She is watching me and starting to know to stop when I stop, and allowed me to touch her without pulling away, picked up all of her feet today, no pulling away or resisting.

The cribbing is still going on, so today I cut a stirrup strap down to use as a cribbing strap and then adjusted the holes so she can eat and drink but can not pop open her throat to suck in or bit to crib.

I see her opening up and starting to let humans in, once we get her weight up and fix her sore feet I think we will see our real girl come out. She is very sweet, and seems to need attention sometimes she wants any attention good or bad but we are focusing on the positive.

I was at my friend Shannon's on Sunday and she made this amazing and super simple pasta dish. It was incredibly yummy. I made some today to last me the weekend now that the  hubs is off golfing. He doesn't like veggie dishes so when he is gone I go wild! This pasta is tasty and just enough kick that even a wimpy spice eater like me can dig it!

2 pounds pasta of your choosing, cooked to al dente and rinsed in cold water
1 large cucumber, peeled and diced
1 yellow pepper diced
1 orange pepper diced
1 (1 pound? 12oz? whatever the small size is) bag frozen peas, thawed
1 bag frozen corn, thawed
1 container cherry or whatever smallish type tomatoes, I halve them as it lets the flavors out to mingle with the rest of the ingredients
handful sweet and spicy pickles finely diced
If you like olives (I don't) a good dose of those couldn't hurt either, and you could also dice up some cheese and throw in there too. Basically this is a kitchen sink kind of dish!

Normally I'd also add like an 1/8 or 1/4 of a sweet onion, but Isabel doesn't like onion =)

Toss all of the above together in a ginormous bowl, salt and pepper generously

Now for the dressing: I used about 2 cups mayo and probably close to 6 oz red wine vinegar, a couple tablespoons of sugar and a maybe a quarter cup milk. Whisk those together in a separate bowl, adding a bit more mayo or vinegar to adjust the flavor. It should be very bold tasting as the flavor will get washed out by the pasta. Then splash some of the pickle juice in there to kick it up another notch. If you can't find sweet/spicy pickles you could always just use sweet pickles in the salad and add a bit of cayenne pepper to the dressing.

You could also use like a Newman's italian dressing, they make a greek italian that is pretty good and make this an italian salad. I like the creamy version myself.

Pour the dressing over the pasta and veggies and toss all around to mingle and marry =) It shouldn't be soggy wet, but everything should be evenly coated. If it seems like you are short on dressing, you can always mix up a little more.

Lets Keep All Lettuce Green

To quote Kathryn Khosla in a blog about her first garden on VegetableGardener.com:

“Vegetables in the kitchen are as alive as they were in the garden, but they need a different kind of care. The hot sun and a good soaking with the hose no longer have any appeal, but the basics still apply—the temperature, water, and air around them affect their appearance and health.”

While Kathryn speaks mainly in her post about vegetables I think we can all agree that those 3 elements apply to storing fruits as well.  How and what are the best ways to extend the life of fruits and veggies in the kitchen during hectic summer days?

I started this quest when I noticed vegetables in my own kitchen were getting bad before we could eat them during the extended summer days of horseback riding, golfing and bicycling. How could I keep the celery longer, the tomatoes so they were available for light late dinners?

To begin there are some interesting charts that helped me understand more about storing produce and fruit. I have included them in the article but if you would like to print them for your cookbook or kitchen if you click the image a larger printable version will open up.

Figure 1

Vegetables (as shown in Figure1) last longer at different temperatures, for example a good contrast is most people keep tomatoes in the refrigerator however they do much better for flavor and longevity if they are kept in a cool location, and if you keep them stem side down you can add to the time you have to use them. Same goes for watermelon, up until I read this I kept it in the fridge on the shelf but found it lasted longer if cut into sections and kept cool in crisper.

The next part of keeping food fresh both on the counter and in the fridge is gas releasers vs non-gas releasers. Some of our favorite foods release Ethylene gas and should be isolated away from others to prevent spoiling, these offenders are apples, apricots, cantaloupe, figs, bananas, tomatoes. As you can see most of these listed are in the store at room temp category for longevity and best flavor.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, we throw away almost 31.6 million tons of food every year, and the average family tosses out 1.28 lbs of food a day, almost 470lbs a year or $600.

