Pictures!

I just finished spending a week in Utah visiting my daughter and my grandchildren - including the latest gem who is (as of today) a little over 2 weeks old. My daughter blogs regularly, so she showed me how to put pictures on my blog - something I have never been able to do before. So don't be surprised at all of the pictures I may start putting in my blogs. Let's start with this one.

The picture up above is my granddaughter - Daisy Grace Cazier. There was a lot of confusion over what her middle name was going to be - but she born on Tuesday, so Grace fits perfectly. Remember the old rhyme?
Monday's child is fair of face
Tuesday's child is full of grace
Wednesday's child is full of woe
Thursday's child has far to go
Friday's child is loving and giving
Saturday's child has to work for a living
But the child that's born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and bright and good and gay.
Of course, both I and both my daughters were born on Mondays - and our grandson was born on Tuesday (and a less graceful person I have yet to see!) My husband was (most appropriately) born on Wednesday.

The other picture shows how I am sure my daughter must have felt on occasion, before she had this latest baby. There is no doubt that babies are often a bit cramped, especially shortly before birth, and this one obviously needed to stretch a bit!

This has got to be one of the funniest pictures I have ever had emailed to me. My first thought was "Who would take a cat out on a rafting trip?" I have to wonder if this is a genuine picture, or something cleverly concocted with the graphic marvels we have available these days.

By the way, you'll notice that the cat is the only one NOT wearing a life jacket.

Hmmm - it seems that whenever I load a new picture, it goes to the top of my blog. I have tried the old cut-and-paste routine, but it doesn't seem to be working. Does this mean I have to plan my blogs in reverse if I'm putting pictures in?

Anyway, this is one of my favorite cross-stitches. It actually looks much better in person. It received an honorable mention when I entered it at the Western Washington Fair in Puyallup. With one exception, I think this is the one picture I would keep if I could only have one of my cross-stitches.

That's it for now. When I get around to putting my latest set of pictures on my hard drive, I can blog a few more pictures that I particularly like. And maybe I can figure out a way to put in pictures so I don't have to do plan my blogs in reverse!

Alphabet Tag

This looked like fun - so I thought I'd try it too

A - Attached or single? - Been attached for 33 years now & loving it

B - Best friend? - My husband

C - Cake or pie? - I have always been a pie person, but as I have gotten older, I find I enjoy cake more

D - Day of Choice? - Monday, my only full day off

E - Essential Item? - CPAP Machine - can't sleep well without it

F - Favorite Color? - BLUE

G - Gummy Bears or Worms? - Neither!

H - Hometown? - Santa Barbara, California

I - Indulgences? - Chocolate! In any form.

J - January or July? - January is my daughter's birthday, July my brother's birthday. How can I choose?

K - Kids? - 2 daughters and 1 adopted son (actually our grandson)

L - Life is incomplete without? - Sleep, good books, cross-stitching, my family

M - Marriage Date? - April 12, 1975

N - Number of Siblings? - 1 brother. That's it.

O - Oranges or Apples? - Apples, as long as they're Granny Smith

P - Phobias or fears? - Ants (long story)

Q - Quotes? - I could fill an entire book with these, but I'll go with one of my father's favorites - "It was as conspicuous as a tarantula on an angel food cake".

R - Reason to Smile? - my daughter is having a baby soon!

S - Season? - Christmas!

T - Tag 5 people? - I absolutely HATE getting those emails that ask you to forward them on to 7500 people within 10 seconds or you'll have bad luck for the rest of your life, so I wouldn't tag anybody.

U - Unknown Fact? - As a teenager I babysat for a couple who were such good friends with President Richard Nixon that he attended their wedding. (I actually saw the wedding pictures)

V - Very Favorite Store? - Just one? See's.

X - X-ray or Ultrasound? - At my age, X-rays usually mean something less life-threatening than Ultrasounds.

Y - Your favorite food? - Chocolate (see Indulgences above)

Z - Zodiac? - Gemini

Age beats out youth again!

Yesterday when we went to church we parked a long, long way from the front door - as usual. Another Ward was in session, so the parking lot was pretty full and we were late - as usual.

When the services were over and we started back for the car, our 11-year old grandson made a big deal out of 'who was going to reach the car first'. He even dumped his sack of stuff on me so that he would have more freedom of movement to beat everybody else to the car.

I happened to take a different route, and Tim didn't consider me much of a threat anyway. He spent all his time taunting my husband and running just a little way ahead of him and then turning back to gloat. He didn't even notice me approaching the car from a different direction.

When I was just a few yards away, Tim suddenly noticed my position and with a howl of dismay came charging towards the car. Although I am not built for running (in any sense of the word!) I broke into a determined shuffle. Just before he reached the car, I swung his bag of stuff so that it touched the car, giving me the 'official' win. He was totally chagrined, and Bill just about fell all over himself he was laughing so hard.

This victory reminds me of the story of the two rival actresses, one getting on in years, and the other still young and sure of herself and her beauty. They both approached a doorway at the same time, and the younger one stepped back to allow the older one to go first, saying with a voice dripping in saccharine sympathy "Age before beauty". The older actress swept magnificently through the door, remarking in a well-bred voice "Pearls before swine".

