You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May, 2008.
What I am reading right now…
What I did today…
What I saw today…
And then, there was me… and My baby.
This weeks question for our Blog Meme was,
What book would you like to see made into a movie? Describe the cast and if possible, why you chose them.
This is a difficult one as I know my mother did my first choice but the more I thought about it I came up with,
Camellia By Ginny Aiken
The story is about a pregnant widow who runs a boarding house. The youngest of three and her little “Mutley” get wound up in a mystery with the new town Dr. a budhist in desperate need of reformation.
My cast would be;
Camellia - Katherine Heigl
Dr. Stephen - Anthony Howell Matthew McConaughey
Sophie- Kali Rocha How on earth did I geta young girl for her??? Umm… Mia Dillon? (Gods and Generals)
Willie- Michael Gambon James Earl Jones
Myrna- Sophie Thomson
Magnolia- Bridgette Wilson
Lark - Nicole Kidman
Wiggon the policeman-
Louella- Julie Andrews or Helen Mirren
Girl Student- Emmy Rossum (cause I like her ;))
ETA- see what happens when you only watch British movies???
There are many ways we enjoy the first fruits. In this respect it’s our first Fruit enjoying the first fruit of the garden…
One yummy tomato… no, we didn’t really let her eat it..yet.
I found some pictures online that I thought would be a nice reflection to think on. Pictures are worth a thousand words
Yellow rose, for memorial
With small exceptions this is what will usually go on in my household.
5:30-6:30 AM (depending on Emma) wake up, feed the baby and slowly creep out of the comfy bed.
6:30-7:00 Eat breakfast, make husband’s lunch.
7:00-7:30- Get ready to leave for work (hubby) Make bed (me) Drink some water after eating breakfast (Emma)
Now it’s time for Mommy and Daughter devotions. Mainly because I need a bit more time.
Emma has Bible time too.
By this time all of us are usually dressed. Usually we would be going for a walk but this day the wind was going to hard so we contented ourselves inside for 1/2 hour. Not exactly sure what we did but soon enough it was time for Emma’s nap. Down she went.
It was then about 8:30, my time for being in the garden. Today I must transplant some poorly looking tomatoes and weed out some of the garden. The tomatoes will go into the row that the peas were in. We harvested em all and ate every last one of them. Next year we will have many more rows of said peas.
On my way in I just took another picture of this gorgeous plant.
Today I had a few letters to get sent. This lil lap desk was a gift many years ago from my dear mother and father. It has served me faithfully. I often think of a burning candle and a old feather pen and ink. But anyway, I set myself to work.
It is about 9:30 now so I will spend the next hour on the computer. I check email, blog some, check other blogs, check my message boards, check any auctions, check this and that, do some research, chat with my friends. Emma usually will wake up about 10:30-11:30
Then it is time to do some other things. Play time is now. While she will play;
I will be busy sewing….
That there became this;
Usually by noon we are anxiously awaiting Daddy’s daily lunch call. Emma knows the telephone will ring and will light up with smiles when it’s her turn to gurgle to Daddy. Not sure what breathing code they have going between them but I know it’s something special.
The afternoon is pretty much our school time. Yes even 7 month old Emma has her school work to do. Here you see her studying about critters from her Usbourne book. She is such a smart lil thing that usually she completes this within 45 seconds of recieving her work.
Emma REALLY loves her Usbourne book.
Next is her Math. Here she is learning subtraction.
“If Mommy gave you 6 cherios and you eat 4, how many will you have left?”
Here Mommy had to do a few errands and didn’t get back home til about 4:00pm.
Now we also mustn’t forget our music lessons. Here we are teaching her Beethoven’s 5th.
Approval from the pianist Daddy is always a must. Daddy gave the thumbs up!
Dinner!
On a hot summer day we like the cool meals in life. Sandwhiches and Cantelope. Can’t go wrong with that!
Euphemia is enjoying her carrots, beef, and rice
After dinner is our quieting down time. Mommy will do the dishes. Euphemia will “content” herself on the floor, Daddy will do various gardening tasks or in the case of last night work more on the cooler electrical. It is time again for devotionals. Euphemia sits nicely on Daddy’s lap sucking her two fingers, while mommy concentrates on Daddy’s reading while her needle goes up and down on the cloth she holds.
