Kansas City Chorale- NYC

some audio clips of my choir warming up and rehearsing German.

Dreams Really Do Come True

Thanks to my gorgeous and multi-talented husband I now am the proud owner of a raised bed garden. He bought the wood himself and painted it and then cut the wood and built it. I think it looks FABULOUS!!! He said he did some calculating and it only took 2,000 pounds of dirt to fill this thing. :) I can't wait to brainstorm with him about the vegetables we'll put in. It was a lot of hard work and I am so grateful. Hopefully we'll be blessed with a bountiful harvest this first year. I'm so excited.

NYC and Family

Here are some recent pictures during this busy time of March. Here's one of my mom standing in a bucket of water cutting Ben's hair. Mom and I cut Ben's hair and I was about to give her a homestyle pedicure.

I took my niece and nephew to Crown Center for some running around.


I don't think we're in Alabama, Toto.


My stunning sister, Stephanie, holding Gwen.

Here is what a freaky musical elf looks like. Why do I think this stuff is funny?

We had lunch at a restaurant where little trains drop off your food.


My little engineer.


Me in New York City standing beside a poster advertising our choir. We had a good concert and it was a good trip. I like visiting the city, but I was ready to come home to some quiet and grass (the kind you have in the yard) and my Benny and baby.

The Day Is Done

My choir is singing a song setting of the following poem. I think it is beautiful. It is about reading to a child at bedtime. It's by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time.

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And to-night I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And come like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

Meal Plan

Baked tilapia, potatoes, peas
roast, potatoes, carrots
cheesy chicken and salsa skillet
curried chicken pot pie, salad- made last night and amazingly mother liked the curried chicken pot pie
hamburgers, salad
split pea soup with turkey bacon

Review-
teriaki tukey tenderloin was good
shrimp- easy as always
curried butternut squash soup- ok, sounded good, looked good until I stirred it and some of it popped and hit me in the face causing a burn. Not third degree...but anywho. It was just ok... will not make that again.
chicken mexican lasagna- good and easy. Did not cook it the full hour it said to and it was fine.
Scones- turned out a little weird to me. A bit cakey for me.
Ezekial bread- didn't make it yet. I will though.

Gwen Going Mobile

I took a photo and a movie tonight at Gwen's bath time. She is such a happy and now MOBILE young lady. I can't believe how fast she has learned all that she has learned. She's almost 9 months now.


I told mom tonight that holding on to Gwen when she wants to crawl is like holding on to a greased pig. You southerners know what I mean. (although I don't think I've ever tried to hold a greased pig...but I've seen others try)

Who's That Dude?

Today I noticed our neighbor's daffodils are blooming (which is amazing considering we had 3 inches of snow last Saturday!) and so Gwen and I walked in the backyard to see if ours were coming up. Daffodils are my absolute favorite flower. Ours are sprouting... and suddenly, I noticed this little guy on a rock in our backyard. Who could this be? In Miami I would see statues of Lazarus... something to do with warding off sickness or something and it was a Catholic custom. I'm thinking Lazarus because those statues have a cane too....but this guy is carrying something. I'm not sure what it is and he doesn't have wounds like the other Lazarus statues I've seen in Miami. Let's take a closer look.


I prefer to think of him as Charlie Chaplain with his cane bringing me a box of chocolates. Who do you say that he is? (religious pun for all you Pharisees out there- ha)

I asked Ben about the man and he said, "yeah.. I found him in the yard under a rock I believe."

Fish Burps

Is this funny to anyone else? I take a fish oil tablet every night and on the bottle it says "controls fish burps." Who knew that taking fish oil would help the fish not burp so much. (ok, it was a lame joke)


I thought you all needed to see my sweet Gwen this morning. We are anxiously awaiting Grandma Morris to come into town. Uncle Preston moves out tomorrow and she is bringing his stuff up here.

Laughs

Last night Gwen woke up around 3am. Ben went in to pat her on the back and I guess woke himself up in the process. He started joking with me and I said, "Ben, it's three in the morning. Are you even awake?" He replied, "I feel like a spring chicken in the spring jumping on a spring mattress." :)

Made Me Smile

You'll have to enlarge the photo...but I thought it was cute to see a crab driving a cab. I need to get out more.

