Until next time.
Monday, December 31, 2007
500th Post - 100 Random Things About Me
Labels: Just Stuff
I made it to my goal of 500 posts by the last day of the year. This post was started on May 27th, 2007.
100 Random Things About Me
- I believe Jesus died for my sins, he was buried and rose from the dead.
- I'm a "Grace Believer".
- I've been married twice - to the same man.
- We have two sons together.
- My oldest son has Down Syndrome and was born in 1987.
- My youngest son was born in 1989.
- I tandem nursed my children.
- We have homeschooled since 1992.
- We don't believe in vaccinating, although our oldest got a few vaccines until he was 18 months old.
- I look younger than my true age.
- I swore all my life I'd NEVER own a "pitbull" but that all changed once LJ came into my life.
- I've been trying to get organized since 1990. Mostly using The Sidetracked Home Executives file card system.
- I've tried FlyLady a few times, and it finally seems to be having some effect in 2007.
- I have finally learned that I love having my clothes folded and put away, instead of digging through piles that the cats have been laying on for days.
- I love having enough undergarments to wash them once a week, yet still have enough for daily or multiple daily changes.
- I love the color pink.
- I also love purple. I go back and forth between having the two for my favorite color.
- I am quite good at home repair and remodeling type work. I was the handyman of our household when I was a young girl.
- I had an evil stepfather.
- My mother married him when I was nine.
- I am the oldest of 6. Actually 7, but my sisters fuss at me when I count our stepbrother.
- My father abandoned us when I was five, leaving my pregnant mother with 4 year old me and my 2yo sister.
- I was naturally slender, weighing between 120-125 until I was 23 when I became pregnant with my first child.
- I dieted for the first time in my life when I was 29. I lost 20 pounds.
- I was on the Montel Williams show with Joyce Vedral in 1993. I contacted her near the beginning of starting my diet using her books and she eventually asked me to be on the television show with her. She would be appalled with me now.
- I started not dieting in 1997.
- I've gained 10-12 pounds almost every year since then. I don't actually know what I weigh now.
- I was a stay at home mom for twelve years.
- They were the poorest, but best years of my adult life.
- I have managed to keep a high credit rating my entire adult life.
- I wracked up $6000 in credit card debt by 1996, joined a consumer credit counseling group and paid off that debt within 52 months.
- We didn't have a car for three years since there wasn't enough money to maintain a vehicle (most of the credit card debt was accrued keeping the last car running).
- We're in debt again, but paying it down as quickly as we can.
- I volunteered for one year at my job before I was hired.
- I'm currently working four days a week on a special project; I hope we can afford for me to go back to three days eventually.
- My mother taught me to crochet when I was five years old.
- I taught myself to knit in winter of 2004.
- I wish I had more time to knit.
- I want to knit myself a pair of socks.
- Before moving to the country, I used to watch 13 hours of television every week. Now I watch only bits and pieces here and there.
- I'm reading the Bible and actually retaining what I'm reading for the first time in my life.
- We found a church to attend for the first time in twenty years.
- I own a t-shirt design business at Cafe Press, but I don't have enough time to advertise it.
- I have lots of "side jobs". Probably too many.
- I love my mother with all my heart.
- I love my mother-in-law as much as if she were my own mother.
- I don't talk to my father anymore. He's messed up in the head. He couldn't stop harrassing me about my weight, so I cut him off. It's been over a year since I've had any contact from him. I put his email address into my kill file.
- My evil stepfather died in 2006. I was glad. Especially for my mom, who gets survivor's benefits. My mother had mixed feelings, since her three oldest children were glad, but her three youngest children (his offspring) were sad.
- I was glad when my sister's evil husband died, too.
- I wish I had more time to spend with my sisters and nieces and nephews.
- I love my LJ like those goofy people I said I'd never be one of.
- My cell phone is a Nokia. I've always had Samsungs before.
- My hair is dark brown and I keep it long. I usually wear it in a bun, like my mother has always done.
- I finally mastered the art of putting my hair into a French twist.