8:30 Emma goes down for the night. I am making apple butter tonight as we are running low. I so enjoy the smell of apple and cinnamon cooking. IN the morning the fresh smell helps us get up better. And tomorrow we will have toast and fresh apple butter.
Compost!
mmmm, can you smell it now?
And then we retire. I write a bit in my journal. Hubby will read another few pages from his Louis L’ amour Novel and we will head off to sleep….
When a “country night” is mentioned I think of a swaying porch swing, crickets and frogs singing, full moons, a sky so black that the stars seem bigger and brighter than ever. Well, here in our little area we experiance all that in the day. Well, the frog and cricket songs anyway. AS I type this my windows are open to let the summer breeze come in. I have no curtain fluttering in the wind because soon that breeze will turn into a dust devil. I hear the crickets chirping all the time all day here. Our neighbor has some very large and very full Oleander bushes (BLECH!) that seems to grow not only bush wise but bug wise. We have thousands of cockroaches, and other such things. But its the cricket songs that remind me of the Country LIfe dream.
The other night it was a beautiful cool evening. So my husband and I pulled out the old kitchen chairs and put them on the front porch and talked like we did back in the courtin’ days. We talked about the life we dreamed of (real farm!) the “pets” we someday would have (chickens, goats and horses) and all that. The crickets sang (or scoffed at) for us that night too. It was not long before the child emerged from my husband when I pointed a frog not to far away. With a leap (like the frog) he was after it. I took his picture
That’s no frog! That’s a Horney Toad! He must have been tryin’ to court Molly Mouse. For those of you that are a little confused, type in “Froggie went a courtin’” on google search. Sung only by the Brothers Four. The best group out there. And they are still living! Imagine that! 
Tomorrow I plan to post about a day in the life of sodbusters…Chas blog (see right hand side) has really interested me enough that I wanna do it too.
I couldn’t think of a more snatching title and since I have some ladies that love my garden updates I thought I would appease them. 
Today will only be the garden up by the house. Mainly flowers but there are some tomatoe plants and herbs.
Snapdragons, Alysum, Volunteer Black-eyed-Susan we think.
More snapdragons, gladiolas, Pansy, and not sure what the other one is…
Tomatoes
More tomatoes, gladiolas, dying tulips, marigold, and alysum
Flower bed up by the house
After hollyhocks the African Daisy is my hubby’s favorite flower. Although he doesn’t know it, but its one of the first flowers he eyes and buys. More tomatoes and you can see the herbs peaking in their pots. I think the cilantro is going to go to pot though… no pun intended.
And our budding gardener… She is planning to compost the left over herb soil and replant. What a helper!
Saw this on another blog (kirky!) and thought I would do it;
1. One movie that made you laugh:
Columbo
2. One movie that made you cry:
Victoria and Albert
3. One movie you loved when you were a child:
Sargeant York
4. One movie you’ve seen more than once:
North and South (E Gaskell)
5. One movie you loved, but were embarrassed to admit it:
ummmm, honestly, I can’t think of one.
6. One movie you hated:
African Queen
7. One movie that scared you:
The Birds
8. One movie that bored you:
Casablanca
9. One movie that made you happy:
Wives and Daughters
10. One movie that made you miserable:
Mayor of Castabridge
11. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see:
Two for the Money or something like that. We walked out of the theatre’s. Nothing scary but we weren’t brave enough to sit through the language.
12. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with:
Stocky from Victoria and Albert, Roger from Wives and Daughters, Thorton from North and South. Honestly, there is just too many to name. Knightly from Emma, EEEK!
But, I have always had a desire to be Fanny from Mansfield Park.
13. The last movie you saw:
watching, Cranford, on youtube
14. The next movie you hope to see:
The new Anne Hathaway movie…
15. Name a book you would like to see as a movie.
hmmm, Sophie’s Heart by Lori Wick
Now tag five people:
Anyone that wants to chime in…feel free.
I love Taco Bell’s Mexican pizza. So I thought I would make a GF quick and easy version.
