were soon gone.
Yup, winter will be here soon.

nearly a month...

oops.. has been a busy month and I just never got around to posting much..
The girls have both gone back down to their mom's for the school year. I had a bit of a nasty cold/allergies. Bailey and Caleb went back to Washington for a week for his brother's wedding, so I've got the grand baby for the week again. We've been having fun, watching movies, coloring, play-doh, chasing the dogs, and working on potty training. She's actually doing pretty well with that, though still hasn't managed to poop in the potty yet while she's been here. She has done very well with peeing in the potty (except when she's asleep, of course)
In other news, I'm also working on re arranging the house so we can try to do some minor remodeling over the winter, which involves moving the girls downstairs and moving us into their room so we can tear our bathroom and bedroom apart and get them all fixed up, updated and get proper water rated dry wall up.. (If you remember the mess last February, we're pretty sure the other bathrooms need to be taken care of before they get bad, too..)
Should be an interesting winter.

Crazy week

Well this last week has been a crazy one. Fun, but crazy...
My in-laws were up for the week, both sister-in-laws, a niece and grand nephew. They rented a house for a week, so we didn't have to cram everyone in here, but it was still a very crazy time. We had a lot of fun though, and so did they. They went on a glacier cruise and drove up to Denali National Park, though they didn't see any wild moose or bears, which they were disappointed by. Not sure where all the wildlife was, but they didn't get to see much of it, just some smaller animals or those at the reindeer farm.
I didn't get to go up to Denali with everyone (Well, hubby didn't get to do either, he was at Drill..) because after a little over a year of super high doses of Iron, I started showing signs of iron toxicity. Was not a fun weekend for me, and things cleared up as soon as I stopped taking the iron. I will need to go see my doctor here soon and get everything evaluated to make sure nothing has gone screwy with my liver function now (I asked them about the high dosage several times and they kept telling me not to worry... ) but first I need to get everything settled back down here at home :) and I still have a ton of blueberries and watermelon that I need to make jam and syrup with...

Grandbaby gone...

Well, they got back from their road trip to retrieve car and belongings on Saturday afternoon. So grand baby is back in the care of mommy and I am left without a little one to take care of.. It was only a week, but, darn it, I miss having her around. We just got her on a great schedule (her mom hadn't been able to manage that yet, but then, things have been hectic and crazy...) so mom is going to try to keep her on it, she was surprised I managed it so quickly and with so little fussing..
We seriously need a little one around here on a permanent basis. The tax information I had sent off for 3 weeks ago finally showed up, so we should be able to finish up the paperwork for the adoption here soon, though not sure how much time I will have for that this week. Hubby's sisters and niece and nephew will be arriving Tuesday night and be here for a week, so we might be busy, but I'm going to do my best.
I've already been busy this weekend. Made cheese Thursday, blueberry jam yesterday, blueberry syrup today. Thinking of doing another batch of jam tomorrow (have more then enough berries..) and also thinking of doing a batch of watermelon jelly. Plus I need to make more butter, and probably another batch or two of cheese for everyone while they're here. Oh yeah, and it would be nice if I could get the house cleaned up a bit, do some laundry, etc...
busy, busy, busy...

Toddler invasion week!

This week we have the grand daughter here all week. Her dad is up at work on the slope (so is my hubby...) and her mom has gone back down to Washington to get some more of their stuff and their car. So G has been left with us for about a week. Mommy left yesterday, but so far, things are going pretty well. This is the longest she's been away from mommy ever so far, and we're only just past 24 hours.
She went to Church with us this morning and surprised us all by behaving even better then her older aunts did. :) She had lots of fun in Nursery Class, singing songs and playing with other kids her age. She really liked the sit and spin, too, so we might have to see about getting her one :)
We are looking forward to this, though a bit anxious as well. We're hoping there won't be too many melt downs this week, but so far things seem to be going well. We should have lots of fun and I see it as practice. With any luck we will have a little one in the next year or two and will get to go through all of this with him or her, so this is good practice for me as the steps were all older when I came into the picture, and lived too far away to be involved with my nieces at this stage.
Shall see how well we all survive the week! :)
(Just have to keep the "aunties" from cross parenting... heh... they kept trying to get her riled up at Church, the stinkers...)

More crazy kitchen fun...

