Monday Meanderings

We are in the middle of an unseasonable heat wave - I am certain that I can hear my garden growing and singing in the warmth! We, on the other hand are listening to the fans and air conditioning sing, and they are making beautiful music!

I have been wondering lately if I am done blogging, and I could not think why I was feeling that way. But now I now why I am feeling that way.

When I started blogging I needed an outlet, I needed to reach out to the human world, even if it was just through cyberspace to realize I was not alone. We had miscarried and felt alone, like no one could understand because people we saying weird things to us. We are trying desperately to sell our town home and move closer to my husband's work so that he would not be commuting 80 miles EACH WAY on California freeways. We felt disconnected from our church, and from our friends there. We just felt alone in so many ways, and overwhelmed.

Now we are expecting again, and at just over 17 weeks all is well, I feel the baby moving at least once a day, and always smile when I do - I will never take that motion for granted.

We have moved and are pretty much settled into our new home. Well, the boxes are unpacked, and now we are trying to decide on paint colors. We would like to have all three bedrooms painted before baby arrives in September, and can deal with the rest later if we don't get to it or I cannot pick out colors. We have picked our room, have narrowed Miss Pear's down to 2 colors, and are in a bit of a conundrum about the baby's room. I am thinking an aqua or turquoise this time around - good for either or! I have even optimistically picked out an afghan pattern to knit for baby.

We have found a new church that we have decided to commit to, and honestly, the Gospel is preached so faithfully, the Bible is held up as the standard, and through the people we have felt the love of Jesus. Our pastor actually joked this week that he does not have the problem that so many pastors have, of their congregations being reluctant to hear the gospel preached each week - we would pull him aside to ask what is going on if he failed to!

We are meeting people, and are really feeling like a part of our new community.

So I think I question if I am done blogging because all the things that prompted me to start have been settled.

Yet I have had fun talking about house stuff, especially kitchen stuff. Even though food and I are still not really buddies, I look forward to returning to talking about freezer meals and baking and other fun stuff when I no longer have to think long and hard if I can really eat that! I love a lot of the blogs I read regularly, even if I am a horrible "lurker".

I guess I just need to figure out what my purpose for blogging is now.

And I will.

Until then I will just plug along and have fun.

FYI

We had a great time with our company.

But just in case you are wondering, if you are ever so unfortunate as to break you toe, don't kick the stove....just trust me on this.

Feeling Spoiled

It has been a good morning.

After our doctor's appointment yesterday I just accepted the fact that tired, sore very lower abs were going to be with me for a while, and fighting it was not the best way to handle it, and if hockey players need 3 weeks to recover from a bone break before they can hit the ice again, what makes me think I will be okay in 2 weeks? (Yup, it is Stanley Cup playoff time again, and we are forever on NHL.com getting the scores and stories - although I am certain that they were given good pain killers....no, I'm not bitter, why do you ask?)

We are having company for supper. I am baking marinated chicken breasts (and cannot remember the name of the 3 ingredient marinade), cabbage roll casserole, and carrots because it is the one veggie both families always agree on, kids included. Our guests are bringing salad and dessert.

Although, we are such good friends that they are not really company. The house is not spotless, they will not care, if they even notice. I was instructed to prepare a list of what I need help with, how can you beat that! And my dear friend would scrub floors with a smile to help me, and she knows I would do the same if the situation was reversed! Although I selected gardening as I have to do a bit of replanting after a snail mowed through the garden.

And if that has not left me feeling spoiled enough, my husband instructed me to stay laying down with my foot up, then took the grocery list and headed out.

Sometimes, an injury is not as bad as it seems....

17 Week Appointment

Well, my prayers were answered, and I was a very boring patient.

The baby was interesting though!

Our doctor thought we should surely be able to see if baby was a boy or girl - nope, baby was in a weird position and hiding behind the placenta. We did get to see the heart beating away though!

Then came the listen to the heart beat part, and baby basically scooted away, so there would be a couple beats and then nothing, repeat, repeat, repeat. Of course, we had seen the heart beating, and the doctor heard snippets, so were not concerned.

So all is well! Praise the Lord!

17 Week Update

It is hard to believe that we are almost 17 weeks along in this pregnancy! With this wonderful milestone I thought I should update you on the goings on!

Once again I am carrying very low - that seems to be very standard for me!

