I love working with children. I had a daycare
job years ago and have been working with children in church for many years
now. I was told that, for my first two years, I would catch every cold and
illness that comes along. This is true. I was sick much more often.
The flip side is that I also became immune to
many things and today, I do not catch nearly as many colds as I used to.
Right now my husband is sick and I am trying to keep liquids down him. It could
be a 24-hour stomach virus, food poisoning or whatever, but I am glad that
I am able to help him. I felt a little sick yesterday. The feeling left
me last night while he seems to have gotten worse.
I've also heard the walking outdoors prevents
a lot of airborne illnesses -- probably not just by increasing one's
fitness levels, but getting away from indoor airborne germs, too, and
getting a dose of outside aur. Of
course, nothing is perfect and we still get sick often enough. (But its
not all these food experiments I've been doing -- because I am eating them
and I am fine! lol)
This was better than we expected: Take 1 &
1/2 cups frozen seedless red grapes, 1/4 to 1/3 cup frozen blueberries, 1
& 1/4 cups skim milk, 10 packets Splenda and a touch of almond flavoring
(1/4 tsp or more). Blend it all up until smooth. My husband and I both
loved it. We'll be making this again.
Snopes.com said that this could be true. At
any rate, it is funny. Snopes even supplies access. Here's
the text that is going around with this link (thanks to Jennifer C.):
Don't mess with Bible-totin' old ladies..
Read this little explanation and thenlisten to the voicemail. You just have to laugh
with the guy.
This is hilarious!
On a recent Spurs trip, we were asking one of our sponsors who
works at Jack in the Box for some funny stories or experiences
with the company. The funniest story he had was when an
operations manager was late for a meeting and called his boss
to tell him he was running late. As he was leaving the voice
mail message, he witnessed an accident and went on to provide
"play by play" of the incident.
After telling us the story, he promised to send us a copy of
the voice mail and here it is. This is the actual voice mail
message. It was passed along and forwarded so many times
within Jack in the Box that it crashed their voice mail
server.
My husband sent this link to me. It is
a fascinating story of what goes on behind the scenes of a car dealership
from Edmunds.com. They sent a spy out into the field for months to learn
the truth about how a car is sold and what kind of profits are made --
stuff goes on that I never would have imagined. The most valuable information is on the
last page, a quick guide for car buyers -- good advice.
(P.S. The Vita-Mix made an awesome smoothie.
I threw in half a frozen banana and some frozen strawberries and
blueberries, a touch of vanilla, a few packets of Splenda, a little fiber
power and skim milk. It was quick to make. Cleanup is nothing -- just soap and water whirred around in the container. I think I like that part
best -- cleaning up is a breeze.)
I tried making bread. After carefully examining the recipe, I put wheat
kernels in the Vita-Mix. It did a beautiful job grinding the wheat to
powder. It was not as fine as my electric K-Tec mill does it, but the
coarseness was a pleasant change and it was fine enough.
What I noticed is that the wheat gets VERY
hot. It needs to cool down for about an hour so that the heat does not
kill the yeast. They recommend freezing the wheat kernels first to try and
keep things cooler, but waiting an hour seems to work.
It only makes a small loaf. For an average
loaf pan, it takes two batches. The bread was okay -- not as good as using
the fine flour but it was edible and hearty. The only drawback was a
slight bitter taste. I am not sure, but I think getting the
flour as hot as it does, causes some bitter flavor to come out -- and
I have never seen a recipe for regular whole wheat bread calling for lemon
juice. I tried a batch with it and without it and I prefer the bread
without it.
Tomorrow, I am making smoothies! From the
comments at Epinions.com, this
makes the best smoothies on the planet. (P.S. Let me say that Epinions.com
is a great place to get advice before buying anything like this.)
After lusting for this for decades (my uncle
sold them when I was a child so it was imprinted on me early), I
finally got a
Vita-Mix. It arrived via UPS in perfect
shape. I set it up, watched the video and followed the startup
recommendation to put some water inside with a couple of drops of dish
detergent then whir it for a few seconds.
This whirring was fine. I wanted to see
how fast it could go. I know 2 horsepower is very strong so I cranked it
up all the way. Bam! The lid flew off, sudsy water was thrown out so quickly that it hit my kitchen TV's
"on" button and turned the thing on, then soaked the counter and
TV -- all in the
time it took to blink.
Now, the kitchen counter TV is haunted. It keeps turning
itself on and ignores the remote. It does something different every time I
plug it in. Right now, it is changing channels all by itself. Before that,
it would change the volume by itself. I am still getting a perfect image.
Maybe I should have seen that White Noise movie.
P.S. I just didn't have the lid snapped on
correctly. I am making bread right now with hard wheat kernels. It ground
the wheat effortlessly and made a nice loaf which is rising as I type.
Not every kitchen wonder device is worth the
time it takes to set up and clean. While I love my Salad Shooter for big
jobs, grating only one tiny potato is not worth the trouble to put it
together and clean it up later.
So, here I am making fried potatoes for
breakfast, using my trusty box grater when I notice that I had grated the
top of my thumb. Argh! Maybe I should have set up the whole device after
all.
On the postive side, I came back from
Williams-Sonoma with wonderful new cup and spoon measures. With one scoop,
I can measure 2 cups or 1 & 1/2 cups, half a tablespoon and other odd
sizes. I wish I had some way to hang these from the ceiling on a rack for
easy access. H-m-m-m-m.
While in Williams-Sonoma ( a nice place to
spend the day), I saw a commercial grade waffle iron -- the kind that flips over
as it cooks, just like Waffle House uses.
I want it. Unfortunately, I have no more counter space. We will
have to build on to the house so we can keep one.
Everything can
center around the little stuff. Last Sunday, I found a pair of shoes in my
closet that I wanted to wear to church. I built my whole outfit around
those shoes, matching the dress, earrings, etc., to the shoes. It felt
perfect. Nobody can have too many shoes. Looks like we will need to build onto the house to create a nice
big shoe closet, too.