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!
Jim also brought home a cantaloupe that a customer gave him as a tip. I guess they got to talking about melons and this customer had a backyard full of melon vines.
I am behind on fall planting - I was hoping to have stuff in the ground already but I still need to get soil for the new boxes and make a plan. Hopefully I will get that done this weekend!
Because of the early wake up times, by the time it gets to be noon, everyone is a bit crazy and bored. The "witching hour" used to be about 4 on our old schedule and we could survive til Jim got home, but now that its noon I am having to come up with lots of afternoon activities to distract them. One of our favorites.... playdough!
Now, playing with the dough makes them happy, but making the dough from scratch makes them even happier. They love to help measure out the stuff, pick out the coloring, and watch the mixer go around. We tried a lot of dough recipes before we found one that is 1. easy and 2. a great consistency. Here is ours, made in the stand mixer with the dough hook:
I have to start this by admitting I have a thing for kitchen gadgets. Most people who know me find this interesting, or maybe odd, because I really don't enjoy cooking or being in the kitchen. But for whatever reason, I love neat kitchen things! I do try to hold back a bit because I want to live simply, its just a struggle sometimes ;) Anyway I was walking around Bed Bath & Beyond a few days looking for a pineapple slicer. We all love sliced pineapple and I have been buying it already sliced and cut at costco, but its about $7.99 and I was curious as to whether having a slicer of my own would be cheaper because then we could buy the whole pineapples when they are on sale for $2.50/$3 each. 
Now I can make horizontal, unfunny shaped, loaves without using my oven! Its been so hot lately that we were buying bread, but since purchasing the new machine we have made 3 loaves. Yeah the first 2 were "test" loaves and not really very good, but now I have a recipe that works and my house doesn't heat up to bake it. On top of that I am totally trying to think of a good reason to use the cake function on it. It also makes jam, too bad we don't have a pick your own berry place somewhere around here!
I learned from the container gardening workshop at the Springs Preserve that the best time to start planting for the fall is right around August 15th. That day is quickly creeping up on us and I have big plans this fall!
So to start getting ready I pulled up my tomatoes and peppers - they were dying a slow death anyway. I also pulled up the corn because the soft soil recommended in Square Foot Gardening just isn't right for corn. The stalks just fell over sideways. Then I constructed a few more trellises - goodness knows the honeydew melon needs it. IT has taken over the back section of the planting box... now I know to plant smaller veggies in front of it. Planting the eggplant right next to the melon was not the best choice.
Anyway, here are updated pics of the new trellises. I love how easy it is to make these... and cheap! They may not be the prettiest things int he world, but they work well. They are made with just regular white PVC pipe and nylon netting. IF you buy the 10 foot long pieces of PVC pipe from the hardware store you can then cut them in half. You need three 5 foot pieces and 2 PVC elbow pieces for each trellis if you are making a "single". If you want to make the double you need five 5 foot pieces, 2 elbow pieces, and 1 PVC "T" piece. So you can make 1 double and 1 single out of 4 of the 10foot long pipes, which works out to about $8-10 plus another $4 for the nylon netting.
Jim had the great idea to angle the add on I had to make for the melon outward. It was really a necessity because of the hard ground next to the wall and it will also allow me to put a few potted herbs back there and offer them a bit of shading by means of the trellis!
At the container gardening class I also learned of a neat resource -the Cooperative Extension of the University of Nevada. They have a ton of really helpful information and flyers related to gardening and other nature issues on their website. One of which is this Becoming a Desert Gardener Flyer which is packed with great informating including a chart of what to plant when! Next weekend I am going to build another box on the side of the house for smaller, non vining type of plants (lettuce, carrots, etc).
Just a really quick update in regards to the new car, the Honda Fit. Our 3rd tank fill up and I am now up to 29.3 mpg. The last one I forgot to blog but it was about 28mpg.... so it has been going up by about 1mpg a tank as I drive it more and break it in. I am pretty thrilled to be getting 29.3 mpg even with the A/C on about 99% of the time. I didn't even do a lot of coasting on this tank. I can't wait til Fall and to see what kind of mpg I can get without the A/C - gosh that sounded dorky!
I have a bunch more to post about the new puppy and some gardening updates, but it will have to wait til tomorrow. I should be sleeping!
