it IS official!

it is now official! my "50 x 50" list has now been changed to a "60 x 60" list. this change has come about for multiple reasons, but mainly b/c i realized that i was staring down the barrel of turning 50 (in 5 years) with way too many things to get done!

some (or many) of the things that i wanted to accomplish before i turned 50 have not happened as quickly as i wanted due to financial reasons or health reasons. by adding more time to my list, i was also able to add some new ideas to my list, too.

previously, i had trouble filling up the list of 50 things that i wanted to accomplish, but now my list is up to #55. still leaves me a littls time to add new things as they might arise in life AND i can always mark something off if my interests have changed. ultimately, the goal is to complete all these wonderful things by the time i'm 60 and have a scrapbook about them.

wish me luck!!!

time to get on it again!

well, as w/ many people and things, the new year provides the perfect time for self-evaluation and resolutions. i haven't written on here in quite a while, allowing the views of others to impact what i would write about. it has now come about in my life that these viewsopinions mean nothing to me, so why make changes in life because of them?

i originally started this blog to record some stories from my childhood for my children to have. also, i wanted an outlet for my creativity, my personal celebrations, and a little family bragging. this blog is for my friends and my family -- period. if you don't fall into one of those categories, you might as well get lost. i don't need your blessing and you don't need mine. no need for anyone to get confused about that point.

there have been LOTS of events in the last 5 years that i haven't posted b/c of someone else's views or feelings. i'll be making those up now some time, to make this a more relevant accounting of life and events -- both mine and ours.

2011 hand prints - family

well, we've missed a couple years of getting our handprints stamped on new year's day . . . but we got back on it this year! we had scott here and summer/lucas/raven/riahna/rain as well as jerry and me. i will get these "autographed" by the participants -- probably on superbowl day.

i think this is such a neat way to document and visualize how much the kids (including my own grown children) have grown and how our family has grown in size (inclusiong and reproduction)! i have a few other pages of these where we all fit on the one page. we could've squeezed it all in this year, but it was more easily created and viewed w/ being a little spread out.

wow! new recipe!!!

tonight i tried a new recipe for dinner, and it was truly fantastic! i've been trying new things specifically to try and work more veggies into our diet and to keep the variety. fantastic!!!

this dinner made a full meal for 2 adults w/ enough leftovers for another meal for 1 person. this will be perfect for jerry, since i have night class tomorrow night! to make this recipe go further, use 16 oz pasta as the recipe originally called for. i knew that since it was just for the 2 of us, we didn't need such a large amount to serve or of leftovers from a 1# pasta batch.

sweet and sour noodles

* salt
* 8 oz pasta
* 1 lb chicken or pork, sliced very thin
* 2 leeks, thinly sliced and cleaned
* 2 handfuls shitake mushrooms - sliced
* 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
* 2" piece ginger root, minced
* 1/3 c dark soy sauce
* 2 T agave syrup or honey
* 1 lime, zest and juice
* hot sauce to taste
* 2 c shredded lettuce (romaine or iceberg)
* cilantro or basil for garnish

bring a pot of water to a boil for the pasta. add salt and cook pasta to al dente.

when the pasta goes into the water, heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat. add the chicken or pork, brown and transfer to a plate.

add the leeks and mushrooms to the skillet and stir fry for 2 minutes. add the garlic and ginger and cook for a minute more. stir in the agave syrup or honey, lime zest and juice and hot sauce, to taste.

in a large serving bowl, toss the veggies with the meat, noodles and lettuce to combine.

garnish with cilantro or basil and serve with lime wedges alongside.

farmers' market

this is our new project this year -- farmers' market in pittsburg. we're doing this project together w/ summer and lucas and family. the little girls are great help w/ projects like this! sometimes that's true and sometimes that's not true, but they still believe it to be true. if you are ever in doubt, they will certainly give you instructions on what you should be doing or involve you in a dirt clod fight!

we've had a garden each year for the last 3 years, but this year we made our garden bigger with the intention of having some produce to sell at farmers' market. it seems like each year we have more than we can use of something, and sometimes we have more than we can find homes for use! by planning to do this, it insured that we had what we needed and hopefully some extra.

i can tomatoes, salsa, greenbeans, jalapenos, pickles, relish, and find uses for the other produce in cooking or meal prep. this year, i've put about 30 bags of zucchini in the freezer to make zucchini bread. it's already cooked and measured out in the needed amount. i've picked some blackberries and put in the freezer. i told a friend the other day that i'm in a "feeding the freezer" frenzy! if we don't start eating some of this stuff soon -- there won't be any room for the beef that we're wanting to butcher soon!

so this year we planted our garden of the things that we like to use, and we just planted extra. that way if that crop was just ok, we still had what we wanted to use. if the crop was bountiful -- we had enough to sell at farmers' market.

as you can see from the picture, the crop has been bountiful so far. we still have a ton of tomatoes that need to ripen, but they seem to be taking their own sweet time about getting there! we also have tons more gourds, a few more canteloupe, new zuchhini planted and growing, and turnips growing.

this picture is from farmers' market this morning. we had birdhouse gourds, green peppers, canteloupes, red tomatoes, husky gold tomatoes, sweet tangerine tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, cherry tomatoes (sugar snack, sun gold, and italian ice), zucchini, basil, and mint.

summer made a batch of fresh pesto (basil and olive oil) and served samples on some italian bread. lots of people tried samples and then bought basil to make their own. we sold out of basil very quickly, but we still handed out samples. we laughed and called it a "teaser" for next week so people would come back!

i think next week summer's going to make pesto again, and we're going to make and serve mint tea. we've been having mint-flavored tea a lot lately -- very refreshing!

