Update

Well.  Its been a really long time since my last post.  I've been crazily making things for Christmas.  I'm almost done! And I'm pretty proud to say that about 90% of our Christmas is handmade. I also only have one more gift to finish up.  So my update on writing.... yeah.... I did it for one day.  Pretty worthless.  I'll be trying again in January when I'm not as busy.

A Goal?!

So November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).  The point is to write an entire novel within 30 days.  It is very ambitious and I'm not going to attempt it.  There is not way I could accomplish that feat while working, trying to make Christmas presents and doing all the other stuff that I do.  Which isn't a whole lot.  I just like to try to lead a slow and simple life.  But what I will be attempting is writing for 1 hour each day in November. 

About three years ago I had a few extremely vivid dreams that I could not get out of my head.  I can still remember them very clearly, and just like the cliche, I decided that these dreams would be a wonderful book.  I began writing and have about 60 pages worth of book finished.  But I got stuck and haven't worked on it for about two years.  I kind of just put the story on the back burner.  So for the the month of November I am moving it to the front burner again and will concentrate on writing something for just an hour a day.  It doesn't seem so hard.  We'll have to see how I do! Wish me luck!

Grape Juice

My mom makes grape juice every year in the fall.  Her grape juice is the best I've ever tasted.  She grows her own grapes, picks them, steams them, and bottles them.  And then we all drink the delicious juice for the rest of the year.  The grape juice is so wonderful you can drink it straight from the bottles.  No sugar or water is needed at all.  Pure grape juice! The absolute best!!

The grape vine covered patio

Joe picked us a few buckets full of grapes.  

And we then spent many hours removing all of the stems and putting the grapes into the steamer.

After the juices was steamed out of those grapes we put it into bottles and sealed them up.

And finally we enjoyed some of the juice!

We bottled about 36 quarts this year.  Lots of sticky messes but a lot of great juice to come this year!!

Cookies and Fall!

Cooler weather makes me feel like baking and since my mom asked me to make my peanut butter cookies for her, I just couldn't say no.  I found a recipe on Allrecipes but I changed it up a bit about a year ago and I think its delicious.  When I first made them I did not know they were gluten free or what gluten even was.  When my mom found out that she was gluten intolerant, as was my brother and sister, I realized that I had the best cookie recipe ever for them.  They are super easy and the ingredients are ones that are usually on hand.  These are my absolute favorite peanut butter cookies!

Peanut Butter Cookies

1 c. peanut butter
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. white sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350.  Mix all ingredients.  Form into balls and press with forks in the traditional criss cross pattern.  Bake for 8-10 minutes. Enjoy!

On a side note, the mountains are simply stunning this fall.  I don't remember them ever being as beautiful as this year.  This is what I get to see each day.  And they become more and more colorful each day.

 

 From the back yard.

 

My favorite view.

The vibrant bush in my parents front yard.

My Feeble Attempts

I am attempting to teach the alphabet to a group of learning disabled first graders.  The key word is attempting.  After a rough first few weeks of just trying to get them to memorize the letter symbols and their accompanying sounds with little to no luck,  I decided to try something I had read about in my research of Waldorf Education.  I am very intrigued with Waldorf Education and I really like the philosophies.  This is a great website with a lot of information.

Anyway, back to what I've been working on.  I decided that just a mark on a piece of paper to mean a letter is not getting through to these kids.  They needed to see the shape of the letter in a picture with an accompanying story with the sounds the letters make to go with it to keep their attention and to somehow make the letters mean more to them than just a few scribbles on a page.  I also decided to teach the lowercase first because lowercase letters are more often seen than uppercase.  I have attempted to draw and color, with pastels, four pictures with four dinky little stories and so far the kids that I've been working with have enjoyed the pictures and have been asking to hear the new stories and to hear ones I've told before again. The stories are lame and the pictures are extremely simple but I'm pretty happy about the kid's progress so far. They are beginning to  remember the letter names and sounds when I test them.  The true test will be when I finish all of the pictures and stories and test all of the alphabet together. 