Ingredients;
organic refried beans
salsa
Shredded cheese
Olives
corn tortilla’s
taco’d ground beef
Heat your corn tortilla’s either on the stove top or microwave. Heat up your refried beans and your taco meat.
1 layer, 1 tortilla, refried beans. I used about 2-3 spoon dollups.
2 layer, 1 tortilla, thin layer of refried beans, taco meat, salsa, cheese, olives.
Voila. Add a bit of cilantro (or parsley) for an extra zinger.
1. place… BunnyB!!!!!!!!!!!
Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please contact me, c.neipp@gmail.com on what you would like and where to send it. Thank you for participating and I hope to see you here more often!
2. place goes to… Jennifer!!!!!!
CONGRATULATIONS! As the runner up you recieve the unclaimed prize. So if #1 does the book you recieve the necklace or visa versa. Please contact me at, c.neipp@gmail.com for a shipping address for your prize and thank you for stopping by! Hope to see you around!
Thank you all for participating. This was the most comments I recieved and I enjoyed everyone and stopping by ya’all’s blogs too.
Tomorrow!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, so I have wanted to do one forever! But I was never sure what I could use as a prize that people would love. Since my most recent Gardening posts I thought I would offer this as one choice,
You can find more about it here,
The other option for the not-so-green-thumb-readers is this lovely new necklace;
You don’t have to keep this for yourself, they would make lovely gifts. But heck, the fun is seeing the chance to win right????
So, what do you have to do???? Well, easy, just post a comment and link me back to your blog (if you have one) or a way to contact you. I love knowing who is reading my blog and I look forward to new names!
knock yourself out!
Coming Monday! Stay tuned!
Not sure what today is going to be like in the meal planning arena. We did cold cereal (corn checks with toasted oats) for breakfast. We may do chicken salad chip n dip for lunch with veggies.
You make a basic chicken salad, and then use corn chips to eat it with. Nice light lunch.
Chicken salad
1-2 chicken bosoms (breast) cut up
large spoon of mayoniase (We use the soy-free from Trader Joe’s)
dollop of mustard- We will probably use a spicy mustard for this
diced celery stalk
dash of pepper
Dinner will probably be tri tip bbq sandwhiches. What I do is I take the left-over tri tip (usually cooked in the crockpot from Sunday) douse it very well with bbq sauce (hickory smoke of course ) and bake it at about 200 degree’s for 1 1/2 hours in the oven. Slap some mayo on your Ezekial bread and voila. Nice sandwhich. Since we are babysitting tonight this will help cut the time down. And it’s always good to have a fresh salad to go with such a meal.
Ok, since we had eggs again for breakfast (I know a lady that would be very proud of me, so winks to her!) I am going to share another way to make oatmeal. I made this once since knowing I was pregnant.
Oatmeal has a lot of fiber in it so it’s best to balance it out with some carbs and protein, here is a delicious way to make sure you have no oatmeal leftovers!
Servings: 4
Bring two cups of milk to a small boil. This means that you don’t want it boiling but a few bubbles in the pan. Add two eggs and 1/2 cup of oatmeal. Reduce heat to simmer and stir occasionaly.
Serve with a pinch of cinnamon and brown sugar.
For lunch:
Turkey sandwhich on Ezekial bread with cheese and fresh lettuce, apple, raw almonds, boiled egg, and veggies. I will be having turkey sandwhich and the left over clam chowder (small bowl).
Dinner:
Cooked chicken, Rice, cooked veggies
How to cook your chicken. I prefer chicken bosoms (breasts as they are more commonly known). So I use this marinade. The lemond juice gives it a more tender taste. It’s best to let the chicken sit atleast 3 hours before cooking. Cook at oven temp. 350 for 45 minutes - 1 hour
Marinade for Chicken
1 or 2 garlic cloves, crushes
1/2 tsp. Curry powder or 1 tsp. crushed cuminseeds
1/2 tsp. dried terragon or basil
1 tsp. Salt
1 TBSP. Salad oil/dressing
3 TBSP of lemon or lime juice
dash or two of pepper.
Another way to use the leftovers for this is to mash the chicken in the rice. It sounds horrible but it really gives the rice a good flavor and a different approach to chicken.
It’s been a hectic day and since it’s nearly bedtime I will only breifly enter what we had today for our meals.