so now you know that friday nights at our house are spent picking, carrying, washing, sorting, packing, and planning for what's going to farmers' market on saturday mornings. we have garden work time another couple nights a week, but friday night seems to be the most involved. we're planning to do this again next year, except we're planning it bigger and better!

come see us at farmers' market!

watermelon from our garden

so far, here is our prize winner (for us!) -- a 21 pound watermelon from our garden. we haven't grown very many watermelon and haven't grown them for farmers' market, but just for us.

jerry has been just dying to pick this one and checks it each time we're outside. i used to laugh at my grandpa burger for checking his watermelon patch several times a day, but now i know why! they really change from morning to evening.

we cut this watermelon for our dessert last night when summer, lucas, riahna, and rain were here. it was very good, but would've gone passed its prime if we had waited much longer. now we have about 30 or so more out there that we need to be getting picked!

anyone like watermelon? now you know what we'll be serving for the next week or so at our house!

it's always something

well, life goes on as usual -- but things are changing for some! ever notice how someone seems to make a major life change (like quitting a solid job in the chosen career field for returning to school to work on another degree in the same career field) and then brushes it off as if it was something he or she just wanted to do?

typically, that's a load of BS and usually that person made this decision with some help from someone else -- like the boss who didn't rehire the person, like the special someone who doesn't call back, or like the schoolboard that non-renews a contract. as a university instructor, i know this is a common storyline that people use to cover up some major life-altering screw-up that affected far more people than the idiot who made the original stupid decisions that resulted in the "life-style changes".

in today's economy, only a fool would give up a career to go back to school to try and get a higher degree to get a higher position in the same field at some later time. the bad thing is that with a non-renew on the record, the higher position is not likely to ever follow. after all, administrators talk and someone will eventually tell what it was that brought about the non-renewal. people don't forget it when their child has been put in danger by the careless and heartless actions of someone else.

if the person making the idiotic decisions was in a teaching position when the stupid decisions possibly harmed a child and/or family, no level of achievement or higher degree would make that ugly situation disappear when that person later is job-hunting. after all, who would that person use as job references? co-workers? parents? former students? or maybe administrators? what would they have to say of that person or about the scenario.

while some people might think these things are better left in the closet -- i think some things are much better left out of the courtroom! i know that if my children had even been in that position where they were put into danger by the thoughtless and careless acts of someoneone else -- there would be no need to file charges and no need to take up the valuable time of the court system. that lets you know my family's views on child abuse!!!

the BIG tomato

well, summer is almost over and we have spent much of our time gardening and preserving! we've had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, but here is the "monster tomato" from our garden so far -- 1 lb and 1 oz. i knew there would be some sceptics in the family, so i've taken a picture of the tomato on the kitchen scales as proof! we've had many tomatoes that weighed in at almost a pound, but just not quite.

so far, we've canned 70 qts of tomatoes & 24 pints of jalapenos, and we've frozen 15 qts of sweet corn and 56 qts of apple sauce. we still have more tomatoes and jalapenos coming on, cucumbers picked to make pickles, and more zucchini than we can keep up w/ giving away!

we have over 30 canteloupes coming on (and have already picked 3) and have about 20 watermelons on the vine. the way we have it figured -- the canteloupes and the watermelons will probably all be ready at the same time! if that happens, i'm not really sure what we'll do w/ all that produce!

we have had SO much fun watching our garden and watching the grandchildren "helping" in the garden. then grandpa started making all these rules like "no throwing dirt" and "no kicking dirt" and pretty soon it'll be "no having fun"!

i told jerry if he wasn't careful, no one would be going to the garden w/ him if he had all those rules! it's rather hard for me to enforce rules on the grandkids when i'm not willing to follow them myself! but, i guess i could just throw a rotten tomato instead??? i'm sure that would be just ducky -- don't you think?

evelyn's quilt for auction

the elliott reunion is coming up very soon, and evelyn has her quilt ready for the auction. the auction is the fundraiser to support the reunion expenses that may occur in preparing the reunion gathering. this year, evelyn has designed a family quilt (with jennifer and janie and joleen's help) that notes this reunion was held in missouri, has a block for the elliott parents, and a block for each of the children (evelyn and her siblings). this is also a memorable reunion because it's the first time the reunion has been anywhere except nebraska.

this is quite an amazing quilt and very meaningful to the family members. jerry and i have already decided what we are willing to bid for this treasure and we're hoping that we come away the proud winners. we understand that we might not be, but we're going to give it a run for the money!

bidders must be present to bid and/or win any auction items. be prepared and be forewarned!

midwest storms

many people have asked lately about the tornadoes near us and what was going on with that. this is a photo of the tornado from 5/10/08 that hit picher, OK, through seneca, MO (south edge of joplin, MO), and then on down through granby, MO.

this picture was taken from the parking lot of central school in baxter springs, KS -- about 10 minutes from picher, OK, area. i received this picture through email, so i'm not sure who should get the credit for the original photograph.

ireport has posted several pictures of this incident if you're interested in specific destruction of this area.

this particular tornado rated an EF 3-4 on the scale, which means it's pretty bad. i've not ever noticed a hyphenated number before, but i guess it could've changed levels of destruction as it traveled or something. if you're interested in tornado ratings, you can read the classifications.

what can i say? not a lot going on in tornado alley during tornado season -- other than watching the storms roll in and (hopefully) right on by. we had another tornado warning last night and could hear the pittsburg, KS, sirens going off. part of the my kids were already here and the other part arrived shortly before the sirens. i guess it was more fun to watch the storm from here!

last night to keep raven from being scared of tornadoes, i told her that's how a person gets to oz to see the wizard -- so she just went on about playing as if there was nothing wrong. no need having her crying as well as riahna, who was afraid of the thunder (and the cat and the dog and the train, etc!)