Pardon the picture quality.  I forgot to bring my camera to take photos of them at work so I had to make due with my phone's camera. 

Ann the Angel

Bob the Butterfly

Cedric the Cat

and Don the Deer

I have tried to incorporate multiple letter sounds into the names of the drawings just for that little extra emphasis.  So I will be working on the letter e tonight.  I'm thinking about doing an elephant somehow.  I don't know.  If anyone has ANY ideas for letter pictures please let me know! I'm running low in the idea department, at least with some of the tougher letters. 

Sponge/Seafoam Candy

I love seafoam candy.  It is crunchy and reminds me of honey. It is covered in chocolate.  There isn't much more you can ask of a candy.    I first tried a type of this candy in fifth grade when my friend brought home Crunchy bars from Canada.  They are my favorite candy bars but are really hard to find.  I later found sponge candy at Maceys grocery store in their bulk candy section.  It tastes wonderful and is always available but the problem with that is it costs $12.99 a pound. Talk about ridiculous.  I found this recipe a while ago and it tastes exactly like the Macey's candy and it is so easy to make.  This recipe is made from ingredients that I already have on hand. 

Sponge Candy

Vegetable oil for greasing pan
2 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2/3 cup light corn syrup
6 tablespoons water
2 tablespoons baking soda
2 teaspoons vanilla

 Liberally grease a  round 10 inch spring form cake pan.  Line with parchment paper allowing 2 inches to stand above the top of the pan.  Grease again.  In a deep sauce pan add sugar, corn syrup, water, and vanilla. Over medium-high heat bring the mixture to a boil (without stirring) and cook until hard crack stage until temperature reads 300 degrees F. on a candy thermometer. This should take about 10 minutes.  Remove from heat. Quickly add the baking soda and blend into the sugar mixture. The mixture will bubble up when you add the baking soda. Be very careful not to touch the hot mixture!! I touched it on accident once and I had a blister for 2 weeks. SO BE CAREFUL.  Immediately after the baking soda is mixed into the sugar pour into the prepared pan.  Let this set and cool completely before removing is from the pan.  Cut up into pieces and dip in melted chocolate if desired, which of course you would desire.  Store in an airtight container.

This recipe makes a lot but do not try to cut the recipe in half, the sugar heats too quickly and burns.  I have learned this from experience. 

I hope you enjoy this candy as much as I do!

Yarn along and Reading

Today I am joining in with a blog that I follow for her weekly yarn along.  Small Things is wonderful and inspiring and I love to read her posts.  I've been wanting to join in with her yarn along and now that I have taken a picture of what I'm up to there is nothing to stop me anymore! 
 
From her blog:
"Two of my favorite things are knitting and reading, and the evidence of this often shows up in my photographs.  I love to see what other people are knitting and reading as well.  So, what are you knitting or crocheting right now? What are you reading? Take a photo and share it either on your blog or on Flickr."

 

I'm currently knitting a shawl that was inspired by the new Jane Eyre movie.  If you haven't seen that movie I would highly recommend it.  I loved it!  The pattern is free here.

I am reading Preserve It! and Cooking From the Farmers' Market.  Eric and I are planning to buy a house soon and next year we plan to have a garden so I need to know what to do with all the fruits and vegetables that we grow.  We are excited for that next step in our lives. 

Attitude

I was doing so well with blogging through August; getting back into the hang of doing it more often but the last nearly 3 weeks I've just not had the time nor the inspiration to write.  School has been tiring and full of changes. 

For the last 5 school years I worked with a wonderful teacher with learning disabled students.  We taught 1st-3rd grades for two years, one year of 1st-6th, and then two years of 4th-6th.  We work wonderfully as a team and counted on working together for this upcoming year.  Much to our dismay the principal told us that I would be working with the new 1st-3rd grade teacher instead.  To say I was upset is an understatement. I was very angry and sad and confused.  We had worked so well with each other for 5 years and made a great team.  Why should the team be split up?  It made no sense.  I had also been working with some of the kids in my class for all of those 5 years and to not be with them as they went through sixth grade was heartbreaking. 