How to Store on Countertop

Apples should be kept out of direct sunlight, in an uncovered bowl or perforated plastic bag. I store my apples in a big bowl with small squares of parchment paper between them. Apples will spoil faster if they touch each other or other fruits. I have also had great success storing apples in a vented cardboard box in my garage several weeks with sheets of newspaper between the layers.  When I want to make an apple pie for Thanksgiving there are wonderful homegrown varieties available.

Keep fruits and vegetables separately, I use a set of plastic drawers you can purchase at Walmart or Kmart, lined with paper to store potatoes (white, sweet and yams) and other root veggies.

How to Store in Refrigerator

Keep produce in perforated plastic bags in produce drawer.

Keep fruits and vegetables separate, you want to prevent spoiling with ethylene gas

Asparagus and herbs benefit from a quick snip on the ends and stored upright in a glass of water and covered with plastic bag.

Celery and lettuce last a long time if stored in water in a plastic container in the fridge.

Storing in a Cool Dry Place

I have had several places that I stored fruits and vegetables that needed a cool dry place to maintain freshness, when I lived in a small apartment I put them in a cupboard in bins, when we moved into our house, I stored them in the bottom of the pantry in bins, I have also put them high up on shelves in the garage and they have done well there too.

While all this seems like a lot of work once you get into the rhythm of where things do best and how they do best it will be easy for you to keep your fruits and veggies longer and delicious.

What you need:

3 Sugar-free Vanilla Pudding Cup

1 Low-fat Vanilla Yogurt (8oz)

Vanilla Wafers (number of wafers varies depending on how much you like Vanilla Wafers)

3 Overripe Bananas

What you do:

Mix the Vanilla Pudding with the Vanilla Yogurt. (Its going to look very creamy but dont worry it will gel together)

Get your bowl, I used a loaf pan but any 1/2 to 1 quart bowl will work.

Start layering! I started with a layer of wafers, then a layer of pudding/yogurt mix, a layer of bananas ....and so on until you have used up ingredients or filled the bowl. Eat whatever is left!

Decorate the top of your Banana Pudding with bananas or wafers, cover in plastic wrap and put in the fridge. Its best if you give at least 4 to 6 hours so the banana flavor permeates the cookies and pudding. You will be amazed at how sweet and flavorful the pudding will be with just the sliced bananas. If you want extra banana flavor you can use banana yogurt and banana pudding as well.

Quick, easy and fun with low sugar and fat content as well! Happy Eating!

Parts:

You are going to need:

1. Can of tuna, I prefer water packed but use your preference. Drained

2. Hard boiled egg, cooled, shelled and chopped.  Do you peel an egg or shell it?

3. One stalk of celery, minced

4. 1 1/2 tablespoon mustard. I use yellow mustard, but if you prefer tangy then go for it, brown or spicy will add some kick

5. 1 1/2 tablespoon sweet relish Here is where my husband and I diverge, he prefers his tuna with dill but you really need that bit of sweet briny pickles to give it some body. I have made this with chopped sweet midges and they are good too.

6. 1/4 cup of Miracle Whip or Mayonnaise depending on your preference.

7. Salt and Pepper to taste

Assembly:

Put tuna in a bowl large enough for all ingredients and room for stirring.

Add boiled egg to the tuna and the Sweet Relish

Mix, then add the Celery. Mix again and add Mustard.

Note: I know it seems ridiculous to be doing all the adding then mixing then adding and then mixing but you will see that the ingredients get more fully integrated with the tuna if you add them in incrementally rather than all at once.  I have made many a bowl of tuna dumping it all in at once and not quite getting a good rich flavor and crunch!

Now that all the minor players are in the mix you want to add your Miracle Whip or Mayonnaise. I do this at the end because now each ingredient mixes with the Miracle Whip or Mayo adding their own flavors and textures.

