Recent Food Adventures

While Eva was here, we also shared some Hemp Omega Caesar Salad. It took me awhile to gather all the ingredients, but I’m glad I did! Roy even warmed up to it. Next time I make it, I’m going to tweak the recipe a little, and then I’ll share my version with you.

I also made several crockpot creations from the Crockpot Lady’s blog. I was eyeing a butternut squash at the organic farmer’s market a week ago, but shared with the woman working the booth that I was hesitant to try it (I’m not a big fan of traditional squash). She said since I’d been a loyal customer all summer, she’d give me a small one for free to try! So I made this CrockPot Butternut Squash Soup early in the week. It was surprisingly good. I also made some more Crockpot Apple Butter on Friday, minus the sugar & vanilla. Then I made Autumn Sausage Casserole on Saturday. It was quite good, but I wanted there to be more of it. So next time, I will maybe double the recipe except for the sausage; the sausage to rice ratio was too high. I also added celery and celery leaves to make it more like a stuffing, which was a nice touch.

On a totally unrelated note, there is something being filmed this week about 2 blocks from my house, and I cannot figure out what it is. We’re guessing that they are using the baseball field, based on where parking is prohibited, but I’m so curious to know! I know sometimes they film the baseball games over there because I’ve seen them on local TV, but I can’t imagine they would need to block off all the streets just for that. Besides, isn’t it a little late for baseball games? It’s freezing outside! Filming starts tomorrow, so we’ll have to go over there and see what’s up.

Back Home

We’re home. Our flight was delayed about two & a half hours due to the rain storms in Boston. So we sat on the runway for 2.5 hours! Bear did very well, all things considered.

I have to say first that while I had an amazing time at the conference, I’m happy to be home I had eggs and a mostly decaf americano for breakfast for the 1st time in almost a week. And we missed Noodles so much! I’ve never seen him so happy to see us.

I’ll try to post a wrap-up from the conference later today if I have time. You can check out some other conference update at Randy’s blog or Laura Leigh’s blog (including a picture of me sharing my testimony).

Running, Bears, Peas & Prep

I’ve been missing from blog land as we frantically prepare for our trip next week. OK, it’s not really frantic But there are a lot of last-minute details that need to be worked out. So I’ll probably continue to be slightly missing until we return.

I’m back into running mode. I overdid it a few weeks back, and as a result, I only ran twice for the past 2 weeks. The weather hasn’t been cooperating, either, but this week, I’ve already run twice! I’m exhausted now, so I think I’ll wait to run again until Thursday or Friday.

I joined a buying club last month & am really enjoying it! They do both a grocery & organic produce order. This month, I got 6 pounds of all-natural, organic, preservative-free hot dogs made from 100% grass-fed beef. We had some for dinner tonight, and wow, you can really tell the difference!

And last, I’ll share a little Bear story. He did the cutest thing over the weekend. He’s getting really good at his pincher grasp and was feeding himself peas. He looked as if he was getting a little tired from all the work, so I picked up a pea & feed it to him. Then, he picked up a pea & held it out for me to eat! Aw – my heart melted

Following Your Passion

Roy & I stayed home from church today because Bear has a fever and isn’t feeling well. And since we’ve been up since about 5 AM, I’ve been catching up on reading some library books that I have out. And since the Bear is snoozing on my lap, I thought I’d type a post on my new Asus

2 books really have me thinking: “The Simple Living Guide” and to a lesser degree “Your Money or Your Life”. Janet Luhrs, author of “The Simple Living Guide”, discussing simplifying your life to the point where you can easily live within your means and still save money so that one day, you become financially independent. We are on track to be set to retire in 15-20 years if we continue to pay down our debt at our current rate and continue to earn about the same amount of money with annual raises.

This may surprise some of you, but I’ve always desired to live a simple life. Some of you probably just laughed out loud as you read that because you’ve been to our house and have seen all the stuff we’ve accumulated over the years. Yes, our hoarding tendencies still need to be worked on, for sure But ideally, I’d love to live in a small town where you go to the village store and the clerk knows you by name (yes, I have watched too much “Little House on the Prairie”). We’d live in a modest house, and I could have a large garden on lots of land with a stream nearby for Roy. Yes, I would miss the conveniences of city life (like being able to walk to the grocery store and not use any gas to get there!), but I think the pros would outweight the cons. And with all the technology we have available to us today, Roy & I could both work from home.

The question is what work would I do? Luhrs talks a lot about finding work you are passionate about. I’m passionate about a lot of things – ministry, music, healthy eating which does not mean “low-fat”, fyi), green smoothies, dogs, babies, recovery – the list could go on & on She talked specifically about how great it was to be able to work from home when her kids were small. Her job? Writing! As I read that, I was reminded of how, in recent years, I’ve really had a strong desire to write a book. I’ve never thought of myself as much of a writer before, but I recently had 3 articles published over at Boundless.org, and those were relatively well-received. There are a few different book ideas that I’ve tossed around, but there’s one specific idea that I feel strongly God put on my heart over 3 years ago. As I sat thinking about this, I actually had several ideas pop into my head, so I hopped over to my Asus & jotted them down.

So get ready, Eva! (She’ one of my best friends and has edited pretty much everything I’ve written since we met a few years ago.) It may take me 2 or 3 times as long to write a book, typing with one finger and a baby in my lap, but it’ll get done eventually!

Shameless plus – I have been reading some great books lately! Check out my Library Thing list below for some recommendations