Long Awaited Meal Plan

March is going to be a busy month. It already has been. This past weekend I went up to Indianapolis for a choir thing and next week we go to New York. My mom, sister, niece and nephew are all coming to visit, and Preston is moving out. As you can see, lots of activity in this household at the moment. I've been just making up meal plans a few days at a time lately...but finally I've made a weekly plan again.

baby food- we were out of nearly everything, so I made batches of sweet potatoes, carrots, peas, and bananas to freeze this week.

Teriaki turkey tenderloin (catchy huh?), salad with sweet peppers and carrots with a lime vinaigrette dressing, fruit salad
shrimp, sweet potato, cantaloupe
curried butternut squash soup with lime creme, Ezekiel Bread
split pea soup with turkey bacon
chicken mexican lasagna, salad
roast, cous cous, steamed broccoli

* special- made blueberry scones today to take to a play date on Friday, Ezekiel bread- trying out a new recipe for this yeast bread.

Blue Eyes Deux

I've had this song on my mind all day. The two eyes I look into most during the day are the color of denim and they are beautiful.

New Family Member

Tom Foolery

North Beach

Ok... since I aired it to the world that I went on the South Beach Diet I'd better update you on it. I made it through the two weeks of low carb living without fruit, bread, and enjoyment. (kidding) The problem is that my milk supply (sorry guys) was diminishing and I guess it was too many calories cut at once. Now I'm trying to just make healthy choices and eat more to boost my supply back up. Ok, so I had one brownie yesterday. Ah, confession is good for the soul. See ya on the North Beach!

Childsplay

More weirdness from children's books. I love this new book I got from the library called "Coco Counts" and love looking at the pipe cleaner chickens...but there is something fundamentally wrong about chickens baking a cake with eggs.


Goodnight Moon... we own it. Immensely popular book.


This page says "a quiet old lady whispering hush." Is it just me, or does it look like a rabbit to you?


this page says "goodnight nobody, goodnight mush." Did they pay someone to make this up????

Quinoa

At Whole Foods Market the other day Gwen and I bought some quinoa to try. No, I'm not speaking some Native American language. Quinoa (pronounced Keen-owa) is traditionally known as a grain, although it really is a seed in the herb category. I have only heard of it really. It was nice...but not a real knockout on the taste department. You don't really taste anything. I made this quinoa and black bean salad with it. Interesting...

Something else I made today that WAS good was my split pea soup with turkey bacon. Very satisfying and healthy! Per serving it has 236 calories and only 5 grams of fat and a whopping 17 g of fiber. I did not include a picture here cause let's face it, who really wants a picture of split pea soup? Not mwah!

1 small onion, chopped
1 T vegetable oil
4 C water
1 can chicken broth (I use powder and 1 C of liquid)
1 1/2 C dried green split peas
turkey bacon- cooked and diced (I use maybe 5-8 slices)
3 bay leaves
1 1/2 tsp salt (I eyeball it)
1/2 tsp dried rosemary, crushed (I eyeball it)
1/4 tsp dried thyme (I eyeball it)
1/4 tsp pepper (I add more cause you know I love the pepper)

in a large saucepan, saute onion in oil until tender. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil; reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 1 hour or until peas are tender. Discard bay leaves. Yields 6 servings.

I doubled the recipe today in order to have leftovers for lunches. Nothing better than a hearty soup for lunch in my humble opinion.

*So, I'm wondering.. should I have a separate blog for cooking or just include it with everything else going on in our lives? If I did have a separate blog for cooking what would I name it? Any opinions?

Somewhere Over The Rainbow (Chard)

Gwen and I went on an outing today to the Whole Foods Market here in town. I've never been in there before. I was amazed at all the vegetables there. I knew I wasn't going to buy much because it's a little pricey in there, but I just couldn't resist buying this vegetable. We're going to try it tonight. It's called Rainbow Chard. I've seen chard cooked on tv, but I've never had it, so we'll see how it goes. I thought it was beautiful.

Something I've noticed lately is that even if you buy no salt added canned tomatoes, they have high fructose corn syrup added in. I'm not sure why. I looked at this market and they had no salt added canned tomatoes without the sugar. Just interesting... keep eating healthy people... and be daring! I saw some gorgeous people in that market so they must be doing something right! (plastic surgery mayhap?)