- I needed glasses from the time I was 9 years old, but didn't get glasses until I was 14 years old. I was in a church that prayed for me and said I wouldn't accept my healing. Finally my mom got glasses for me, through the local Lions Club.
- I have only worn contacts once in my life, for about three months, then I became pregnant with my first son and my eyes couldn't take wearing contacts.
- I used to get perms to make my straight hair wavy or curly, until I became pregnant with my first son. Then I learned to embrace my long straight hair.
- I have always loved computers.
- I started working when I was 17 and lied about my age so I could be bonded. I even took a lie detector test and passed.
- My first full time job was as a mall maid.
- I was a hotel maid for a short time and hated it.
- I have worked as an accounts receivables bookkeeper in an office supply store.
- I drove a forklift and worked in a warehouse in my twenties
- At my current job, I mostly work with my computer. I love my computer.
- It's an hour drive to my job.
- My least favorite jobs in no specific order: fast food clerk, teacher, or school bus driver (to quantify - when I was growing up, I felt sorry for teachers and school bus drivers, because the children were always so disruptive and hard to control).
- I have always wanted to keep a diary, but have failed miserably, until blogging came along.
- We own dairy goats.
- I know how to milk them.
- I drink the milk raw.
- I know how to make cheese from their milk.
- I make my own kefir.
- We own five cats.
- We own four dogs, we had five; our alpha passed away in November.
- I prefer vanilla over chocolate.
- My favorite holidays are New Year's and Fourth of July.
- I love to read.
- I love to play with Photoshop.
- I'm a recovering packrat.
- I keep my nails cut short.
- I can't play video games which is a recurring source of frustration between my youngest son and I. Even ds1 who has Down Syndrome can play better than me.
- I somehow possess the ability to make food taste better, even when following the same recipe as any other person in my household (or are they just saying that because they don't want to cook? Hmmmm...)
- I love our well water, I avoid city water as much as possible.
- I love to garden, but haven't had a garden in more than a year now.
- I love crunching numbers.
- I can guess most movie plots and book plots not too far into the story, it's hard to totally surprise me.
- My favorite soda is Dr. Pepper, but I don't drink it very often.
- I love taking photos.
- I love eating from oval plates and bowls.
- I have a knack for picking out clothing that flatters my plus size body.
- I enjoy sewing. I wish I had more practice at it so it wasn't such a challenge.
- I wear size 8.5 shoes. My favorite brand are Aerosoles. I can actually wear heels when they are Aerosoles.
- I wore a white wedding gown at my second marriage; it cost $25 from Goodwill.
- I want to write books.
- I love pens and paper.
- I prefer the King James Version of the Holy Bible.
- I prefer typing on a standard keyboard as opposed to a laptop keyboard.
- I would rather be the passenger than the driver.
- I am such a homebody that I could stay home for months on end and never experience "cabin fever".
- I have no desire to travel to other countries, or states, for that matter.
Friday, December 28, 2007
Guest Post - Christmas Memories from Raye
Labels: guest blogger, Holiday Banter
Hi, I’m RawMilkStar’s little sis, Raye. Although I have few memories of Christmas over the years, here’s what I can recall. Sis, maybe you can fill in the blanks? Maybe you can let me know if these are real or just imagined.
One Christmas we all got sweaters. They were those long knitted ones with belts. I don’t think I really liked mine.
I have a vague memory of those sweaters. They were store bought... I do not remember at all who gave them to us though. I have a vague memory that they were all the rage at that time.
Every Christmas Dad sent a card with money—I think, which made me miss him. One year he left his driver’s license on our lawn to let our mother know he had dropped by to see us. Were we gone? Why didn’t he just knock on the door? Was that Christmas? I don’t know.
I don't think it was Christmas, but it could have been. We lived at the white house (at the YMCA), so I would say it was probably in 1973... do you remember how our stepbrother Sol used to get up really early in the morning on the weekends? He used to get in a lot of trouble for doing that. Anyway, he actually saw our father drop his driver's license. If I remember correctly, our mother found the driver's license, but Sol had been afraid to say anything because he knew he would get into trouble if anyone knew he was up early in the morning. Finally, I'm sure due to interrogation methods being employed, he admitted he had seen a man and woman on a motorcycle, which ended up being our father and his new wife. When I went up to Oregon to visit with our father in 1980, his wife told me that the cards had been her doing. If not for her, he would not have done it. That doesn't sound too far off base, knowing that most men aren't the ones to send cards, and buy gifts in a typical family.