Isn't victory sweet?

Dynamo Day

Let's face it - I am basically a lazy person with a lot of good intentions. When I'm at work I make these long lists of all the things I need to do when I get home - and then when I actually GET home, I flop in front of the computer and play mindless games until I toddle off to bed. Every one in a while I will do a token item on my list just to appease my conscious.

This morning I came home more tired than usual. I had taken my older daughter to a doctor's appointment yesterday and it had lasted almost 4 hours - so I got to bed very, very late yesterday. Then somebody called in sick last night (at work), so I had to work extra hard to get everything done. Needless to say, as I walked into the house I wasn't feeling particularly motivated to do anything on my chore list.

But much to my surprise, this was one of my 'dynamo days'. I have them every once in a while, where I suddenly find myself doing all kinds of things that I am supposed to be doing. I sprang into action and this is what I accomplished.

Our huge commercial-sized freezer needed defrosting, which mean rearranging everything in the refrigerator freezers to make room for extra food. Fortunately we are right at the end of our six-month food cycle with Celebrity foods, so the freezer wasn't as full as usual. Still, it took considerable ingenuity to juggle everything around, and things that don't have to stay frozen (like cookies, flour, etc.) are out of the freezer for a while.

Bill has been bugging me to make some vegetables so he can heat them up for dinners, and with so little freezer space, it seemed a good time to use some of those frozen veggies. So I cooked up a big pot of baby lima beans, and a big pot of peas and carrots, and a big pot of green beans with onion and bacon.

I emptied the dishwasher (which is technically Timmy's job, but he rarely gets around to it), and refilled the dishwasher with the rest of the dishes - including the ones I had just used to cook all the vegetables in. We have a cleaning lady come in once every four weeks, and I don't like to waste her valuable (and expensive!) time on dishes. I'd rather she mopped out the defrosting freezer.

I am a visiting teaching supervisor, so I made the rest of the calls I had to do to finish off my report and then shipped it off (via email) to the head honcho.

In and around all of this, I fixed breakfast for Timmy and drove him to school; typed up the list for the cleaning lady and wrote out her check (I'm asleep when she comes and leaves); and read my younger daughter's blog (wonderful!), commented on it, and then was inspired to write a blog of my own for the day.

I think I'll go take a nap - a really long one.

Gluten-free Bread

When you take on the task of giving up everything made with wheat flour, one of the first things you miss is bread. After all, if you go to your local grocery store market and start reading the ingredients, you will find out that EVERY SINGLE ONE of their loaves of bread have gluten in them. In order to buy gluten-free bread you have to go to a health-food store.

There are several brands available, some refrigerated and some not. But they all have one thing in common - they taste like sawdust. Oh, it is recommended that you toast them first, but frankly, the only thing they're good for is crumbled up and used as bread crumbs in recipes that call for that.

I can't eat a lot of bread anyway (because of my lap-band) so this deprivation wasn't that hard on me, but it was really tough on Bill who loves sandwiches - and toast. He wasn't willing to give up our new gluten-free lifestyle for an occasional sandwich, but he was a bit bummed about it.

So yesterday (Monday being my cook-up-a-lot-of-gluten-free-things-for-us-to-eat-during-the-week day), I tried my hand at making a made-from-scratch loaf of gluten-free bread. And it was GREAT! Bill is absolutely ecstatic because he says that now he can have sandwiches again. I was particularly pleased because this particular recipe (although it uses yeast) doesn't require that tedious kneading procedure to get the proper texture for the bread.

I thought perhaps I would share the recipe with you, as this is actually a very tasty bread - in fact it is called light graham bread. It requires 1 1/3 cups of the 'featherlight' flour mix which is as follow:
1 part white rice flour
1 part tapioca flour
1 part cornstarch
1 tsp. per cup of potato flour
Actually they recommend making a bunch of this mix up ahead of time as it is used in a lot of recipes, and its actually 3 cups each of the first three flours, and 3 tablespoons of the potato flour (NOT potato starch - it's easy to get them confused)

So on to the actual recipe:
DRY INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup dark teff flour
1 1/3 cups Featherlight Mix
1 1/2 tsp. Xanthan gum
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp. dry unflavored gelatin
1 tsp. egg replacer (dry)
2 TB brown sugar
WET INGREDIENTS
1 cup lukewarm water (more or less)
pinch of sugar
1 TB yeast
1 egg plus 1 egg white
1 tsp. vinegar
3 TB vegetable oil
2 TB honey