When school started and I began working with the new teacher and the new students I hated it.  I fought back tears many times through the first day when I thought of my other class and students that I missed so much.  I was planning to quit after a few weeks.  I was so unhappy and I didn't know what to do make myself happy again.  I really had loved my job and it seemed so unjust that it was snatched out from under me.  During the second week of school I had the sudden thought that I needed to stay there, not quit, and change my attitude.  For the rest of that week I tried really hard to be happier with my job and the new children that I have the opportunity to teach. 

I allowed myself to fall in love with the 20 kids in my class and become friends with the teacher I now work with.  I have had a much better time since my change in attitude and I'm glad that I decided to follow the prompting to stop being selfish.  I still miss my old class and the teacher that I worked with for so long but I get to say hi to them and chat with them during recess and other times during the day. 

Lindsey

 (Living Through Laughter, Lindsey's motto)

My dear friend Lindsey, who has fought hard against cancer and tumors for the last eleven years, passed away last Wednesday.  We've been friends since she moved into our neighborhood the summer before 4th grade.  I can't imagine a person more wonderful, full of light, and perfect in the world.  I'm not very good at putting feelings down into words, so I'm not really going to try, aside from saying this:  I love her very much and I will miss her. 

The funeral was this afternoon and later her family and Josh's family invited us down to Utah Lake to release some floating candles in honor of her. 

 

We arrived at the lake right as the sun went down behind the mountains across the lake and we waited for it to be dark enough to light the lanterns.  As we waited we were feasted upon by mosquitoes.  

Those little white spots are NOT stars.  They are the millions of bugs swarming all over us. 

There were forty lanterns in all and Eric and I, with Nitasha, Aaron, and her mom, Christine, attempted to light one.

Unfortunately, ours had a hole at the top and was unable to float away, but we will be patching the hole and trying again another night.

Here are a few pictures of some of the lanterns floating away.  They didn't all rise together like I had envisioned, probably from watching Tangled, but they were beautiful and each one was a beacon of hope as it flew up towards the heavens.  

Overall, the day was beautiful.  Painful, but beautiful. 

I also took a picture of a photo shoot we interrupted when we arrived at the beach, because Lindsey would have thought it was hilarious. It's rather blurry because I had too zoom up from pretty far away to capture it as surreptitiously as I could.

Ruins, Canyons, Arches, and Balloons

This is a very picture heavy post, so be warned.

 This weekend we went to three national parks.  It was great. We went to Mesa Verde first.  The thunderstorm that I was hoping for showed up on Saturday in the afternoon when we were almost done hiking but it was a nice way to cool off.  We visited Cliff Palace first, which is the biggest cliff dwelling in Mesa Verde.

After Cliff Palace we went to Balcony House, which was definitely the best place to visit.  We climbed up a 30 foot ladder, got to look inside the buildings, and explore.  We were shown a hand print that had been left on the wall.  Its very faint but I hope you can see it. 

At the end of the tour of Balcony House we had to crawl through a tunnel to leave. It was a pretty tight squeeze but it was really fun.

One of the best parts of the whole trip was seeing TWO small herds of wild horses. I was obsessed with seeing wild horses when I was very little so seeing two different herds in one day was a pretty big deal.

 That night we went on a walk around a lake that was near the campsite.  As we were walking around a balloon floated down from the sky right in front of us.  We could see that something was written on it so we ran to grab it before it blew away again. 

One side said "No worries, we'll take care of Gramps.  XXOO"

And on the other, "See ya in a bit...Chicken Spit!"

It was an interesting thing to find.  I've never found a lost balloon before, let alone with something so intriguing written on it.  







The next day we drove out to Canyonlands and saw Newspaper Rock.  It was so amazing!  I've never seen pictographs before and it was really cool to see.   I wish I knew what all of the drawings were and what it all meant.

We then stopped at Arches and saw the beautiful rock formations there. 

It was a fabulous trip and we packed as much as possible into a two day trip.  We had a great time.

