I have been a serious slacker in the gardening department lately.... but I am working on getting back on the ball! We are going to use it as part of Kyla's schooling so I guess I have no choice ;) Now if only I can convince her not to pick all the baby plants before they are ready! She was most excited to find a couple of mushrooms growing up out of the garden soil when we started planted.
We have our first baby green pepper! I planted 3 peppers, 1 green - 1 red - 1 yellow. We also planted some herbs (parsley, chives, oregano, basil, etc). Some of the herbs this year are from seeds so we will see how well they do.... I haven't had a ton of luck with planting from seed!
We have also planted some onions, carrots, honeydew melon, tomatoes, cucumber, lettuce, squash, and sunflowers. Still on the list to come are beans, strawberries, maybe pumpkin, and some more herbs. I have a ton more room now that Jim made me a second box (with more sunlight exposure) and I find myself unsure what I should put in it! More pics of the garden below!
Every time I attempt to make french toast it is a disaster, but then I read online that Challah bread makes the best french toast. I figured I would give making Challah a shot and then hopefully my french toast would be yummy! Well the results are in and the Challah is awesome. I am considering keeping the plain recipe for just regular sandwich bread its so good. I did let it rise a bit too long so I have SUPER GIANT GHALLAH but its still good. The second loaf I kneaded in raisins and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and its delicious.... I don't think it will last long in this house!
The plain loaf is braided and stuck in a loaf pan but I cooked the raisin loaf just on a sheet pan.
Even tho I felt like slacking off and making sandwiches and soup, I resisted the urge and made Jim's favorite dinner... pork chops. I usually skip the pork and bake myself a salmon fillet instead but I had an abundance of pork chops. It was a new breading recipe and I really liked it! It had a nice crunchy texture to it and even the kids enjoyed all of their dinner, especially when I taught them how to dip the pork chop in applesauce ;)
Breaded Pork Chops
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1-2 cups panko breadcrumbs
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
6 -8 thin cut pork chops
1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. In a shallow bowl or pie plate, whisk eggs. Combine garlic powder and onion powder with breadcrumbs in a separate plate. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Dip pork chops into the egg, then press in the cracker crumbs to coat. Fry in the hot oil for 2 to 3 minutes per side, just until golden brown. Remove to a baking sheet.
3. Bake for 30- 45 minutes in the preheated oven, turning once. Serve immediately.
For our anniversary in April Jim is going to get me the most awesome purple leather cover for my Kindle from Oberon Designs. To go with this cover I have decided that I need a new skin for the kindle and I am having a hard time deciding which. Too many options.... *sigh*
So here is my "Roof of Heaven" cover in purple and the skin options to go along with it:
Thanks to Almond's influence I have been on a decluttering and organizing spree. I trimmed down my 3 crockpots to just 1 and did away with some other kitchen appliances that I never pulled out (including my food saver!). Getting rid of some stuff left more room in my pantry so I was better able to organize my actual kitchen area. This is what I have gotten done so far.... I still need to hit the actual pantries themselves, but this is a start! Ignore the fact that we didn't paint the inside of the cabinets when we painted the doors.... we will get there but I think I am going to change the color of the cabinets and no sense in painting it twice ;)
You can click on the slideshow to see bigger pics...
Previously when we have had chili for dinner getting the girls to eat it has been like pulling teeth...so it hasn't been something we make a lot of. However, tonight I made the best chili ever (unfortunately I can't say the same for my corn muffins) AND got Kyla to eat it by putting it on top of a potato. I don't know why that changes things for her, but it did and she ate all of it - beans included. It was even a bit spicier than I typically like it and she didn't seem to mind. Willow is another thing, but at least she can usually be made happy with a baked potato and some deli meat. See the totally awesome recipe below ;)
I somehow managed to break the admin section of the blog and in fixing it lost some posts. I may try to add them back in tho.... we will see! For now its a new layout I am playing around with :) I am not sure if its a keeper yet, but maybe!
I was late getting dinner together tonight and was really tempted to just make pancakes, but I stuck to my plan and made an old favorite. This is one of my favorite things my mom used to make for us as kids. Unfortunately my mom always did it by "feel" and I am just not that capable so I came up with my own method :) Recipe Below...
This video is just too funny to not post
Anyway, dinner last night was Baked Pasta. I would usually make this with chedder cheese because I like being different, but I didn't feel like shredding it. Oh and if you are curious why my salad dressing has a 1 on it, check out Meck Mom for a fabulous fridge organizing idea.