Grease a 8 1/2" x 4 1/2" loaf pan.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients.
To the cup of lukewarm water, add a pinch of sugar and the yeast. Set aside to proof until the foam is approximately 1/2" (don't use a 1 cup measuring cup or it will overflow!)
In the bowl of the mixer, break the eggs; add the vinegar, oil and honey. Blend on low. Add the yeast-water and blend. Slowly spoon in the dry ingredients. If the dought doesn't fall from the paddle in a thick waterfall, add more lukewarm water by the tablespoon until the dough has the right consistency (like thick cake batter). Beat 3 1/2 minutes on high.
Spoon into the prepared pan, cover and let rise for about 35 minutes for quick-rising yeast and 1 hour for regular. Bake at 400 for 1 hour, covering with aluminum foil after the first 10 minutes to avoid scorching. Removed from the pan immediately. Cool before slicing. (Well - I didn't - I had a nice hot slice slathered in butter, and it was good).
Nutrients per slice: Calories 110, Fat 3 gm, Cholesterol 15 mg
Sodium 80 mg, Carbohydrates; 19 gm, Protein 2gm, Fiber 1 gm
You can vary it by adding a couple of tablespoons of sesame seed to make sesame graham bread, or 3 tablespoons of almond meal to the dry ingredients, and 2 tablespooons of chopped nuts right before spooning it into the pan to make Nutty Graham bread.
I'm not going to bother giving you the recipe for oatmeal raisin cookies (actually quinoa raisin cookies) because they turned out weird. They taste OK (although not exceptional), but they are definitely weird.

Three Weeks now

For the ONE person who is actually reading my blogs (and persuaded me to start doing this), here is an update on our gluten-free lifestyle. It is now three weeks since we started abstaining from wheat, barley and rye, and I think it has been positive. Bill says he feels better, and is having a lot less flatulence (and less stinky). I have lost some weight, although I have to admit that I am not 100% sure that is because of being gluten-free. I have to give a lot of credit to the lap-band because I am certainly limited on how much I can eat at a time!

I have made several gluten-free dishes that we have both liked, although Tim hasn't cared for them much - except for the Hawaiian Dream Drop Cookies! He didn't care for the Banana-Pineapple cake, although Bill and I both like it. So far the dishes I have made include Tamale Pie, Chicken with Noodles (gluten-free of course), Fruited Rice with Chicken, and Tuna Casserole. I have also made of couple of our traditional dishes that I knew didn't have gluten in them - Chicken Stew and Lima Beans with Ham Hocks.

We have also purchased several things from the health-food store that are gluten-free. I particularly liked the ranch-flavored crackers, and Bill has fallen in love with the shortbread cookies. I finally found a teriyaki marinade that is gluten-free (most of them have soy sauce in them and that contains wheat) and I have found a line of bars that are gluten-free and pretty tasty - Larabars. I particularly like their cherry pie and cinnamon roll flavors.

However, I have to remind myself that gluten-free is not necessarily low-calorie. When I was in San Diego I made a pig of myself with the two boxes of See's candy that my cousin provided - as I had gone on-line to find out that See's is gluten-free (at least their prepackaged boxes of candy). I have also given up (temporarily) on going lactose-free as well as gluten-free. I find dealing with one deletion from our diet is enough to handle right now - but I have it hovering in the back of my mind that I may have to give up chocolate in the long run.

Gluten-free is also not a cheap way to eat - at least at the start. All the specialty flours get expensive, although they last for a while. Funny - I haven't really missed bread at all. We bought some gluten-free brands but I don't care much for them. Of course, with the lap-band I wasn't eating much bread before either.

Oops - running out of time. I'll post again later - just for YOU, daughter dear.

Daughters and Sons

One of my all-time favorite books is 'Seven daughters and seven sons' by Barbara Cohen and Bahija Lovejoy. It is based on a folktale from Iraq that has been around since the 11th century. As in many countries, having sons is considered a blessing, while having daughters is considered a curse. One brother is 'blessed' with seven sons and considerable wealth, while the other brother is 'cursed' with seven daughters and poverty. The story tells how one of the daughters turns the tables on her uncle and cousins.

However, despite the fact that we live in an 'enlightened' time, there is still a bit of the 'sons are better than daughters' philosophy floating around, especially in certain countries. In China, for example, where there is quite a push for couples to only have one child, a male child is much more preferable to a female child, because sons have to support their parents when they grow up - and daughters don't.

If you have ever seen the mini-series 'Thorn Birds', you will hear the mother state that a mother only takes pride in her sons, and not in her daughters. An Irish professor once told me that in old Ireland the sons were treated like kings by their mothers. And from personal experience, it almost seems to be a 'given' that every man wants to have a son.

So - when I tell people that my younger daughter is expected her FOURTH girl, I tend to get sympathy from people. They express the opinion that my son-in-law must be disappointed, if not my daughter. And I am here to tell you that this sympathy is wasted on them, because they are both THRILLED to be having another daughter.

Little girls are a lot of fun - as I know for a fact since we had two daughters ourself. I was recently at a conference where an entertainer mentioned that he has three daughters and he is 'crazy in love' with them. He didn't appear to be the least upset not to have a son.

Don't get me wrong here - my daughter and son-in-law would probably be equally thrilled to have a boy. Whatever the Lord sends them, that's what they want. Every child of theirs will get just as much love whether they are male or female. Just don't go giving them any sympathy because they have a family of females because they don't need it. Besides, you have to be careful what you wish for. As I said before, we had two daughters and no sons - and now we're raising our grandson!