The last step is to Salt and Pepper to taste.  And you have super yummy with a bit of crunch Tuna Fish Salad. My fav way to eat it is on Dave's Good Seed Bread.  This is a good quick summer recipe and can be stretched with elbow noodles or bowties for some jazzing up!

Services at the church were full of music, shouting and enthusiastic worship, people singing , shouting and enjoying the worship of the Lord, it was hard not to get caught up in the wave that surged through the congregation. Dad spoke often of being full of the "Holy Spirit" and never having experienced this myself I often wondered what it felt like, did you feel euphoric? was it like some sort of "ecclesiastical orgasm"? People would fling themselves on the floor, dancing around, singing, and the happiest faces ever.

One Sunday I was sitting in the back of the church listening, singing and watching all the activity going on around me, and I felt something squeezing me, then suddenly a chill ran down my backside and legs...was this the Holy Spirit? Had it finally gotten around to me?  I jumped up waved my arms, anticipating the onset of dancing, and suddenly felt a chill on my backside beneath my skirt.

Reaching around behind I felt my bum and my pantyhose had caught on a splinter, completely shredded while I was wiggling around in my seat and collapsed in ruin around my thighs. In attempting to flee before being discovered I tripped over my neighbors feet and fell face down in the lap of the woman seated two spaces over from me.

Evidently the "Holy Spirit" doesn't do pantyhose.

A month ago I was under the hair dryer at the salon, and an older woman came in with her husband. She too had ET (Essential Tremor) and it was bad, very bad. She could hardly hold her head still, her limbs moved in a cacophony of motion that was frightening.  I wanted to hold her and comfort her so she was quiet and still.

I got scared, is this what I have to look forward to, over time becoming more and more out of control of my body, how would I do the things I love, ride, bike, walk, write? What would my husband do? Would he be able to cope?

What is Essential Tremor

• ET is a neurological condition that  causes shaking of the hands, head, and voice.
• ET can also cause legs and trunk to shake, and some people have a feeling of internal tremor.
• An estimated 10 million Americans have ET.
• Although there are many possible causes of tremor,ET is  the most common. Still, misdiagnosis of tremor is a problem.

According to the Canadian Journal of Neuroscience, general neurologists treating tremor have a diagnostic error rate of 25% to 35%.

• ET is often misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s disease, yet according to the National Institute of  Neurological Disorders and Stroke, eight times as many people have ET as have Parkinson’s.
• ET is not confined to the elderly. Children and middle-aged people can also develop ET. In fact, newborns have been diagnosed with the condition.There is evidence that ET is  genetic. Each child of a parent who has ET has a  50%
  chance of inheriting a gene that causes the condition.  However, sometimes people with no family history of  tremor develop ET.
• Few effective prescription medications are available for treating ET. Unfortunately, it is estimated that less than 60% of people with ET are helped by these medications.
• Researchers estimate that 4% to 5% of people age 40 to 60 have ET. The incidence rate
  for  people age 60 and older is estimated at 6.3% to 9%
• People who have ET become disabled at worst and feel frustrated or embarrassed at best.
• Quality of life is a big issue for people with ET. Daily  activities such as feeding, drinking,  grooming and writing become difficult if not impossible.
• Many people with ET are too embarrassed to go into public and remain isolated in their homes.

If you know someone suffering from this disorder, try to understand that the movement is beyond their control and if they have not gotten help encourage them to do so. If you have this disorder there is a great website, go there and read what you can do and how you can educate yourself and others about this disease.  Below is some information about ET. The website is Essential Tremor

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My husband and I began a new tradition a couple of years ago when money was tight, we changed jobs and locations. We started going out on Sunday Adventures, seeing the country side within a days drive, taking in local sites and learning more about where we live.

Our first adventure took us to a local restaurant I had seen on television, "The Best Thing I Ever Ate" for barbeque, The Ranch House Barbecue, the drive out from Olympia follows State Hwys 101 and 8, a lovely pastoral drive through the countryside bordering the Capital Forrest. Wonderful food, a great ambiance and a nice drive made for a wonderful Sunday afternoon.