I have been able to feel the baby move, which is lots of fun, and I have to tell you, it as not been all light fluttery movements! Sometimes when baby is at the very bottom those movements are already on the strong side! But for the most part I feel baby move at some point each day, which is so much fun!

Because this is technically the third time around, only the second to make it past 10 weeks, I am definitely showing, but it is all very low, so my pants don't fit, but my T-shirts are not a problem! Very weird. But each of us is unique and it gives me something to laugh about as I try to put outfits together. And actually, elastic waisted stuff still fits!

We have our next ob/gyn appointment tomorrow, and I expect it to be boring, or at least I am praying for that! The doctors usually note how low I carry, but assure me that is normal. (Apparently not every baby moves up in the second trimester and I carry like a very short person even though I am 5'7"!)

We are starting to make our preparations for baby. Mostly planning at this stage. We do not need a whole lot, but have to replace a couple things that were worn out (crib sheets, change pad, a few onesies, nothing exceptional), and other odds and ends - I really would have needed more onesies at the beginning, and more diapers last time around, but now we know. We have been blessed to have some friends passing things down to us, that helps so much! So the list is extremely short, which is a huge blessing! And the Lord has provided the resources to fill in the gaps! He is so incredibly good to us!

We did not know if we were having a boy or a girl the first time around until she arrived, so we are prepared with the basics either way this time around! Of course, it would be fun to pick up some pink or some blue items if we knew this time, but it is not a big deal to us, if we know we know, if we don't it will be a fun surprise!

We have already picked out the first name for a boy and a girl, but cannot pick a middle name for the life of us! Good thing we still have a while!

Of course, I will not be revealing the name here because I am paranoid about sharing that kind of thing on the net. One reader suggested the baby be Baby Pear here, and I kind of like that! Any other suggestions?

In other news, my foot is healing nicely. I am able to do a bit more around the house, but certainly not what I am accustomed to, I have even resorted to buying our bread - shocking, I know! But I see improvement each day! And the Lord has worked everything out for us, and it helps tremendously when He is the one working things out!

And we continue the new member class at the church we have been attending since our move, and will definitely be committing to it! I am so happy! We were waiting for the new member class just to review theology etc. because this is an different branch of the denomination we had been attending. We were just being cautious because we are not ones to "church hop", although there are certainly valid reasons to leave a church, we wanted to be certain when we committed as it is a long term commitment as far as we are concerned!

Garden Tour Conclusion

Alas, that is all of my garden pictures. The vegetable garden is not much to look at currently, in fact, I need to replant a few things that are not making it! Although I will certainly post pictures when there is more to see. But I thought I would finish up with a picture of my little orchard.

The Gala is way back there in the corner, and in the front is the peach tree, with the Meyer lemon tree right behind it.

The garden pictures were posted starting at the Gala and working my way towards the lemon, except for the peach which I featured first as I was thrilled to have baby peaches.
Oh, and please ignore the weeds! (Or stop by and help me pull them!)

Meyer Lemon

I am counting on this little guy keeping us in lemonade all summer - and maybe a couple lemon meringue pies too! The nice thing about the Meyer lemon is that it is ever fruiting, so down here that means lemons year round! If you click on the picture you can see the little lemons coming, and there is a larger one in the back about golf ballish size.


And for the amount of lemons coming on this one, it is surprisingly small, well under 2 feet high!

Overnight Invalid Cooler

I don't really have a good name for this contraption, all I know is that with a two story house, we use this whenever someone is sick enough that night time stairs become an issue!

Basically, you take a cooler and fill it with the necessary items, and a basket and fill it with the necessary items as part of the bed time routine, and that way there is no groggy up and down the stairs.

Recovering from Miss Pear's arrival by C-section (little darling flipped to breach at 37 weeks and would not budge, feet and head up, bottom down) the cooler was filled with ice and bottles of water we kept refilling! The basket was filled with granola bars for night time nursing sustenance, and pain killer so that I could always find it.

When I first broke my toe a week and a half ago the cooler was filled two bags of ice for night time icing (they do not give pregnant women pain killer, just ice and Tylenol), water and gatorade as I was having a bit of dehydration. The basket was skipped and the Tylenol was just set beside the basket. What was important was that my husband could find everything when I cried out at night! Goodness knows that for the first few nights I was going no where fast!

This tip is kind of odd, but it has saved our family so many steps up and down the stairs, thereby preserving our precious sleep and making us all happier in the morning!