Thursday afternoon my step daughters all went out and picked some early fireweed blossoms and brought them home. We rinsed them off really well and got all the buggies out then put them in a pot with some water boiled and strained them then my oldest step daughter (she's 23..) made Fireweed Jelly! It was the first time she'd ever made jelly. She watched and helped me make jams a year or two ago while visiting, so this time it was her turn to make (I just hung around and supervised if there were any questions or an extra set of hands were needed...)
It turned out really well. She got 8 tiny little jars to give away and one larger jar and a bit extra for us. We will most assuredly be making more once the flowers have a chance to bloom more. I'd not tried it before, though it's one of those little "Alaskan" treats that all the tourists seek out.. so it's past time for me to have given a try. Quite liked it though will have to get the kids to do all the flower picking as my allergies would make that a very non-fun experience.
So now that we've made butter this week (poured cream into my Bosch mixer and let it go til we had butter...) and jam, I suppose it's time I made bread this weekend to go with it all! lol
I also managed to do the big freezer inventory, which was long overdue. Got that cleaned out, sorted and found some things I'd long since forgotten about. Also found some fruit in there so I'll be making more jams later this summer as well, though that might wait til September when it cools down and I have more time and fewer distractions.

Japanese cooking..

So this past weekend we decided to try some Japanese cooking. Have done a bit of Chinese - stir fry and eggrolls/wontons mostly, but wanted to try something a bit different. So, we got some cookbooks from the library and found a recipe we thought we could try. Sunday night we make Sukiyaki.. and it was soo good. We are totally going to have to make it again. It was pretty easy too. We are definately going to be doing more experimental Japanese cooking.
meanwhile, here's the recipe we used with a few comments.

Sukiyaki

1-1.5 lb beef, thinly sliced
1 lb mushrooms, button and enokitake
10 oz firm or extra firm tofu, cubed (@ 1 inch size)
1 bunch scallions cut into 2 inch sections, quartered if large
1 can oz shirataki noodles (I couldn't find any so we used mung bean noodles instead)
a bit of oil for cooking.

Other things you can use : pea pods, regular onion, baby bok choy-chopped

For the sauce: You can buy Sukiyake sauce (should be near the soy sauce and such..) or you can make some by combining 1 cup of Soy Sauce with 1.5 cups of water and 3 tbsp of sugar.
If you are making the sauce, combine the ingredients in a saucepan and heat to dissolve the sugar.


A cast iron pan would work best if you have one, if not, it's not the end of the world :)

Put a little oil in the bottom of the pan and saute the beef. (I added a little sauce as well to season the beef more...) Once you're done with the beef, remove it and set aside while you saute the veggies. I did each ingredient separately and set all aside til they were all done. For the noodles, prepare as per the package directions to precook them.
Once everything is done, return it all to the pan and pour sauce over all, let simmer for about 10 minutes to heat all through and get the flavor combined.

Serve with warm rice. :)

Life.. most exciting when least wanted..

well, life around here just keeps trying to be exciting... not sure I like that.

Back on the 13th, Tom decided to take advantage of a small break in the cold rainy weather and go out for a short, relaxing spin on his motorcycle. about 20 minutes or so later, he called, needing me to hitch up the trailer and come get him. He'd gone off the road, into a ditch, the bike flipped and sent him flying. Luckily he wasn't hurt because he was wearing all his gear. This is especially important because he landed on his head before rolling and bouncing around. How he managed not to break anything we don't know. we're just grateful for it. Bike took most of the hit and even that's not too bad according to the shop guys. Just enough to use up the deductible but not enough to be worth talking to the insurance company. So he will be slowly putting that back together piece by piece.

The girls got here Friday, so house is full again. The 16 yr old is at girls camp all this week though, and her Tom went up last night and all of today to be the "token" priesthood holder for the day. He should be back home in a few hours though.

Sunday morning we woke up to find the basement had flooded again.. no apparent reason this time. We have no idea what is going on. Starting to think the little old man who built the place had some sort of contract where it has to flood at least once a year or something.. But we got it all mopped up fairly quickly, and the girls made muffins for Father's day breakfast, then made dinner that evening.

A week ago my brother announced that they were expecting their 4th child, and about 3 months along, but Sunday they found out that she'd miscarried, so we're all trying to help them deal with that. It's hard. I know enough from my battles with infertility how easy it is for well meaning people to say something that is completely the wrong thing to say because while it may seem "helpful," to the person hearing it it's like twisting the dagger. I've been sending them some links to some miscarriage support pages and articles about how it's ok for them to have all the emotions and pain they are going to have. While most of us in the family have only known about this baby for a week, for them it was years of waiting and hoping and expectation and 3 months of "hey, we're having a baby.." There has been a death in the family even if most of the family doesn't realize it.

