Month: January 2011 (Page 1 of 2)

Not going to post much tonight. Just letting you all know that we got home with no mishaps and everything is fine here. It was great to be in the spring/summer for a week, even if we did have to come back to two more months of winter!

This afternoon were the last lessons for a couple weeks and tomorrow is the last day of work and I only have to work 4 hours. Yay, yay, yay…..!!!  I taught the chore gal how to do chores – we got a high school aged girl who just lives a few houses down that was recommended by a friend who has her dog sit. She seems really nice and smart and responsible. About 16 or 17, I would guess. So I feel the animals will be in good hands without having to bother an adult with watching them for us.  Sherlock really seems to like her, too, so when we want to go somewhere without him, we’ll be able to have her come over and let him out.

I need to do the laundry tomorrow and straighten the house and finish eating everything that needs to be eaten in the fridge. Pack suitcases, plan snacks for the trip, make sure I have enough to do on the ride, maybe pick up another book on tape, clean out the car a bit before we start loading it.

Sounds like the weather will be good, if cold. No snow predicted, which is what we worry about. We are going to pack a gas can with a little gas so we won’t run out of gas this trip!

Hope I’m not forgetting anything….

Since Amy mentioned it, I’ll update on that. We (the dentist and I) tried a different approach this time. Since I’ve been having such a time getting numb on the lower jaw, I came in earlier to let the numbing stuff have a little more time to work. He also changed where he put it a little. Basically it all went very well. There was just one spot that wasn’t numb and he only touched that a couple times. So I’m in my temporary crown and awaiting the actual crown on the 3rd, I think it is. So, the most painful part of this visit, for a change, was the expense!

The week is speeding by and I haven’t posted. Summary:

1. Decent weigh in at Weight Watchers Monday

2. Our teams took first and second and the county Wii Bowling tournament yesterday – in Chetek.

3. I ate too many treats at above event – nerves, I think!

4. My piano got tuned yesterday.

5. Sherlock went to work with me yesterday (see above.)

6. I go to the dentist today to start working on another crown. Whoopee!

Just a short check in to say that this is my busy day. I go in at 8 and don’t come home until after the Weight Watchers meeting at 6:00. (I had a bad week and will be lucky to not gain anything). But that means I have 4 hours of office time and last week I really got a lot done, so I’m looking forward to the same today!

Only 5 days until vacation!!!!

Pictures of what we got done today.

We set up these shelves and started taking things out of the big room and storing them. Actually there are two sets, back to back, with the back shelves having all the tools, etc. and the front one more of Chris’ boxes.

We blocked off the bottom half of the window for warmth, so we put the bookcase in front of the blocked part of the window. You can also see the screen with lace curtains that keeps me from falling over the stair railing in the night.

These are a couple of “before” pictures of the next room we’ll be working on. They aren’t really “before” because they are a lot less of a mess compared to this morning when you couldn’t even walk through this room. We did a lot of work in here and Dad was able to actually insulate that back wall. There was frost on the inside of that wall. Brrrrrr….

He says he can tell it is warmer now.  You can see that this will be a nice big bedroom when it is done.

Finally, some touches added to our bedroom. Pictures on the wall and curtains on the window. I knew those curtains were in that big room somewhere, but it took most of the day to finally find them!

I know the pictures are kind of bright and very yellow, but you get the idea. (I think the flash was a bit too bright.) The room isn’t really lemon yellow!

Now that the bedroom is done, I thought it was time to work again on clearing out the room that will be the big bedroom next. Easier said than done, though, because all the tools, left over materials from the other room, and fixtures for the eventual bathroom are sharing the space with all my boxes of stuff, plus the furniture we moved from the small bedroom before we started working on it. There is no place for that furniture, so we decided to take it back up to the garage in Chetek. As we are carrying it back down the stairs we are wondering why we brought it here in the first place. But I guess some of it did have a home before we started the remodeling. Part of it, though, was just brought so it wouldn’t still be in Chetek. By now it is obvious that we will have to keep storing things in the Chetek garage until the new house is done, because there is no space for it here, and I’m not going to get rid of anything I might need to furnish a bigger house.

At least it is a beautiful day for hauling things to and from the trailer!

I’ve been borrowing the Wii board from work and using a Wii Fit game someone gave me. Today when I got home, the package containing our new Wii board and the Wii Fit Plus game was on the doorstep. Exciting! I’ve been trying everything and am getting quite stiff and sore. So I decided I’d better stop. I was at an hour and 20 minutes for the day, but I had been using the old game for most of it, until Dad got home.