Last Hurrah

This weekend is my last hurrah before work starts next week.  I'm not very excited for school this year; there are many changes that I'm not too happy about.  We'll see if I feel better about work after the first few weeks.  My  mom, Sarah and Carolina Debiasi, and I are going down to Mesa Verde this weekend.  Mesa Verde is one of my all time favorite places to visit.  It is so interesting and beautiful and I am very excited to see it.  I'm not so excited about the heat that we get to endure and I'm crossing my fingers for clouds and wind.  Maybe not rain, even though I love it, because rain might make it hard to hike around.

Here is a picture of one of the ruins I get to go see!

Thai Sticky Rice with Mangoes

Well, after months of not posting anything I have decided that now is a good time to come out of the little shell I've been living in.  I just have not felt any desire to say anything but at the request of my aunt I am going to be posting a recipe for Thai Sticky Rice with Mango.  We love this dessert and I think it is just as good as what you can get at a Thai restaurant. 


Thai Sticky Rice with Mango

1 1/2 cups uncooked white rice
2 cups water
1 1/2 cups coconut milk
1 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup coconut milk
1 tablespoon white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon tapioca starch
3 mangoes, peeled and sliced 


          Combine the rice and water in a saucepan; bring to a boil; cover and reduce heat to low. Simmer until water is absorbed, 15 to 20 minutes.  While the rice cooks, mix together 1 1/2 cups coconut milk, 1 cup sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a saucepan over medium heat; bring to a boil; remove from heat and set aside. Stir the cooked rice into the coconut milk mixture; cover. Allow to cool for 1 hour.  Make a sauce by mixing together 1/2 cup coconut milk, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1/4 teaspoon salt, and the tapioca starch in a saucepan; bring to a boil.  Place the sticky rice on a serving dish. Arrange the mangoes on top of the rice. Pour the sauce over the mangoes and rice. 

We made this with real sticky rice the last time and it was very good but buying real sticky rice can get expensive so if you are on a tight budget I would just stick to regular rice.  But if you really want a treat and have the money, get the sticky rice.


We have also made this using bananas and it is pretty tasty. It reminds me of breakfast.  A really good breakfast.  I think berries would be really good too.

Chocolate Pudding!!

It has been a while since I posted last.  I just haven't felt like I've had much to talk about but I found a new recipe and I want to tell the world how great it is! 

Whenever I think of chocolate pudding I think about my brother Joe running downstairs when we were younger to tell announce that mom was making chocolate pudding.  After stampeding down the stairs he took a flying leap to the couch while yodeling "Chocolate Pudding!!" Instead of landing on the couch he landed on the coffee table and burst into tears.  I don't remember the particulars but I feel like he landed on his face.  At any rate, whenever I think of chocolate pudding I think of Joe.  I've always loved chocolate pudding and this recipe from allrecipes.com that I've tweaked a bit is the best chocolate pudding I've ever had and I could eat it every day.  Of course if I did that, I'd gain quite a bit of weight. It is almost worth it.  Almost.

Chocolate Pudding

1/2 c. white sugar
3 heaping Tbs. cocoa powder
1/4 c. corn starch
1/8 tsp. salt
2 3/4 c. whole milk
1 tsp. vanilla
2 Tbs. butter

In a medium saucepan combine the dry ingredients.  Whisk in the milk over medium heat.  Stir continuously until the pudding begins to boil  Let boil at least ten seconds, stirring the entire time.  Remove from heat and stir in the butter and vanilla.  Enjoy!

The whole process takes about the same amount of time as a box of cook and serve pudding mix but is infinitely better.  The whole milk makes it very rich and creamy but I would guess that the recipe would work just as well with low fat milk just fine.  

The Price of Power

I am a terrible person.

Eric and I received callings today, Primary teachers to the 8 year olds.  It will be fun and I'm pretty excited.  The calling was going to be announced during Sacrament Meeting today and we were running late.  Of course.  When something important is set to happen of course you will run late.

So we pulled in to the parking lot, jumped out of the car and walked as quickly as possible without looking ridiculous.  Our progress was slowed by an elderly woman wearing high heels.  Not just a few inches but 4 or 5 inch heels.  They were intense. 