Personally, I'm trying to avoid cottonwood fluff.. it's out in full force right now and I hate it.. it is pretty and looks like big fluffy snow.. but it is terrible stuff for allergies.. and I want to be out pottering around in my garden bed, which is doing really well this year, so it's hard. Today I decided to stay indoors and finally go through my pots and pans. I got a new set about a month or two ago but have never had the time to sit and weed out the ones that need to go. Finally got that done today and now there is room, the door actually closes all the way and everything... Even got one of the other cupboards sorted a little and made room on one of the book cases in the living room for a bunch of parenting books I had ordered that came in the mail today. (And I got them for FREE!! Being in the military does have some benefits!)

Speaking of parenting, today, in the mail, we got the paperwork from the agency we're going to try adopting through, so now we've got to sit and go though all of that, dig out all the info they want, do the background checks, etc... and figure out where we'll come up with all the money :) I was starting to print out the requests for copies of our tax records from the IRS, but my printer is out of ink, so will have to wait and do that later. I was just so anxious to get started!

Opps....

"Hi, uhm, I need you to come pick me up. Bring the trailer,"
Those were words I heard last night. Words I'd hoped to never hear. Hubby went out for a "relaxing ride" last night on his motorcycle. It was a route he's taken many many times. But last night, something different happened. He somehow found himself going off the side of the road and onto a soft shoulder which then dumped him in the ditch. He went flying one direction and his bike went another. Thankfully he was wearing all his gear and he was not seriously injured. He has scraped and bruised, is stiff and sore, but he will be fine.
His bike, however, took a lot of damage. We're going to have it looked at in a few days and find out just how bad. The front end took most of the damage, all the plastic/fiberglass bits are busted up front and the handlebars are mangled a bit. It still moves well, so there's hope :) But the handlebars were pushed back so we couldn't get the keys out, so we disconnected the battery and got it all covered over with a tarp for now. We'll wait and see how bad things are. Hopefully it won't be too bad. We haven't paid this one off yet :) (We had an agreement, he's not allowed to bust em til they're paid for... heh..)
But as much as I'm going to have to tease him about this for a while, I am very grateful that he wasn't injured. He was in a wooded area and could easily have been badly hurt. He wasn't, and that makes the rest of it OK to deal with.

Update on depression

*hugs* and thanks to all my friends who have talked to me about this. Figured I'd go ahead and update how things are going for me.
Most days I'm perfectly fine. I'm pretty much just getting physical symptoms and not too many of the emotional ones. Most days I don't even have too many of those, at least not at any level that interferes with daily life. I know how lucky I am in this. I know that depression can be really rotten and part of me feels I shouldn't even be using the word to describe what I'm dealing with because I'm not really that bad off, and I don't want people to think that depression is a "light" thing.
But until a better term is created, I have to use it. Anyway, as said, most days I'm fine. If I have any "emotional" problems, it's really more along the lines of being overly tired and emotionally "blah," disconnected a little and unmotivated. Mostly though it's physical. I ache, I get tired. I've gotten somewhat use to some pains, since my car accident I usually have pain in my lower back and hips, I've gotten use to that, but on my "bad" days that pain, even at it's worse, isn't much of anything compared to the pain I get in the rest of my body. And the headaches aren't much fun either.
Today started as a good day, but has slowly devolved into a not so good day.. still not bad enough to be a "bad" day, but it really could be better. But, I have many more good days then I have bad days. And, like I said, this is pretty much situational, part of the coping process of dealing with everything that went down last year. It's never easy to come to terms with that fact that you could have died, but I'm getting there, and I am getting better.
But thanks all. It's very nice to know I've got support out there.

Recipe time..

