HEALTHY EATING

Starting tomorrow I will try to start eating healthier than I have been over the last few months. Stress has caused a lot of emotional eating. This usually involves whatever unhealthy snack is around for the kids. I normally eat very healthy. I love veggies, salmon and other good for you food.

I guess I will have to venture out into the yukky outdoors in search for my favorite petite or baby green beans that are fresh. I will live with frozen if I must. I love to steam them but not so much they are colorless and limp. I like them to still have some crunch. I saute chopped up garlic and sometimes green onions if I have them in olive oil. Once my green beans are steamed I then toss them in with the olive oil, garlic, etc., and then I will throw in a few sesame seeds if the mood strikes. I LOVE these.

I found fresh ones once at Sam's. There were two packages bundled together. Jackpot baby. I cooked them in my favorite way. Yummy. The next day I went into the kitchen and my hubby had thrown them in a pot of water and was proceeding to boil them into what I can't stand.... cooked to death, flavorless and mushy vegetables. I went into orbit. It would have gotten really bad if I knew a good criminal defense attorney. I don't know any. Needless to say his idea of cooking vegetables and mine are on the opposite ends of the spectrum.

My hubby is always trying to do nice things for me. However, it usually doesn't go over so well. It is like...I love you but don't. Like cleaning out the fridge. He threw away a bag of shelled pecans. "But they have been in there for years" was his defense. It was February and I had bought them in December when I was doing my marathon fudge making. That is when you "sigh" deeply and try to remember that in the scope of things it isn't so major. Frustrating...YES. But not major.

He has also made the mistake of trying to take over in the kitchen when I am cooking something. "I just want to help" he says. If it was really bad, like adding something he shouldn't have...then I turn it fully over to him. It is now his. I am done.

Sometimes I can't help but laugh about it. How can you be angry, at least for too long, at someone who only has good intentions. Actually it is very easy. I just try to leave the room before my anger shrapnel takes out someone.

You know....this is also a good time for chocolate........

MY THANKSGIVING

I had a very relaxing day yesterday. Big Baby Girl ordered a fried turkey. I would rather have had a smoked one but she ordered it. When my hubby got home with it I was shocked at how small it seemed. Oh well. But for the cost of that turkey I thought we could have had great steaks. It isn't like I am this big fan of turkey. It really isn't my thing.

I got up and made two pans of cornbread for my standard cornbread dressing. It is the most simple thing but my daughters seem to love it. I make the best buttermilk cornbread using a store bought cornbread mix like White Lilly or Aunt Jemima. I use buttermilk instead of milk. I add to the cooked and finely crumbled cornbread lightly cooked one large onion and several stalks of celery. I make a liquid mixture of two beaten eggs along with two boxes of low sodium chicken broth. I add pepper to that as well. I poor that in and mix all of it very well. To save time and washing dishes I do all of this in the pan I am cooking it in. I then add more broth if needed. I cover in foil and bake at 400 for an hour and then remove the foil and cook until it gets golden brown on top. Nothing fancy at all.


I made the standard green bean casserole. BBG (Big Baby Girl) made a dish called Spinach Maria and it was good along with a corn casserole. Basically this is what we had. Since we are all on crazy schedules we really didn't eat together. BBG and her friend ate, I had a small helping of everything later because the mimosas were starting to get to me. DH ate late in the evening. Same as he always does.

I took a few snapshots playing around. It was fun. I have had this camera almost two years and I still don't know all of what it will do. I took some shots of DH, BGG and #1Grandson. Oh and my little boy Oliver. Best photos I have ever gotten of my little pooch. He is a trip. All in all we had a nice relaxing day.

OKAY I WATCH TOO MUCH TV

I was browsing around and found this site. It intrigued me because I used to live in SpringHill Florida. I LOVE the Bravo channel and couldn't get it until I moved a month ago. These are my favorite shows. I LOVE Jeff Lewis and Christian Siriano. Christian is SO cute. I also enjoy watching the Housewives of Orange County and Atlanta. Anyway... I found this card that Natalie created on her blog... Go check her out. So Fierce.......

FL Home Blog: Is it too early to give you your card?

THANKSGIVING AND FAMILY

I have read several blogs with people making fun (I hope) of their family that is coming to visit. I have seen some that basically attacks their mothers. I know that it is probably just to make for entertaining reading. I find it amusing but at the same time it makes me uncomfortable.

I lost my mother in 1992. A few days ago was the 16th anniversary of her death. It was very hard on all of us to lose her so soon. I would love to have my mother over for Thanksgiving. No we did not always have a harmonious relationship. We almost never agreed on some things. But hey... she came from a different time than I did. Her insecurities and inability to support herself in a descent lifestyle made me what I am today.

