NOT MUCH HAPPENING IN OUR NECK OF THE WOODS

It is always nice to have a three day weekend. So today is Saturday and I'm right in the middle and it makes me feel like I still have time to accomplish a lot of stuff. Yet here I sit on the computer wasting valuable time.

First of all I need to be getting a little cleaning done around the house since we are having company in on Friday of next week. Seems there is no energy or time left when I get in from work. So it needs to be done now. Last month we got together with these friends and had dinner and played a game called Mexican Train. So we decided to make it a monthly get together.

I am planning on having a real simple dinner, Loaded Potato Soup, Strawberry Blue Cheese Salad and Tiramisu. I figured this would be and easy meal that I could whip together after work on Friday. I will probably make the Tiramisu on Thursday so all the flavors will be blended by Friday.

I need to check out some other games. I love to play Scrabble, but I swear the older I get the less competent I feel about my spelling skills and there are just so many four letter words in the English language. I also thought about Trivia Pursuit but feel that takes a lot of concentration on my part. If you have any suggestions give them to me.

There is not much going on around here lately so I haven't posted anything in several days. Everything is really slow at work. It getting the time of year that the students start running out money and are saving what they do have for spring break, which will the the last week in April. Our GM is asking for schedule cuts, so that makes things a little tense at work. Trying to look busy, stay busy and accomplish as much as possible in fewer hours. Oh well that business.

John got his results back from the MIR. Every thing came back normal. Apparently no blockage, but he does have some hypertension. The doctor has put him on a blood pressure medicine and it is already lowering his readings. Still a little high on the bottom. He still has a little dizziness in the mornings. I tell him after all, he is 66 years old, what do you expect. For a man that has always had blood pressure like a kid, this is devastating to him. He thinks having to take this little pill is the worse thing ever.

I guess I will get in the kitchen and make some breakfast. I don't know what the day holds but maybe something exciting and interesting that I can post in the days to come. Hope everyone is healthy, happy and enjoying life.

NUT CLUSTERS (AND I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT MY FAMILY)

Seems this cold weather is really getting to my sweet tooth. I should not be looking for anything sweet because, being a diabetic I really do not need to be tempted so. But that being said this cold weather is really getting to my sweet tooth.



The other night I got to prowling around in the fridge to see what I could come up with. It was one of those days that it was kind of like opening Tut's tomb and finding it empty. I did manage to find a half bag of chocolate chips, a few walnuts in a bag and a box of raisins. Since I'm one of those people that does not like to be defeated I continued my quest for a sweet snack. At first I thought I would add a handful of cereal and some coconut and make a trail mix. Nah!! Not what I want. Then I thought I would make a small batch of cookies. Uh uh!! To much effort. Then the perfect idea came to me. I would make some nut clusters.



I placed the Chocolate Chips in a pan with a spoonful of vegetable oil. This helped the chips melt to a creamy consistency. When the chocolate was melted I added the nuts and raisins, stirred them until they were well coated. Then I took a teaspoon and dropped the mixture onto wax paper, set it in the fridge until the chocolate had firmed back up. They were Delicious. It was a cross between the chocolate covered raisins that you get at the movie theater and a Goo Goo Cluster without the marsh mellow and caramel.

Now I rationalize to myself the the nuts were healthy, the raisins were a fruit so they had to be healthy, the chocolate was semi sweet with 70 calories per serving and 8 grams of sugar. Oh my gosh!! I have created the perfect health food.

I would have taken pictures, but seems they were gone before I got around to it.

1 bag chocolate chips (semi sweet)
1 cup nuts (I used walnuts)
1 cup raisins

Melt, mix, drop, cool and eat.

I think I'm channeling Julia Child.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME

It is so cold tonight and we are expecting some snow and freezing rain. I hope if it is going to do anything it will do it before I have to go to work in the morning. Sixty six years ago today, I was all snug and cozy inside the my mother's womb. Warm, comfortable and oblivious to anything going on in the outside world. Well that changed fast enough on Feb 4Th. I was born at the old hospital in town and was welcomed into the world by my mother, daddy and a brother just 2 years older. Mother was in the hospital for two weeks and had to be brought home in an ambulance. Not because she was sick, but because daddy was in the military and that was the rules at the time. I'm told that I was a good baby and was really shy when I was little. I was one of those kids that would bury my face in mother's skirt if anyone tried to talk to me. I would spend hours digging dirt. All I needed to keep me entertained was a pan and a spoon.

My brother and I were close in age and had a close friendship growing up. When I was seven I had another brother, and another brother when I was twelve and a sister when I was 15. When they were born I became a second mother and could change a diaper with the best of them.

Life in our house was always loud and always lots of friends coming and going. There were usually two or three extra kids there on any given weekend. My brother Bruce was in a rock-n-roll band and they would practice in the basement and I would have my friends over to listen to music and flirt with the boys in the band (who thought we were a bunch of teenie bopper pest.)

I learned that life was not always kind when I was 16 and my youngest brother died at the age of four. This had a huge impact on our whole family. Mother was never the same after that. She became real reclusive and after 50 years she still lives her life inside the four walls of her home. Who's to say what anyone would do if they lost a child.

I met John when I was 20 and he was 21. We only knew each other for three months when we got married. We just kind of knew from the first date that we were meant for each other. That was 45 years ago so I guess we must have been destined to be together. For the last 45 five years we have raised five children. They are all grown and have lives and families of their own. So far we have had no divorces, no serious problems with our kids and we continue to keep our fingers crossed as we move into another era with grand kids hitting their teen years. God has blessed us more than we can even imagine.

The years has given me a handful of really great friends and a boatload of people that has brought joy to my life. John and I were talking the other night and decided that we have had a wonderful life, we would not change a thing, but we wouldn't go back and live it over. It would be too hard to relive all the losses, disappointments and mistakes that come with life. I prefer to take the memories of all the good times and carry them into the future.

Sixty six years ago I was feeling the urge to enter this adventure called life. Sixty six years later I am still living the adventure.