Ok. so some friends are trying to convince one of our other friends to start a recipe blog. This got me thinking that maybe I should post more recipes once in a while. I know I posted some for St Patrick's day but haven't really posted any others. I don't have many fancy summer recipes, but I know that many of us are on tight budgets, and that, often, we are also called upon to provide some sort of meal (usually winds up a casserole) for others once in a while..
So, I figured I'd present one of my casserole recipes. This is one that really, I came up with when faced with a bunch of left over vegetables and pasta in the fridge and no ideas for what to do with them. It's pretty simple and can be adapted to things you have on hand, things your family likes, and the number of people you need to be able to feed.
I started with a large bowl of pre-made macaroni, but you can use pretty much any noodle shape. (We have done this since with spaghetti.)
To this I added a bunch of left over veggies. At that time I believe I had some grilled asparagus, bell peppers, peas, carrots, mushroom, onions. You can use whatever you have, fresh or frozen, this recipe doesn't mind. Use whatever your kids (or husband) will eat :) I also usually add some ground beef or ground turkey, browned and drained if I have it on hand. You can also use the fake-beef soy crumbles. We use those in a lot of things and none of the kids, or hubby notices.
Then comes the can (or two depending on how much you are making) of the cream of whatever soup... You can use mushroom, celery or chicken, doesn't matter, again, it's a matter of personal preference. Mix that up with as much liquid as needed to get to a nice thick consistency, but thin enough to work everything into. Mixes those together, working in a hand full or two of shredded cheese. I use mostly mozzerella, but you can use what you like or have on hand.
Dump this all into a baking dish, spread more cheese on top, add a little pepper or other seasonings to preference, and bake at 350 until everything is warm, the cheese is melted and brown and the whole thing is yummy. Usually only takes about 20 minutes but your oven may vary.
Serve with a salad and maybe some garlic bread and enjoy. It's a great way to use up all the odd and end left over veggies piled up in the back of the fridge at the end of the week.

I am flabbergasted,....

Truly I am..
We needed to email one of my step-daughter's teachers. She lives with her mom and goes to school in a different state, but she had something come up with the school that would interfere with her summer visit with us, so we wanted some clarification and just needed to send off a quick email for details.
I asked her (16 years old now mind you..) for the address. She texted me back that the address (changed to protect the innocent) was smith.suzzie. That was it, nothing more. I wrote back asking for the rest of the address and she told me there was no more. If I simply put that in, it would get to her.
I have no idea where we went wrong. Do kids these days really not understand how email works?? They use it every day of their lives and don't really have a clue about it???
I have tried to explain to her via text this morning that, yes, that will work for her from within the school's server system, but that for me, from way outside their closed system, that won't work. She isn't getting it. She keeps telling me that it will work. Luckily, I'm smart enough that, now that I have the teacher's name, I can go to her school's website and get the rest of the information, but I foresee a nice long conversation this summer about how email and the internet in general really actually work...

depression...

I've been having a few problems lately so popped over to webMD.. I can cause myself so very much trouble over there.. but, at the same time, it has helped me in the past, so I went again. I've been having minor memory lapses and trouble sleeping and been a bit more clumsy then usual and all and, due to some things I'd been reading and seeing on TV, I was starting to worry I might have some sort of neurological problem..
Scary thought, but, given my family history, not entirely out of the question.. So I wanted to see what they might have to say before I started calling doctors in a panic :)
Based on what I plinked out in the symptom checker, and eliminating the obviously non applicable.. the 2 that stood out as likely candidates were MS (also a real concern, my mom has it, so that could raise my odds..) or Depression.....
Depression is such a big scary word anymore, but one I'd been down before a time or two so I was happy to see it there, and, really, it makes sense. I'm finally getting the chance right now to process all of everything that went on last year. All that stress and fear has finally been released and is screwing with me now. All the fears and stress of Tom's separation during his deployment, even though it was to a "safe" zone. All the stress of having to deal with the reoccurring basement floods, the busted water heater, the broken septic line. The worry over how to pay for everything that kept going wrong. All the stress and fear over all my own health problems last year. The realization that I kept putting off and blocking out, that yes, I really could have died last year if we hadn't caught everything when we did, and even then, it was a close call. Even the happy stress of his homecoming, and the kids coming for Christmas, and the older kids moving home and bringing the grand baby.. All of it has taken a toll and it got put on lay a way.. but now it has all come due and is hitting me like a ton of bricks.
It will pass. Now that I am once again reassured by WebMD that it is most likely just depression and not the end of the world (though if things don't improve in the next month, there may still be panicked calls to doctors..). As mentioned, I've been through this before.. Way back when in college, I had a really bad year. I'd been under a good deal of stress anyway, and then people started dying. A cousin was killed in a car accident, 2 friends each lost their mothers, several other more distant relatives passed away, and one of our dogs died. At some point I just got to where I couldn't deal with it anymore and had to take some time off from school. I tried antidepressants at that time, and really decided that they didn't work for me. I didn't feel any better, I just felt numb. So I didn't take them. I just went on. I worked through the grief, through the pain, and learned how to move on.
I'm better at that now. It may be hard at times, but I will manage, always do :) The fact that my mind has decided that now is the time I can handle this process means that life is pretty much back to what passes for normal around here.