Update On Sleep

Well... as you all know, last week I declared "sleep bootcamp" at our house. Last week Gwen slept through the night twice and almost on a third night. That's progress in my book. Somehow the little weasel made me feel sorry for her and I picked her up for a few nights. I know... I'm shooting myself in the foot. So then for the past two nights Ben has been my bootcamp assistant. He is the perfect assistant because he has a much stronger constitution than I do. Last night I heard her wake up once and she put herself back to sleep without any assistance! (that's progress in my book too) She did wake up one other time and cried for 20 minutes and had pats on the back. (that's not long... you all don't realize how determined this girl can be)

So... here's what we're doing.

1. Always put her down for naps and bedtime awake with a kiss and the same phrase- "go to sleep Gwen, I love you".
2. When she wakes up in the night to give her a few minutes to see if she can get herself back to sleep.
3. If she doesn't Ben or I will go in and put her pacifier in and pat her on the back and say "go to sleep Gwen" and leave immediately.
4. We try to wait as long as we can stand it before going in again. (of course we know she's ok because either we've been in there or we can peek around the corner of the door if we are really agile- but it's tricky, cause she's got the eyes of a hawk)
5. I have resolved to not feed her or pick her up in the night. She's not hungry. I know because she eats a lot during the day and she's made it through before.

Why so much talk about sleep? Because it is a hard thing to learn as a first time mom. I mean, there are a thousand different opinions on the subject and if you dare to share yours with another mom they look at you and you can tell they think differently and they always say "they are all different." So, this is where I will voice what we are doing in case someone wants to read it. It took me a while to resolve myself not to pick her up and feed her. It's like in my blood to respond to her or something. Through it all it amazes me that we can have a crazy night in the bootcamp and the next morning Gwen wakes up like she's the happiest little thing ever. Go figure...

Babyland

Our baby is 8 months now. My, she's getting big! I took these photos today and I thought I'd share them. I think she is such a cute little girl.


I had to act quick because she wanted to tear up the flowers and then eat a petal.

You can get a great education from children's books. This is in one of the ones we picked out from the library this week. It says, "my mommy is a capybara. I am her baby." Now when's the last time you heard of a capybara? Ben says it looks like a beaver crossed with a scottish terrier.

Something else Ben said tonight that I thought was funny. I was chopping vegetables and Ben was looking at me. I told him "don't look at me... I look like a homeless person" to which he replied "you don't look anything like a homeless person...they don't chop their own vegetables." Maybe you had to be there.

President's Day

Happy President's Day. Ben was off today so after a leisurely morning we headed out to the library. We thought we'd try a new one (cause we're just crazy like that), so we went to the largest one in our county. Walking in it is like the starship enterprise or something. I asked a lady about where a section was and she took me on a tour of the library. While we were there Ben saw some dude looking at "inappropriate" stuff and he confronted him. The guy basically just made excuses. The librarian said that unless he is breaking a law or being disruptive that they can't do anything! I was proud that Ben said something anyway. I told him he is now a part of the porn Nazis. I came up with that when I was studying for my masters degree in Miami. I was living in a dorm that had both boys and girls on the same floor. Everyday I would walk down this same hall and this guy had a poster of Pamela Anderson on his door scantily clad. I got so sick of seeing that thing that one day one of my roommates and I decided to go all vigilante. We took the poster down and brought it back to our room and took markers and painted a high collared dress on Pamela and made her hair all orange and put some studious little glasses on her. We wrote a note on there that said "no porn for you. Love- the porn Nazis." Then we put it back on his door. I think I cried I was laughing that hard.


I know you guys (whoever you are!) are probably sick of hearing about what food I'm making...but I find it interesting, so why not share! Tonight I finally made the chickpea burgers. Let's just say it wasn't McDonalds. They tasted like dry hummus really. It wasn't bad per se, just not worthy of the name burger. I ate one of them and I looked over at Ben and said "well... they're filling.. maybe a good breakfast food." He looked at me and said "yeah, in a desert where you have only been eating scorpion legs." I'll spare you the recipe, but here's what I put in them in case you are wondering. chickpeas, red kidney beans, onion, sunflower seeds, garlic, one egg and many spices including green chilis.

Here they are before cooking.


Here they are after cooking. I know they look like no bake cookies gone way bad. :)


Here is what was on the menu tonight: salad, steamed asparagus, steamed broccoli, and the chickpea things.


We finished off our meal with dessert. This is accepted in the first phase of south beach. It's called vanilla ricotta creme. I liked it.

1/2 C part-skim ricotta cheese
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 packet of splenda

Mix and enjoy! We put a little toasted almonds on there too for good measure.