The Wii game system is even more fun than I had anticipated it would be. Thank you, again, for getting it for us, everybody!!

Here is the post you are all waiting for, I’m sure. What do you do with those handy-dandy immersion blenders?

First of all – smoothies in a glass. Now, Kylene mentioned that she didn’t have a glass that it fit in. I didn’t think of that, because it fit in mine right away. My suggestion would be to go to Goodwill and find a couple. You want glass, not plastic. They really don’t have to have awful wide necks. Just wide enough. My blender just barely fits into my glasses and that keeps anything from spraying out.

So once you have the glass, fill it 1/2 full with milk, then add your fruit. I start with a few slices of frozen banana, then add a handful of frozen blueberries and a few frozen strawberries. Once it is blended really well, you may need to add additional milk to make it drinkable. You could also add flaxseed if you want a little more fibre. Of course you could make it with yogurt, but I figure why bother with the expense if it tastes good with milk. I do use vanilla soymilk (light) because it has that vanilla flavor, but you could add a little vanilla to your smoothie if you think it needs it. Same with a little sweetener, particularly if you don’t use many bananas.

Another smoothie that worked really well was taking a can of SlimFast and putting it in a cup with some frozen fruit. It was like a slightly fruity chocolate milkshake! Actually, it would probably work the same with regular chocolate milk, but the SlimFast has a few other nutrients.

Soup. If you make soup where you cook the vegetables, then blend them to make them smooth, you can just dunk the blender right in the sauce pan and blend away. No hot liquids squirting out the top of your blender. No messy blender to clean up!

Beating eggs. I tried mine on egg whites the other day to use for a very low cal breakfast. I cracked a few (3, I think) into a ceramic bowl with sort of high sides and put the blender attachment right in there and they whipped to a froth in no time. Made a great “omlette,” even without the yolks. Without whipping them, they look too white and like they are missing something (well, they are.. the yolks.)

Mashing potatoes or squash. If you are just cooking a few potatoes to mash, or just want a little squash mashed, you can do it with the whisk attachment. Just use it right in the pan or bowl that you cooked the vegetable in. I leave a little of the cooking liquid in, so I don’t have to add anything else to it. I’m sure you could also use that whisk end to beat up a small bowl of eggs or to beat lumps out of lumpy gravy, right in the pan.

Baby food. I used to use the blender to make baby food out of supper leftovers, but cleaning up that blender was a real pain. With this, you could just put the leftovers in a bowl with high sides or a saucepan and blend them right up. Slick, huh?

That is about all I’ve thought of, so far, but I expect I’ll find other uses. When I’m finished, I wash it right away before anything has a chance to congeal on the far side of the blade. Put it in the dishdrain to dry and it’s ready for the next time!

Meet the New Auburn Fritz goats, Jasmine and Jamal. Notice that in the winter, goats get thick, fuzzy coats. They live in a little shed, so they need that extra fur to keep warm, because there is no heat in the barn.

Goats eat goat food. It is made of oats and corn and other healthy things mixed with a little molasses, which makes it taste sweet. Did you know that animals like sweet things a lot, too? (Not cats, though. But that is another subject) Goats also eat grass or hay. Like cows, they are animals that chew their cud, so they have extra stomachs to store the grass or hay until they want to chew it again. Because they have these extra stomachs, they can eat a lot of hay in one day. They finish that garbage can of hay in about three days. The hay is put into the manger so they can eat it whenever they want to.

Goats are very curious. When we go into their shed, they climb up and see if we are there to feed them or to clean out their stall or to bring them water. They are happiest when we are there to feed them. One of their favorite things is for us to bring them apple cores. They are like candy to goats!

The reason we like goats is that they are very curious and playful and they seem to like the company of people. If we are working on something in the shed, they follow us and seem to watch what we are doing. They are also vocal, which means they “talk” a lot. If we go outside when it is warm, they baaaa to us from the barn. Sometimes it gets annoying, but it is nice to know that they know we are around.

Goat babies are also very, very cute. They are about the cutest baby animal there is! The breed of goats that we prefer is Nubians. Some goats are from mountain regions and some from deserts. The Nubians are from the desert regions. The main advantage is that they don’t like to climb quite as much. All goats are very good escape artists, though, and they will climb through or around or over something if they know that is the way to get out! Jasmine is a Nubian goat and Jamal is half Nubian. Notice that he has “airplane ears,” which means that they stick out to the side, rather than hang down like Jasmine’s. That is because Jamal’s father was a mountain type goat and had ears that stick up, rather than hang down. So Jamal’s ears are right in the middle!