The Testosterone/Estrogen level in our home just equalled out

Well, he's gone.

Here's a recap of the last 24 hrs, more or less:

Last minute playing with all the electronic devices, video games, texting and facebook.

The ritual passing of the keys of the teenage car to the next generation.

The destruction of the devices of Babylon, aka, the ipod (don't freak, it didn't work anyway-the Stake Pres. loved it!)

He's officially an Elder.

Final family portrait at the airport.Gotta give your mom one more squeeze.Man, let's get the show on the road. He was dancing around in his typical Daniel fashion.Hasta la vista baby! See ya' in two....So he should be landing in SLC as this posts.

So how's mom?

Kinda numb.

Tuesday Tip

Life has been so crazy these days, that I haven't posted any tips or any other exciting motivational news on the blog. But I have a tiny idea today that is pretty quick and easy.


The goal around here has been to eat more whole grains. Sure, I have these white bucket things full of all sorts of good nutrition stashed in various corners of my house. Well, in order to eat more whole grains, they have to be easily accessible. It's just too dang hard to run around trying to find the whole grain sorghum for my power pancakes, especially when I need only 1/3 of a cup.


So I decided to put little stashes of my whole-grain goodness closer to where I needed them. In my pantry cupboard in the kitchen. Illustration:
I have all sorts of little plastic thingies, PETE containers and empty canning jars that I can put a couple of cups of this and that in them so they are easily available when I need a 1/2 of quinoa for a pilaf or 1/3 of sorghum for the power pancakes. Maybe someday I'll get the color coordinated Tupperware, or whatever for all my grains but for now, this works for me.


For those of you out there who are way further advanced than I on the nutrition and homemaker scale this may have been a well, duh, tip, but for me it was kind of an ah-ha moment.


You can even copy my ghetto labeling system. I won't mind.


P.S. Daniel leaves in exactly 24 hours-so if you haven't already guessed, this is a post-dated post.

Little CMB

This morning, because I am a proud grandma, you'll just have to suffer through a couple of photos of my latest sacred grandchild. He spent most of last Friday with his Grandma (well, his mommy tagged along too) He wouldn't cooperate with the camera too much but for the benefit of the out of town family, here goes.

We decided he must have hand his hands over his face "en utero" because he always has his hands up by his face.

Dontcha' just love the way new babies are so squishy and sweet and soft and cuddly? To put his size in perspective, he's laying on my legs. Such a tiny guy!

This is the look he gave me right after I pulled the binky out of his mouth-hence the puckered lips look. I figured I needed a little variety in this photo shoot. I still haven't captured the dimple yet. Well, I wish I could tell you that he recited his ABCs, quoted the first chapter of 1st Nephi and did a dance around the couch, but that's pretty much all he did Friday: sleep, eat, poop and look cute.

We'll save the rest for another day.

Guess Who got Asked on her First Date??

The doorbell rings, no one is there, except Wait..

A mysterious package.

Wonder who it's for?

Following the instructions.

Aww, she knows who it is.

October 10, 2009

Mark that day in your history books.

Capture the Moment

Ok call me crazy, but this year I volunteered to be the "official" photographer for my daughter's high school swim team. Uh yea, like I have nothing else to do. But since I have to be outside sweltering in the heat to watch her anyway, I thought, hey, this will be fun. I can get close to the water, get splashed occasionally, interact with the kids and generally have a grand time. And of course it's a great excuse to get a new camera lens! I am by no means a professional in any sense of the word, but for me, the funnest part is to

Capture the Moment

The intensity of effort

The emotion

The camradarie of the team

And then of course there's my kid too.(who happens to be a great swimmer-she qualified for the varsity team last year as a sophomore and went to State -ahem)

Buenos Diiiiaaas

The first phone call of the day was in Spanish. So, in honor of that and because I can't think of any other profound things to say today, I thought I would post thoughts about my recent Spanish experiences (in English)

I still have those random brain f*rts (I can't say that word in front of my mother or my kids either for that matter) when someone is talking to me and I go "huh?" Some people I can understand perfectly and others, well, let's just say I need a little help. I wonder why?

My son had a bilingual friend over the other day and he asked, "que esta haciendo?" (i was cooking dinner) and without even a blink of an eyelash I replied, "huevos con papas." (eggs & potatoes)

Woah.

I love it that when TL has phone conversations in Spanish, I can understand every word. (tee hee)

I can read this:

And understand a WHOLE bunch more than I used to. I am not so co-dependent on my Spanish translator. It's way cool.

Don't get me wrong. Sometimes when I'm having a conversation in Spanish I see a glazed look in people's eyes while I struggle to get the proper words out, but it's coming along.

And this is even way cooler for me. Lookee what I got:

I love showing it and watching the confused look on people's faces.

Spanish temple recommend + tall gringa lady = does not compute.

Way fun.

P.S. It's exactly t-minus 6 days until my Bubba D leaves. We've got mixed emotions here. Worry, stress, and the fact that I can't wait to get him outta here.

I've had this on my mind to post for days but life just keeps on happenin' and somehow I haven't gotten to it. So here goes.....

A couple of weeks ago a very pregnant Jessica & I went to see Julie and Julia, the perfect chick flick, except that it didn't have any hunky guys, just lots of good food (and Stanley Tucci is just the cutest-and Meryl Streep positively channeled Julia Child!)

I loved this movie, not because it was about food.

I loved it because it was about setting goals and accomplishing them.

I loved it because it showed the picture of two devoted married couples, their ups and downs.

I loved it because both couples had adversity, supported each other and succeeded.

I came home, inspired, not to buy The Art of French Cooking and cook each recipe,

but to set a goal and accomplish it.

But of course it at least had to be about food!

You see, I'm sort of a cookbook junkie. I love cookbooks and new recipes, not necessarily using them, but just finding new interesting ones that keep piling up in various places in my house. I came home from the movie, energized, with the determination that I was going to go through my un-tried recipe collection and

Cook them!

So I started sifting through the torn out pages of magazines, the printed recipes off the internet and chose 5 or 6 new ones to cook for the upcoming week. Some of the delicacies we have tried are:

Fresh corn and chicken chowder

Basil chicken sandwiches

Fish tacos with corn avocado relish

Chicken lettuce wraps

Alton Brown's granola

Blueberry breakfast cake

What have I learned?

Most of the recipes were "keepers."

Cooking a new recipe every day is HARD! Life is hectic and I had to force myself to check what I needed to do for dinner in the morning!

Keeping up with a goal is difficult after the enthusiasm has worn off. I'm still doing this, but choosing to try fewer new recipes each week.

So we'll see how it goes......I'm looking forward to the piles of recipes diminishing, until I find another new one....