Remember that Christmas Boogie got us the old fashion roller skates? You know the ones that strap on to your tennis shoes? It was so much fun to skate! Although I don’t remember learning how to skate, I do recall falling down a lot.
I have no idea what you mean by the Christmas Boogie. I remember the skates and I was horrible at skating. I think it was because I was older. I fell a lot, and never had any fun skating. I was envious of the rest of you, skating around the basketball court, around and around and around. I remember one of you would take a broom (while on skates) and sweep off all the little stones that would cause someone to fall. You guys would race really fast around that basketball court, zooming past me, and laughing at me, because I'd be barely creeping along slowly. I just could never get it.
It seems that almost every year we received handmade crocheted slippers from our Grandmother. They were mostly uncomfortable and hurt my feet, until she discovered linings for them.
I do recall that the yarn hurt our feet. They were neat slippers though, always very colorful and pretty. Very simple pattern. Just one large square long enough to fit the foot diagonally, then the corners were drawn up and tied together. Then a square for the toe, and a square for the heel. And a big, fluffy pom-pom on the toe square!
When the younger siblings still believed in Santa Claus, I remember drawing hoof prints along with sled tracks in the dirt to provide evidence Santa was real. That was fun!
Before Mom married The Evil Stepfather and it was just the four of us, Mom and I used to ring jingle bells and eat the cookies and drink the milk. I don't remember ever believing in Santa Claus.
Another year I remember getting a free tree on Christmas Eve. Were we really that socially economically disadvantaged? Did that really happen?
We were extremely poor. Mom was a stay at home mother and The Evil Stepfather worked three jobs just to support us and was fond of shrieking quite often "you STILL don't love me!" I actually don't remember getting a free Christmas tree, but I do remember being the "poor family" chosen by the church at least once, and almost certainly more than once, as our mother was aghast and embarrassed at being chosen "again" on the one occasion I do remember. I remember there were bags and bags of groceries and lots of wrapped presents. I don't recall the actual day, just the bags and boxes.
I think the best Christmas I ever had was the year we traveled to the San Joaquin Valley to see the step-grandparents? That year, I remember all of us (there were four of us at that time) getting the same shoes, and clothes. There were so many trees and leaves there. My favorite part was playing in the leaves. I still love those old trees today.
It is so interesting to see how we are affected by the circumstances of our lives. Personally, this one and only vacation that we took was one of the worst memories I have, and probably why I have no desire to travel or go on vacations. The only car we had at that time was a Chevy Vega. A tiny car to cram two adults and four children into. I remember meeting The Evil Stepfather's parents, and his sister who was mentally disabled. She frightened me. Aunt Nancy was her name, as I recall.
I think one year we all got Sesame Street hand puppets that year. Mine was Oscar the Grouch, my favorite puppet on the show.
Yes, I remember those. The hand puppets were given to us, IIRC by Dougi - Mrs. So and So's middle son. He picked each puppet out to reflect our personalities. You were often grumpy, and were often teased and called "Oscar the Grouch". Dee Elle, being slightly chubby was often accused of eating too much, and was given Cookie Monster. I don't recall the rationale for giving me Grover, and Sol was given Bert.
Another year we went to the snow. Did we? I don’t know. I remember Jon threw a snowball and hit me in the head. It felt like a rock was in it. I don’t think I’ve liked going to the snow since.
I am not sure if I can grab onto a memory of going to the snow.
Finally, I recall getting lotion, socks, and underwear pretty much every Christmas. One year Mom made us each a towel with our name embroidered on it.
I don't really remember the underwear and socks, but that makes sense. What a practical way to spend a limited amount of money on one's children. I do remember the towels.