She was walking slowly in the middle of the sidewalk and there was no getting around her.  So Eric and I slowed down and walked behind her.  The entire time I was following her I was thinking to myself, "High heels are the stupidest thing in the world.  There is no reason for her to be wearing these monsters.  Oh my gosh! Hurry up! We're running late and they are going to announce that we are the new primary teachers and we will sure look dumb walking in right then... Stupid high heels! Stupid old lady! She can't even walk in those stupid things." As that was all going through my mind we reached the stairs up to the door.  I thought, "Finally!" and then the woman fell.  And it wasn't like a little stumble.  No, she fell. Hard.  As Eric and I helped her up and helped her pick her books and glasses up, instantly I felt terrible.  Like I had caused her to fall with my mean thoughts about how stupid her shoes were and how she couldn't even walk in them and I can't believe she was doing this to me and how I was going to be late.

I jumped to the two logical conclusions.  I'm either psychic or we were rushing her by walking behind her.  I'm leaning toward the former.  At any rate, I feel terrible, one, because my abilities caused a frail looking woman in treacherously high heels, who was only trying to look pretty for church, to fall, and two because it really wasn't her fault that Eric and I were running late and that I was frustrated.  I still feel bad about it all and it has been hours.  Even though I didn't know that I was psychic and could make her fall just with mere thoughts the price of power is responsibility and I will keep my mean thoughts to a minimum because, who really deserves the consequences of all of the mean things I think? No one, that's who.

More Yummy Recipes

I decided it was time to post two of Eric's and my favorite recipes.  If it isn't apparent I am a big fan of chicken.  It is inexpensive, versatile, tasty, and healthy.  You can't really go wrong with chicken.  To make the chicken I buy last longer I get a big tray of the skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut off all the fat and then cut the chicken in half, (I can't think of any other way to explain how its sliced except to say: like a hamburger bun)  Then I freeze them until I need them.  So in a tray of 8 chicken breasts I get 8 meals instead of only 4 and we just share one breast but it looks like we're not sharing and it is plenty of food.  And by getting them all sliced and frozen and with all the fat removed before they are ever frozen dinner doesn't take as long as it would if I had to do that all every time! Anyway, here is my first recipe:

Thai Chicken Curry

We love Thai food and while this isn't what we usually get at Thai restaurants it is very good with a mellow and sweet taste.

1 lb. chicken breasts, cubed
2 tsp. curry powder
2 tsp. vegetable oil
1 large green or red pepper, sliced
1 c. finely chopped onion
2 tsp. minced garlic
14 oz. can coconut milk
8 oz. can pineapple chunks in juice, not drained
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper

Sprinkle chicken with 1 tsp. curry powder.  Heat 1 tsp. oil in a large skillet over medium high.  Add pepper and onion and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring several times.  Add remaining 1 tsp. oil and the chicken.  Cook until the chicken is lightly browned.  Stir in garlic; cook 1 minute or until fragrant.  Add the remaining 1 tsp. curry powder, the coconut milk, pineapple and juice, salt and red pepper.  Boil and reduce heat.  Simmer uncovered for 5 minutes or until vegetables are tender and chicken is cooked throughout.  Serve over rice.  We love jasmine or basmati rice with this meal.  This serves 4 people

And the next recipe:

Rustic Garlic Chicken
 
We love it, its so garlicky and great!

2 Tbs. cooking oil
4 chicken breasts
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
3 heads of garlic, cloves separated
2 Tbs. flour
1 c. dry white wine
1 c. chicken broth
2 Tbs. butter
2 Tbs. chopped fresh parsley

Heat the oven to 400.  In a Dutch oven, heat the oil over moderately high.  Sprinkle chicken with 1/2 tsp. of salt and pepper.  Cook the chicken until well browned, turning, about 8 minutes in all.  Remove from the pot.  Reduce the heat to moderate, add garlic and saute until it is starting to brown- about 3 minutes.  Sprinkle the flour over the garlic and stir until combined.  Return the chicken to the chicken to the pot, cover, and bake for 15 minutes.  Remove the pot from the oven and put it on a burner.  Remove the chicken from the pot.  Over moderately high heat, whisk in the wine and simmer for 1 minute.  Whisk in the broth and the remaining 1/2 tsp. salt and simmer until starting to thicken, about 3 minutes.  Turn the heat off, whisk in the butter, and pour the sauce over the chicken.  Sprinkle with the parsley.