I vowed that I would never be as insecure as her. I knew I never ever wanted to be dependent on anyone. Not to say there weren't short periods of time that I did. Thankfully I learned to fight and claw and work and slave to get to a point in my life where I can safely say I can support myself without someone elses help. I owe all of that to my mother.

I never faulted my mother or anyone else for that matter for their beliefs. I feel that we are all entitled to feel as we do no matter how uneducated a belief I may feel that it is. Some people find change hard and next to impossible. They are not comfortable with it. I am. My life is one change, move, event, learning experience after another. They are not always pleasurable. I do feel that in life we should all always strive to improve, better, educate, enlighten ourselves. I think that if you stop growing you are just going backwards.

Now that I have gotten that off my chest I do hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving.

FREE RICE

Hi All....

Very tired today. I wanted to post this link that tests your vocabulary and also allows you to help the hungry. It tests your vocabulary skills and with each win they donate rice. This is from the UN World Food Program.

Please check it out..... http://www.freerice.com/

Thanks all

SUNDAY FUNDAY

What a day. It started early as usual. I woke up at 4ish. Daughter #1 wasn't home from work yet so I couldn't go back to sleep. That poor girl had 4 hours sleep in 2 days. I kept thinking I would get a nap. Good thing I didn't try because DH would have woken me up and then I would have been angry. He kept calling for directions.

I did get caught up on last season of the Real Housewives of Orange County. That was fun. What a life these people live. I had my favorite French Onion soup for lunch. I make it myself. Have you priced it in the can? Unbelievable. So I went for broke, cut up onions, probably around 5, chopped up a few cloves of garlic, cooked those in olive oil. Once cooked I put in two containers of beef broth, 3 beef bouillon cubes, cause the broth just doesn't have enough flavor to me. Then I added some Merlot. Yummy. I took crusty French bread, sliced it, put olive oil on it and put it in a skillet to kind of toast it. Throw that bread on top of the soup, lay a slice of Swiss cheese and nuke in the microwave long enough to melt it. Damn good eating. I don't know what the fat, carb, calorie content of that is. Probably why I am still a hog. Oink

Oh well. Tomorrow I really have to get serious about the diet. I hate them. I have to lose some weight and start exercising. When we moved I sold my stationary bike. I wish I hadn't. I could ride that sucker for an hour without hesitation if I had a good book to read. It let me exercise without thinking about it. I know I have got to get off my fat arse and get moving.

Oh well, can you see it? Me laying on the side of the road, gasping and Screaming for Chocolate...

MY HEART IS BREAKING

How ironic..... I write the post about BFF's and this morning I get the word......

Mrs B is going to Iraq. Her DH told her this morning. That means very soon she will go to Houston for two weeks and then zip off to Iraq. I am going to absolutely hate it. HATE IT. We have already started discussing what she needs to take. Of course she will ship it to DH and it will be there when she gets there. Let's see.... there will be several cases of peanut butter crackers, the 1000 thread count sheets, uhhh... I forget the rest. Thank goodness they already have diet coke there. She can't afford to send enough cases of that stuff to keep her going for 4 or more months. She probably won't be home again until next April or May.

I think the hard part will be living with Mr B again. He has been over there for 2 years. When he comes home she is happy but then.... he starts grating at her nerves because she is used to being alone, except for the pooch. That is another thing...leaving the pooch. He has been her baby for 6 years. She is already heart broken thinking about it. When I thought of pooch I felt bad. I had only been thinking about myself.

Pooch will stay with Mrs B's sister. He loves her. Actually wanted to sleep with her when she visited recently. So that part is great. I wanted to be able to keep him. I kept him for a week this summer when Mr and Mrs B went to Mexico when Mr B came home for 2 weeks. My silky terrier was ssssssoooooooo excited that he had someone to play with....NOT. Pooch doesn't like dogs. He likes cats. Things would have been fine except my furry son wouldn't leave him alone. He wanted to play. He doesn't understand why Pooch didn't want to play.

I am sitting here wondering who will be my phone every day friend. Boo hoo..... My "Wild Child" in Tennessee is too busy with her Brady Bunch family. Mrs Quilter in Texas is a really good friend and she sees my complaints in chats but I don't want to scare the woman off. Plus she hasn't gone through similar situations like Mrs B has. Gladys in Louisiana is a good friend. She hears the complaints ever week or two or maybe longer. I don't like to constantly complain. Sometimes I do but just to Mrs B. Gladys and I have other things to discuss. Such as what a wonderful daughter she has.

Mrs B's daughter is possessed. She makes my problem child seem like an angel. Her daughter told her aunt, Mrs B's other sister, that her father was not the father of her or her brother and that her mother was having an affair and spending all Mr B's money he is making in Iraq. She also said that Mrs B won't let Mr B come home. That is just some of it. I think you get the picture.

Anyway, it is going to be hard and I will probably do a lot of Screaming For Chocolate.