We were all assigned colors early on... my color was red, Dee Elle's was yellow, Sol's was blue and yours was green. We had glasses that matched those colors - the only glasses we probably ever drank from, our towels matched that color scheme, IIRC, and our bedding.
Well, that is all for now. I’m sure there are many more Christmas memories in my mind that will remain locked and hidden there for some undetermined amount of time. Hopefully, when they do emerge, they are positive and happy, like I wish them to be.
Thank you, dear sister. I hope this helps clear up some things for you. The photos are from my childhood collection (not many). I am pretty sure the first picture was Christmas at the white house. There is a small Christmas tree on the bookshelf to the left and a Christmas decoration on the wall behind us, I think. It was probably 1973.
Until next time.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
The Skirting
Labels: work
We finished that skirting on Monday. It really makes the place look like it needs to be painted!
Until next time.
LJ Sits On The Stairs
Labels: LJ
He likes to sit on the stairs like this. He cracks me up.
Until next time.
A Kitty Post
Labels: cats
Tiger LOVES to have his underarms scratched. :-)
Three boys snuggled up on the couch.
Popoe got tossed onto Vicious... he knew he was in for it and laid down and played dead.
Vicious is not amused.
Tired Popoe...
Until next time.
Our Christmas Dinner
Labels: Holiday Banter
The grilled turkey, alas I overcooked it again. It's kind of easy to lose track of the time when the bird is outdoors around the side of the house. The wind was blowing very hard today, with gusts up to 20 miles per hour. My flame went out once and I couldn't get the temperature to regulate. Finally I dragged the grill over to the east side of our home which created a wind block.
Yes, that's green gravy. Ahem. Interesting what you can eat when you put your mind to it. Ds2 made the gravy and was hoping to darken it with black food coloring... it turned greenish-gray instead. I cooked four yams and turned them into the yam and marshmallow dish I remembered from Mrs. So and So's. I don't think I'll try it again. I really prefer my yams baked with butter and a sprinkle of salt.
And last but not least, Pioneer Woman's Scrumptious Apple Pie. I didn't use her pie crust recipe, as it called for freezing it overnight. It was a delicious pie, although I'm not sure whether it was worth the extra calories. Seriously, I do feel that way about some foods, sometimes.
Until next time.
Grilling A Turkey
Labels: recipes
For Thanksgiving we grilled our turkey and it turned out great. We're doing it again for Christmas.
I linked to several sites that give you information on how to grill your turkey, but I'm going to tell you what we did, partly for my own information next time.
The grill should be preheated to 350°F, but first place your shelves in the proper position. You will be using indirect heat. We have three burners, so we place all the shelves to the right side of the grill, and turn on the left burner. You will need something to catch the drips - we use a 9" x 13" glass casserole dish. That goes on a shelf directly where the bird will be grilled.
Both times I've used hickory smoked chips. Some people will tell you to soak them in water, beer, wine, juice or some other liquid, but the back of my bag tells me to place 2 handfuls of dry chips onto some heavy duty aluminum foil and make a pouch. Poke a few holes and place the pouch on a shelf just above the flame. We don't have a shelf right above the flame so we just sit the pouch to the side of the flame so the wood chips have a chance to catch on fire.
After the pouch begins smoking, move the pouch to the side, away from direct flame. Place the bird on its back with the neck closest to your flame. You will need to rotate the bird several times, I like to start back down, neck to the flame.
And now, I'm off to see about making a pie crust. Pioneer Woman ordered me to make her Scrumptious Apple Pie and so I must.
Until next time.
The Bread I Made This Morning
Labels: recipes
The Easy French Bread came out pretty good... I had to use plain white unbleached flour though. The crust is crispy as promised, but I like my French bread to have bigger holes (coarser crumb?) and to have a chewier texture. I think it would have helped a great deal to have been able to use bread flour, which we are out of at the moment.
Until next time.
When Your Son Is A Cook
Labels: recipes
I wonder how Alton Brown's mom feels about him being a cook. I wonder if she calls him on the phone and asks him questions that she knows he has buried in the deep recesses of his brain.