I always make mashed potatoes with this because the sauce the recipe makes makes plenty for the chicken and tastes great on the potatoes.  This recipe serves 4 and each person squeezes the garlic out of its skin to eat with the chicken.

Chocolate Milk

I love chocolate milk.  Really love it.  It is one of my all time favorite beverages and when it comes to chocolate milk I am an Ovaltine girl through and through. If i don't have Ovaltine I make do with the chocolate syrup kind but it just isn't as delicious.
I was craving some chocolate milk earlier and didn't have either the beloved Ovaltine or the mediocre chocolate syrup.  Instead of going without I found a recipe online and then adapted it for myself.  It is pretty darn good and a whole lot cheaper than buying Ovaltine or chocolate syrup and I'm sure it's got to be a little bit healthier without all of the preservatives and high fructose corn syrup and such. It doesn't quite have that malt-y taste that Ovaltine has but i'm sure I could had some malt powder that I have had lying around for a while and it would be just as great.

My recipe for Chocolate Milk

1/8 c. water
2 tsp. cocoa powder
2 Tbs. sugar
1 3/4 c. cold milk

In your glass mix the water, cocoa powder, and sugar.  Place in microwave for 30 seconds and stir until the sugar and cocoa completely mixed in.  Add the milk, stir again, and ENJOY!!

I can't explain how exciting this discovery is.  My cravings for chocolate milk do not have to be satisfied only when I splurge and buy Ovaltine!  I'm not completely sure if this is a good thing or not.

Success!

Eric and I decided too save our money and our sanity and have a Valentine's dinner at home.  I have had the menu planned for about a month when we first decided not to go out for Valentine's day and I have been nervous about it since.  Everything that I made was experimental and I was nervous that the food wouldn't turn out.  I found all of the recipes on allrecipes.com by looking for the highest rated recipe for the type of food I wanted to make. 

We had a Spinach Pomegranate Salad that was pretty good.  Eric gave it a rating of 8 out of 10.  I think I would have given it a 6.  I really prefer the spinach salad that my aunt posted here.  But overall it was good. 

I made these really great mashed potatoes too.  I wasn't too worried about making these potatoes, how can you go wrong with about 5 cloves of garlic? They were delicious and I get to have leftovers!

The thing I was the most worried about was the salmon.  The last time I attempted to make fish, (note the word attempted) it didn't quite turn out right.  That was about three years ago.  I've been terrified of making fish ever since.  Like I might always fail at it.  But Eric loves fish and I found a recipe that all the comments said was a no fail.  So I gave it a try.  I was nervous about it until after Eric took his first bite.  (I make him take the first bite to see if I should even try it.  Kind of like my own personal food taste, just in case it has been poisoned or something)  He loved it so I tried it and it was great! The recipe really was no fail and it was so easy, with ingredients I already had on hand. 

Here is a picture of our meal on the plate, because it looks better than seeing the salmon in the pan it was baked in. 

I decided to bring in our little patio table and chairs from the porch and set up in the living room.  The kitchen was too covered in dishes I was going to have to wash and I didn't want our Valentine's dinner to be ho-hum at the dinner table like usual.  (sorry about the blurry picture, I was trying to take a picture in a semi-dark room and keep Nim away from the food.)

As you can also see, we were classy and drank bottled rootbeer. 


We finished off the meal with a mousse.  I had no idea that a mousse was such a complicated process.  It wasn't hard but I did have to dirty a few more dishes than I really wanted to.  The mousse turned out great as well and was fluffy and light but very rich. 

Eric really enjoyed all of the food.  Even the salad, which surprised me, he's not a vegetable type guy. I am definitely keeping all of these recipes and will cook them all again because they tasted great and were really easy to make!

One last picture of what I have to look forward to....

Happy Valentine's Day!!