Saturday, November 28

Update on Grapples

As requested by Jana, an update to my grapple story.  How did it taste?  Well, it was really sweet, but it wasn't as crispy as an apple.   My kids didn't like them.  It was okay, but not great.


I did look up their website, too!  Apparently, they use an FDA approved process of bathing the apples in a mix of concentrated grape flavor and pure water.  


So we tried our grapples, just to say we did.  I think I will stick with apples and grapes.

Friday, November 20

Grapple

At the grocery store last weekend, I happened upon a grapple.  A group of four packed neatly in a plastic see-through container.  "Looks like and apple, tastes like a grape."  It says.  


Hmmmmm...  How do you make an apple taste like a grape?  They created Pluots, a combination of plum and apricot.  (Very tasty by the way if you have never had one.)   They engineer hybrid fruits and vegetables all the time.  I thought maybe this was one of those.


Got the package home.  Only bought it because it was on sale and I was curious.  Smelled sweet like grape bubblegum.  Finally read the package.  Ingredients:  Apples, Artificial and Natural Flavors.  Artificial flavors?  In this conveniently packaged apple?  How?  Did they fill a syringe and strategically inject grape flavoring throughout the apple?  This now has begun to worry me.  How exactly do you get artificial flavoring into the inside of an apple?  If anyone knows, please let me know.

Thursday, October 8

Have you hula's today?

I love hula!  I love it, love it. love it!  I have only been taking lessons for 5 weeks, and it is hard, hard work.  But it makes me so happy.  We should all do things just because they make us happy.


It doesn't have to be a big, fancy thing to make us happy.  Sometimes I like playing in the dirt in my garden.  It makes me happy!  Some days I love to cook, just to make me happy!


Everyone has something to make them happy.  So, have you hula'd today?





Tuesday, September 22

Garden Part 1

Before...




After 1 Saturday in the yard...



It's a start and looks a ton better.  Just have to have the hubby dig up the roots.  I can't believe how big they are!  Hopefully 2 more weekends and I can plant!



Anyway, another project I worked on.  Freezing some fresh corn.  Started with 28 ears of corn, worked in the kitchen 3 hours and this is the outcome...






Lots of corn ready to freeze and enjoy later!


Thursday, September 17

The Older the Better

I was talking with the girls tonight at the dojo.  It came up that my birthday is coming up in the next couple of weeks and we were discussing how it sucks to get older.  And, in many ways it does.  The body starts aching where it felt just fine the year before.  It isn't quite as easy to get up out of bed in the morning, it takes a while to get all the joints moving again.  That pound you put on a few years ago just seems to hang on without going away.  You know, stuff like that.

Yet it occurred to me tonight, that although I am going to be 36 in just a few short weeks, the number doesn't bother me so much.  My mother-in-law told me that my thirties would be the best years of my life.  And so far she is absolutely right.   To be younger would only mean that I would have to give my time back.  I'm not giving any of my 30's back, they have been the best.  I don't want to give back my 24th year, that was the year Amy was born.  I don't want to lose my 27th year, that's the year Abby was born.  If I gave back my 23rd or 24th year, I would have missed out on building a house and getting married.  So many things too great to give up!

Not to say that I wouldn't be happy to give back a few days now and then.  Like the day my husband (he was my boyfriend at the time) wrecked my cute little MR2.  I'd like to give back the days I spent with my sick grandmother in the hospital.  And it would be okay with me if someone took back the day that my dad was hurt in a terrible accident.  But even those days shape us into the people we turn out to be.

I am not looking at my age anymore as just a number.  It is a compilation of years and memories and events that changed me in one way or another.  And so this year I celebrate my birthday and have no problem saying that I am 36!   After all, I earned them!

Wednesday, September 16

Early Birthday

My birthday is just around the corner and every year, the dreaded but unavoidable question surfaces, "What do you want for your birthday?"  And of course it happened one Monday night when my dad called to visit.  It used to be such an easy question to answer when I was younger.  Now it seems that what I really want is either really expensive, or I figure I really don't need it anyway.  But, finally, this year I had an answer.  I have been wanting to build a Square Foot Garden.  Who better to help than my dad.

So, Saturday, he arrives with a truckload of rock....


and some redwood to build my boxes.

Unloading the 2 tons of rock will probably prove to be the easiest part of the job, and I didn't even have to do that!  Now the hard part... time to tear out the bushes in the corner of my yard.


Even out the hard as rock dirt to make a level surface for my garden, build the boxes for the garden, lay out 200 or so square feet of flagstone, mix the dirt to fill my square foot garden and then of course plant my wonderful garden.

So, I think I have my work cut out for me for the next few weekends, and maybe by the time my birthday arrives, it will be done.  Keep posted for pictures of the finished project!

Thursday, September 10

Bananas and...

Today seems to center around food for some odd reason.  Nothing particularly fancy or exciting, just twists on the same ol' same ol'.  My kids like oatmeal, but get a little tired of it every day.  But they do love chocolate milk.  So today I started with chocolate milk, instead of the water, added the oatmeal and a touch of cinnamon, cooked in the microwave until done, added a smidge of vanilla, and chopped up a little banana.  Big hit by the way, and I think it would be super yummy if you added a spoon full of peanut butter.  Reminiscent of those no-bake chocolate oatmeal cookies.

Anyway, that's not what I really wanted to write about.  When I posted my concoction (actually I can't take credit for it, I found it in a magazine), my oldest and one of my dearest friends reminded me of something we used to eat as kids all the time.  We ate it as a dessert and I remember it tasting sweet and gooey and yummy!  When I first told my husband about it, he thought I was nuts!  Even after 13 years of marriage, I have yet to get him to take a bite.  My kids tried it, and they said it was okay.  But it still takes me back.

I guess you want to know what it is exactly I am talking about.  So I'll tell you.  It's bananas....wait for it....and....wait for it....you'll probably never guess....wait for it....still want to know?  Alright if you must know... miracle whip!

I can only picture some of your faces.  Scrunched up in disgust or fear.  Let me make this clear.  It is important that it is Miracle Whip.  Not Mayonnaise.  Not a Miracle Whip knock off.  The real Miracle Whip.  The second  most important thing to remember is the bananas have to be barely ripe, you know just a little green on the ends still.  Peal, slice the bananas in half lengthwise like a banana split and smooth on a nice even swipe of the miracle whip.  Careful, not too much, but just the right amount.

Go ahead.  Give it a try.  You might like it!

Wednesday, September 9

If everyone else is doing it...

So, I have never really been much of a writer. Sure I took creative writing in high school and was the editor of my high school yearbook, but aside from that writing is something that I dread more than look forward to. But I thought, hey, everyone else is doing it, I might as well give it a try. (Now if everyone decides to put leeches in their pants or shave their heads and paint their scalps green, I'm pretty sure I won't try that, but this seems harmless enough!)

First I had to figure out how to get the whole blog together and make it pretty. I'm still working on that. I know that what I write won't be as funny as some and definitely not as eloquent as most. What I want to write about is everyday happenings, things that I can vent about, things I find amusing, maybe get my readers (if I ever have any) to think about something they haven't thought about before or see things in a different light.

Stay tuned for what I hope will be my first "real" post, as soon as inspiration hits!