I know what it feels like to have a son that cooks. You know how it is when you love something so much that anything you learn about it just sucks into your memory banks without any effort whatsoever? You read about it and remember it?
That seems to be how it is for my ds2. He's a cooking trivia master. I find myself asking him questions like this:
"Kev, what is the internal temperature of chicken when it's done?"
"Kev, why does this recipe say to heat the water up to 120°F when using instant yeast?"
Oh wait, I didn't ask him that question this morning, although I would have, if he were awake to answer it. I'm sure he would have had the answer.
The answer is, I discovered, that instant yeast has to be "activated" so you have to use HOT water to get it started.
I'm making a loaf of bread this morning. I'm hungry. I'll let you know what I made and how it turned out, later.
Merry Christmas.
Until next time.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
This Just Made My Day
Labels: Just Stuff
I just found two websites that I am Bloglining to read on a regular basis. I found the first one yesterday and the second one was linked from the first one.
#1
The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks
#2
Apostrophe Abuse
The really fun thing about this is now when I see one of these little dandies, I know with whome I can share them!! LOL!
Here's one I captured the other day:
The cashier saw me take the picture with my husband's cell phone and asked about the picture I'd taken. I explained to him that I wanted to show my son because it says "dollards" instead of dollars. There are four of these in the U-Scan area and all of them say the same thing. He looked at it and said, "Why, it sure does!" I guess he never noticed it before.
Hilarious.
Until next time.
Snacks Sunday
Labels: My Faith
I signed up to bring snacks for church for the first time. I think we did good, as it seemed most people were happy with the selection we'd chosen.
The only problem is, since I worked with dh yesterday and ds2 forgot we were bringing the snacks today and we got home so late last night, and I was exhausted from working... we didn't get started on making the food until this morning at 6am. I got started on the breads right away. I made two quick breads. One tried and true - Whole Wheat Banana Bread from La Leche League's cookbook Whole Foods for the Whole Family and a new one, Apple Date Bread. The Apple Date bread turned out very dry, as it has essentially no fat, except for the pecan's fat content. I made a loaf of the Apple Date bread, pictured above in slices. It looked pretty and festive, but that was to hide the dried out looking top. Ack! I also made a dozen small muffins out of the Apple Date bread.
I made two dozen banana bread muffins and frosted 12 of them. Ds2 made the sugar cookies. The vegetable tray was all freshly cut veggies, with real Hidden Valley Ranch dressing in sour cream.
I can't stand Hidden Valley Ranch dressing already made up in the bottle. Why does it taste SO different than the real stuff? Well, actually the "real stuff" is made from a mix... but it is so much better than the bottled kind. At least in my opinion.
Well, we were scurrying around like mad for an hour before we left. We have a small kitchen which doesn't help.
I wore a knitted ski cap throughout service. The color matched perfectly to my new blue dress... Pastor asked to me after service, "Aren't you warm in that hat?" I said at first that I wasn't, then I changed my mind and said that I was but not too warm. My hat was made of chenille and gave me a Russian look. I didn't let on to Pastor the real reason I wore the hat... it's because I was in such a hurry to get going that I didn't have time to fix my hair so I'd just wound it up in a bun, wet and all, then threw on the cap. Once I got to church, I decided to just go with it.
Until next time.
In An Effort To Control Fuel Costs ??
Labels: Just Stuff
First off, points scored for no typos, grammatical or punctuation errors in this sign (it's a toss up as to whether a comma is necessary after "transaction".
But what does it mean?
In an effort to control fuel costs... whose fuel costs? What could have prompted the making of such a sign? Probably they made the sign because people kept getting upset because the pump would stop at $75.00. That's happened to me, but out where we live it stops at $50.00. I would wonder if my credit card stopped it at $50, or the pump?
But what is the real reason for stopping the pump at $75.00? Whose fuel costs are they trying to control? Are they trying to help me out and keep me on a fuel budget so I won't spend over $75?
I don't know about other people, but we can't just stop driving and take public transportation. We live in a rural area and pump gas we must, or we don't go anywhere. If we don't go to work, we don't make money, if we don't make money, we can't buy gas. It's an endless cycle. A tiring one at that.