Breakfast: Eggs, toast, and cereal (yes again. How boring we are. )
Lunch: Leftover Chili, Apple, Raw Almonds, Veggies, and boiled Egg
Dinner: Chicken Soup, Salad
I made the chicken soup by putting the following ingredients in a crock pot for 2 hours on high and 1 1/2 hours on low.
6 Chicken thighs
3 carrots
3 potato’s
2 stalks of celery with leaves (flavor)
4 cups of CHicken stalk + 2 cups of water (LOVE broth!)
2 bay leaves
2 TBSP Dried Parsely
2 tsp. Salt
1/8 tsp. Pepper
3/4 cup of cooked rice (we used Jasmine Basmati Brown Rice)
Additional herbs maybe used such as;
1/2 tsp. Thyme
1 TBSP Basil
1/2 tsp. Oregano
I love using the additional herbs cause I just love herbs but I find that my husband perfer’s the soup without. Just a side tidbit there.
When someone says, “Gluten Free”, intsantly people think, “Oh! No wheat.” I wish it was as simple as that!
If you are looking to become Gluten Free, you probably have already looked at the ingredients on food products in the store. If you were like me, you jaw dropped at the fact that your once full shopping cart only has a few GF items. For the most part, everything we eat has wheat in it. For those of you just curious about GF or perusing my blog, I challenge you to go and look into your cupboards and take percentage of how many things include wheat.
Being GF was not just about cutting out wheat for us. I have to cut out any bean flour cause it just don’t agree with either my husband or myself. Trader Joes sells a rice bread that takes a bit of getting use to but once I am pregnant, the xyantham gum is just too heavy for my body. I get easily constipated, more tired, and just in general avoid it. Unlike my husband, I can eat wheat. But once I had our first daughter I realized that I would have to entirely cut it out while I was breast-feeding her.
I have not done the extensive research most people have on the cause of being so allergic to wheat. I got married and had to throw away most of what I had learned about cooking. I could not be the story-book housewife that I had always dreamed could be. There was no fresh pies to be made. I could not have a batch of cookies on the weekends for him to enjoy. All of what I knew how to make like, Chicken pot pie, spaghetti, beef stroganoff, Wild rice soup, or any kind of casserole made with noodles, bread, etc. It was very discouraging (even though I had been preparing myself for months beforehand on making dinners for him… but I had never even made a breakfast! No waffles, no pancakes, no french toast, no toast! No bagels with cream cheese, no breakfast biscuts with gravy. See what I mean? It’s hard!
But, although something may be hard, it doesn’t necessarily mean its impossible! More and more products are being made to help the GF and desperate housewives. I intend to this week show our menu and give you some idea on what can be done to create a lovely, simple menu for gluten free users.
Since I posted this on Tuesday I will tell you what we had yesterday;
breakfast: Organic, toasted oats and corn flakes, banana
Lunch: Hubby took to work, tri-tip sandwhich on Ezekial Bread, corn tortilla, raw almonds, boiled egg, apple and some cheese
Dinner: Salad, fresh lettuce from the garden, Clam Chowder made by Big Bear Creek. Entirely Gluten Free.
Today;
Breakfast: Eggs, toast (Ezekial bread again) with homemade Apple butter, yogurt with toasted oats
Lunch: Left over Subway sandwhich (yes wheat. He will regret it later on. But, oh, he was wanted wheat so bad.) , Apple, boiled egg, cheese, carrot, broccoli, cauliflower veggie bag, and raw almonds.
Dinner: I plan on making chili. We use organic beans which seem to agree with us better, 1lb of ground beef, 1 can of mexican diced tomatoes, 1 taco seasoning package, 1 can of corn
Stay tuned!
As we went for our morning stroll this morning, we hitted out a bit earlier than usual. The last few days the early mornings have been gorgeous while later on the wind picks up and its just nasty. So while we got our fresh air and tissues wadded up (for those that suffer with allergies) we enjoyed the scenic views. We don’t live on a well to do street, but we are surrounded with more ritzy homes. The grass IS green on the other side. So we decided to go and enjoy the view. It is almost 8am now. People are leaving for work. What struck me so was the fact that most would smile as their car would pass us. But what was more fascinating to watch was the faces and ages of the women. Most of the younger women between the ages of 18 and 30 were talking on their cell phones and would give a quick smile to the baby. The women from say 35-50 had more of a wishful face on them. Now this is just general statistics. It was not that way with EVERY person we passed. Some were concentrating on make-up, radio, time, etc to even notice us.