I managed to stumble upon an entire forum for Kindle freaks like myself: http://www.kindleboards.com/. Within that forum I found a couple of handy links that can help you decide what you would like to read next. I always figured there had to be a website out there that you could put in a favorite author and/or book and come back with suggestions...well here you go:
http://www.whatshouldireadnext.com/search
http://www.gnooks.com/
http://www.literature-map.com/ "map" your favorite author! See who else is close.
http://www.allreaders.com/ - Search for books by plot.
Additionally, free ebook sites....
http://feedbooks.com/
http://freekindlebooks.org/
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://manybooks.net/
http://www.baen.com/library/ (Science fiction)
http://www.kindleclassics.org/
Woo! Happy Reading :)
It snowed like crazy here in Northwest Las Vegas yesterday. Our house isn't far enough west to get a ton of snow, but we had a light dusting of it. We picked Kyla up from school 15 minutes early and drove off towards the western part of the city and found snow galore! At one point it was coming down like it was cotton balls.... I haven't seen snow like that since living in Vermont.
Kyla was thrilled, Willow was mostly just cold. But the girls got to make their first Vegas snowman and snow angels and a fun time was had by all.
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| From 2008 Pictures |
More pictures in the Picasa photo album.
When I see the photos and emails that Andrew Sullivan has posted on his blog today to document the protests and rallies against discrimination. It gives me hope that someday soon all of us will have the same rights and liberties, no matter what color our skin or who we love.
As I read the emails posted at Sullivan's blog I can't help but wonder how much of the success of today's protests can be attributed to the movement started by Obama. His win may just have given people hope that as a group, when we work together, we can get things changed. No one thought he could or would win, but he built a movement from the bottom up that was too big to stop. Maybe the people really do have more power than the politicians and the elected if we make our voices heard. The internet certainly makes it more possible than ever before.
I have always been a skeptic, always been a cynic.... until this year. Its refreshing to be hopeful and happy about the future for a change.
Anyway, the Kindle arrived on Tuesday and I am happy to say that I carry it just about everywhere with me. Yes, it was expensive but it is also very convenient and there are tons of ways to find free or inexpensive books to read on it. Additionally you can't beat new releases and best sellers for only $9.99 for those rare times when the library has 1 copy and 20 holds.
Amazon charges a subscription fee for RSS/blog feeds, but you can create RSS feeds of your favorite blogs and newspapers for free from Feedbooks. You can also covert PDF files to kindle format with some simple easy to use software! This will be great for business/board meetings at the co-op - I plan to dump the agenda to the Kindle and read it from there. It has a nifty notation features so I can take notes and not lose them in the mess that is also known as my car.
The only thing I am not in love with is the cover it comes with, but I am brainstorming a replacement for that as we speak.
Speaking of reading..... if you do a lot of it you should make sure you head over to Goodreads. Its a lot of fun keeping track of books you have read and I get a lot of great ideas from looking at everyone else's booklists.
I would like to post something profound, but I really have no words. I can't remember a time when people were this excited and celebratory about an election. The photos of people celebrating in the streets outside the Whitehouse make me smile. I have to admit I even got a little choked up as Obama spoke. Yes we can :)
Its been a while since I posted. Things have been busy and I just haven't really felt like I had much to type about. I fell behind on gardening and didn't get anything planted for the fall. Oh well, it will give me time to plan things out and rearrange some stuff for spring.
Some may notice that my webstore is gone. I haven't sewn in probably a year (other than some quick mending) and the thought of dragging myself to the cutting table was not a pleasant one. I have sewn and sold clothing/diapers/bags/etc for 8 years... so it has been odd thinking of giving that all up. Ultimately I realized that it just didn't bring me joy anymore, instead I felt obligated and it was more of a burden. So, I closed up the webshop last night. I am about to start selling most of my fabric and a couple of my machines. I will keep my sewing machine and will probably even throw a few things for sale up on the WAHM blogs on occassion, but for now I think I am done sewing and selling.
The reality is that the more I think about re-enrolling in college, the more I realize that when both my girls are in school.... I want a real job that doesn't include being chained to my sewing machine. I simply won't have time to do it all. So I am saying goodbye to girlwomangoddess.com the webstore and saying hello to a degree in some currently undecided computer tech discipline.
Thank you to everyone who has purchased my pieces over the years, you have been greatly appreciated!