It remains a mystery.
Until next time.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
"Yes, those look like almonds, but they are pecans."
Labels: Just Stuff, work
I worked with dh today... we started the process of putting skirting around a manufactured home that is 70 feet long and 28 feet wide. We laid the bottom rails, hammering stakes in every three feet, and nailed the top back rails in place. The next step will be to cut the panels and insert them into the rails, then lock in the top front rails. After we finished for the day, we stopped at the truck stop before starting on our 90 minute drive back home. There was a candy shop inside, near the restaurant with chocolates, salt water taffy and fudge. The Almond Paws looked really good and I asked the girl to weigh two for me.
She looked down at the Almond Paws and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, we're out of the Almond Paws." I looked again, and looked at dh and said, "Those there?" and she says, "Oh, yeah, those look like almonds, but they're pecans." The tone of her voice was very matter of fact, as if she gets this all the time from the silly tourists. Again I looked at dh not knowing how to respond, since the girl was convinced these were pecans. I just asked her to weigh two for me, we bought them and were on our way.Now ironically, my friend Rees just gave us a huge sack of pecans from her backyard tree. On the 90 minute ride to today's job, I used a pair of dh's channel locks to crack and shell over 5 dozen pecans. I know what pecans look like. They look NOTHING like almonds. The Almond Paws ARE made of almonds, not pecans.
I weighed the pecan meat once I got home; I shelled 10.5 ounces.Until next time.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Bread Pudding - I Used To Hate It
Labels: recipes
One of my coworkers brought in bread pudding this past week. One had cranberries and chocolate laced throughout it. She also brought a quart of heavy cream to drizzle over the top. Mmmmm, delectable!
So I remembered that Pioneer Woman made some Bread Pudding and checked out her recipe again today. I decided on the spur of the moment to make some.
I used week old white bread - real artisan style white bread. It was pretty dried out and would have been hard to eat sandwich-style.
And... true to form, I couldn't follow Pioneer Woman's recipe exactly. I printed out her recipe and started out okay, but started to deviate starting with the sugar... so here are my ingredients:
2 eggs
2 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoons vanilla
2 1/2 cups milk
1 1/4 cup sugar
3 1/2 to 5 cups white bread, cut into 1-inch cubes
1/3 cup walnuts, chopped finely
1 handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 handful of fresh cranberries
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Beat together eggs, butter, vanilla, and milk. Add sugar and mix until sugar is dissolved. Arrange bread cubes tightly in a nine-inch baking dish. Pour liquid over the bread, making sure you get all of it good and soaked. Sprinkle chocolate chips and cranberries on the top. Take a spoon and smash the bread cubes down so they soak up some of the liquid. Sprinkle walnuts all over and bake for 55 to 70 minutes, or until crust is golden brown all over the top.
At 55 minutes, there was still liquid in the center. So I took the dish out and used a spoon to mash down so that the liquid seeped throughout the bread. I cooked it for another 25 minutes and then it was done.
Pioneer Woman makes a whiskey cream sauce, but I drizzled heavy cream over mine instead. I also used less sugar than she called for - I find typically that most dessert recipes contain way too much sugar and I have not had a problem using half as much sugar. I don't try that trick with cookies though.
Until next time.
My Progress So Far Today
Labels: FlyLady, geek-stuff
Let's see what I've accomplished on my list so far today...
I put black photo corners on one picture, cut some scrapbooking paper into a 5x7 and put one picture in the wedding book.
Other than the things on my list, I did get something done. I played around with the Make Your Own Kaleidoscope making some more kaleidoscopes. Alright? It's relaxing for me to play on my computer. Aside from that, these are the other things I accomplished:
- Washed and dried our bedding
- Defrosted the our upright freezer
- Inventoried the food in the freezer and posted a list to the front of it
- Baked more butternut squash to make Pioneer Woman's Butternut Squash Puree
- Washed two loads of dishes (put away one)
- Wiped the kitchen counters
- Mixed and blended the squash and refrigerated it for later
Until next time.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