I have to admit it, there is just something more appealing about needing to keep up with personal appearance, snazzy clothes, cool cell phones, fancy cars, and a fresh cup of coffee every day. Heck, I’ve tried but I can find nothing appealing or novelty in scrubbing toilets, changing messy diapers (especially that), or making a bed. But I love staying home and taking care of my baby. I love having a garden to tend. I love doing dishes (could care less about the rest of the kitchen though), I love the smell of a good dinner. I love a happy husband coming home and just smiling.
The novelty of everything new and exciting soon wears off, no matter what you are doing. We, sahm/w’s are accused of not being able to be happy or satisfied, or fulfilled, yet we cannot dare say anything negative about the women that choosed to work. It’s all about choice. What we choose will affect us in some way. Whether it be something small or something much more significant.
I will not always be around, my work will not always be here for me, but the children I raise will live for many more years. What a thought that gives me. What am I going to teach them?
Isn’t it gorgeous? I have decided to sell some. You can purchase 1 for $4 + shipping or buy 3 for $10 + shipping. Name your color. Please allow 2 weeks for this busy lady to send them out. They measure 10.5″x11″. Made from 100% cotton. Thank you.
Paypal prefered- c.neipp@gmail.com (please note to me what it is for). Or please email me at , c.neipp@gmail.com for money order. I am so excited.
What a relief! Shall I explain? Thanks to my dear friend Cathe, I was able to attempt knitting and purling in the same row without creating quadruple the stitches. Ahem, So first, THANK YOU CATHE! You kept my sanity at 8:30pm and I was able to sleep well dreaming of many dishcloths (amazingly they all looked like they were made for my mother’s kitchen.).
So, without further adeu, my working project;
Isn’t it pretified? Lie, if need be. I am very humbly proud! I am reading to make my own pattern for grapes! Ohh.. can you see it?
And now, for the highlight of this post….
Ain’t she cute?
I also want to thank my readers for the lovely comments! It’s such a joy to see them. I intend to reply to each one of our new readers…soon!
So, we where we live is also a military base (mom don’t check grammar there). We have/had two libraries, the base library and the town library. The base library closed and donated all it’s books to the town library. The town library had no storage room for it all so they hosted a LARGE booksale. Everything was CHEAP! YAY! So hubby and I went. The first weekend (last week) they had half a dance studio arrayed with books while the other half was huge Home Depot boxes of books not even sorted. This was day 1. We hit a gold mine! I found a lot of Eleanor Stratton Porter (Girl of the Limberlost, Freckles, Etc). books, Hubby was in heaven with his political, biographical, dictionary finds. I found some biographies that I will enjoy too! Anyway, back to this booksale; Its three day weekend for ask long as it takes to get rid of the books. Heck, we and the librarians thought that would be months. However, we arrived today, our second weekend. Friday. The boxes were very few, the books were depleated and we could see a large dent had been made. Maybe by Sunday it will all be taken care of. Why am I blogging about this? Because I love a good book find!
Some of my treasures include;
Early works of Jane Austen
The story of the Von Trapp Family by Maria Trapp
Biography of Florence Nightengale
Janette Oke
Grace Livingston Hill
and so so so much more. I think we will need a new bookshelf that’s how many books between hubby and I we purchased. Now, for the great part? Maybe $200 worth of books for about $30? Can you say, DAROOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wanna know my secret find? Dare I admit it? What shall it do to my reputation??
I found a case file on….Jack the Ripper. Ladies don’t faint. Men don’t grab your swords. He is not my hero. But this man shows “evidence” that it was not one man but three. It peaked my interest. I will probably read it and pass it along or sell it. Definetly not one I want my girlie to pick up by accident.
I also found a book that has been “recently discovered” about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (who can tell me who that is?) about two case files he tried to solve. I say tried cause I haven’t read the book yet.
So, did you find this entry as fun as I had writting it?