Next we took on Mt. Rainier at the beginning of spring, lots of snow still on the ground. It was amazing how many people were up on the mountain visiting. Lots of families, hikers and campers even though it was very cold and snowy the brave were still out in the elements. We stopped for lunch at Scale Burger in Elbe across from the Railroad Restaurant.
You cross the glacier on a bridge, its a magnificent view, up the mountain and down into the river below.

So far our adventures have taken us to the opening of the new Cabela's to see the stars of Swamp People in Everett, up to the beautiful Snohomish valley and the town of Snohomish antiquing and finally another trip to Mt. Rainier with friends.
Washington State has a huge diversity of activities, terrain and adventures right in your back yard, just go out and find one!

Okay, first,  websites that play music...why? I can only think of possibly 2 occasions that music would be appropriate, bridal sites, and musicians but anyone or anything else its too much. The other problem is a lot of these sites have no way to turn the music off so that you can browse. Sadly the largest number of offenders are people with animals for sale. Yep, its easier to sell a horse if it is galloping around the pasture to some ditty that enhances its looks and evokes emotion in the viewer, however, a person looking at the animal is eventually going to see it in person so why torture us with music on the website? There are no volume controls so its full blast even if I turn my speakers down, and musical taste is in the beholder. Do us all a favor, if you think your site is so underwhelming without music put it on there but give us the ability to shut it off! Trust me people you know who you are! Bandwidth is precious use it wisely!

Second, I arrive at a site via a link from a search page, but I don't see what I am looking for. Do you think that because you disabled the back button in my browser I am going to stick around a buy something. No, I have been trapped like an internet rat, not a good customer service experience for me.  I want to get back to my search page and find what I was looking for, now if I found something of interest but it wasn't what I needed, I would bookmark and come back but with the back button on the browser disabled..nope I am done. If I am on your site from a search engine and I am looking for something specific your site has cost me precious time.

Last but certainly not least is the site that pops up a request for my email address before I have even had a chance to look around. You want something from me without offering me anything for it. I find this really odd in site offering products for sale, since my becoming enthralled with something is the basis for buying it and if you have turned me off by requesting I give you my email address before my lust for an item on your site has set in, then you are jumping to a conclusion that I will want boatloads of email from you from the get go. You have to take your chances with me as a shopper just like Macy's, or Amazon or anyone else that I will find something I like and then surrender my information. Its like a first date, I am not going to give up the goods at first glance...you have to be on a 3rd date adventure with me.

There they are my personal pet peeves...no music without controls so I can turn it off or down, dont mess with my browser back button and for gosh sakes if you want me to shop on your site, gimme a little love before demanding my email address!!

Okay for the sweet, I tried molasses and brown sugar. The molasses was too sweet but the brown sugar which is sugar with molasses in it was just sweet enough and not overwhelming like the molasses was. Next is the tangy, searching through the cupboards and fridge I found the bottle of Masterpiece, humm, I could use this as my base and then enhance it, in the door lurking right below the Miracle Whip was a bottle of Zesty Italian dressing...whoo hoo that would add a bit of zip and give it not only tang but some viscosity with the oil.

Grabbing a big bowl, I dumped in the bottle of Masterpiece, 1/2 the bottle of Zesty Italian ( I use Wishbone, yum!). Next in went the brown sugar, 1/2 cup. a dash of mustard,yellow or granulated, both work. Worcestershire sauce, 2 tablespoons round out the ingredients.

I just put the pork ( you can use a pork butt or shoulder, I have also used a tenderloin) in the bowl with the marinade, cover and put in the fridge for about 2 hours or overnight, if I am planning ahead.

Turn on the slow cooker for the appropriate time, I go low and slow, 8 to 10 hours, put the pork in and pour part of the marinade in with it. Reserve about 1/2 for basting and lat to use as sauce when warming up the pork.

Pork is done pull out and put in shallow pan, take two forks and shred. Yum yum!