We even do a simple version of this when we have colds or something that is not really serious because it just works so well!

Fuzzy Logic Rice Cooker and Granola Oatmeal

A couple years ago we were given a fuzzy logic rice cooker for Christmas, and might I say that while I was appreciative of the gift at the time, I was not nearly as appreciative as I should have been. It makes consistently good rice, has a timer that lets you get your rice ready up to 24 hours in advance, and also lets you steam veggies, slow cook, make soup and oatmeal, and warm up rice.

This little appliance has been much maligned as expensive and unnecessary, I disagree, especially if you can get it as a gift or used!

Gone are the days of last minute panic that I forgot to start the rice at the right time, or burned it, or some other catastrophe. Gone are the days of Minute Rice saving my bacon! Now when I get as much of supper prepared in the morning as possible, that includes the rice too! I just put all the ingredients in and set the time I want it finished at!

A nice bonus is all the yummy breakfast options, like our favorite:

Granola Oatmeal
(our cookbook naturally falls open to this one!)

1 cup rolled oats (old-fashioned, not quick cooking)
3/4 cup granola
2 1/2 cups water
8 dried apple rings, or other dried fruit

Serve with maple syrup, and milk (or substitute brown sugar for the syrup)

Place the first 4 ingredients in your rice cooker, set it to the porridge or soup cycle and let it go. Let steam on keep warm for 10 minutes, will keep on the keep warm cycle up to 2 hours.

I will often make this for lunch during the winter, it is good for 2 week day lunches for Miss Pear and I, and it warms up beautifully.

I have to say that the rice cooker is one of my very best kitchen tips, and definitely helps me stay organized and on top of things when preparing supper. Often when we are having company and I am serving rice it is one of the very first things I get done!

Mandarin Orange Trees

We have two dwarf mandarin orange trees in our little orchard. First we have the Satsuma mandarin which we had grown before and is delicious. If you click to make the picture larger you will see all the little buds that are now blooming.


We also have a kishu mini mandarin that was a housewarming gift. We are anxious to try it, and it is supposed to be seedless, so it will be great for little ones!


Of course, the mandarins are always ready for Christmas, so there will be a long wait on these guys...... (If they are ready on the early side we will be eating them for Thanksgiving, the American one, not the Canadian one, but in our families overdosing on Mandarins is a Christmas tradition, and who am I to buck tradition, especially one so yummy!

Navel Oranges

The dwarf navel orange tree looked so wonderful it warranted 2 pictures to try to catch the beautiful blooms! I think we will be eating a lot of oranges - no vitamin C deficiencies for us!


You can kind of see the boring resting tangelo tree in the top right of the bottom picture....

Valencia Orange

In this continuing virtual tour of my garden I am starting to show you the pictures of the dwarf citrus trees - a special reward for living in someplace as expensive as California!

You will not see pictures of the dwarf tangelo tree though as it was doing nothing interesting when I took the pictures. We had "stored" fruit on the tree and it delayed the appearance of new growth and buds. So I decided to skip showing you a picture of a boring tree.

Needless to say I look forward to making my family freshly squeezed orange juice!


Of course we were out there last night briefly, and the buds are huge now, and not the least bit hard to see...oh well.

Gala Apples

Way back in January we planted our dwarf Gala apple tree. The only problem I saw with it is that it looked more like a twig than a tree. But as the spring has ushered in some warmer weather the tree has started growing - from the bottom up!


The buds are a deep pink and then blossom into this!


I am fairly optimistic that we already have fruit setting and that it will be apples to eat of the tree and apple pies, strudels and danish in the spring!

Blueberries

As part of my gardening attempts, and decision to make the flower beds in the backyard pull their weight in our family, we planted three blueberry bushes in the swamp....I mean the patch where the air conditioner drips making it so wet that nothing else will grow there!

And so I am thrilled to show you that we actually have blueberries, on ALL THREE!


I am trying not to be shocked by this, but I am amazed! I had always heard how hard it was to grow blueberries, but thought that it was worth a shot!

The Lord is so good to bless my feeble gardening efforts!

Using Up Leftover or Stale Bread

Maybe I am the only woman this happens to, but I kind of doubt it. No one in our family will eat the heals of bread! And occasionally it seems like the last 3ish slices of bread get kind of dry. Okay for toast, but not much else. I absolutely hate to throw things I can use away, so if I do not have enough to make a batch of Overnight French Toast with it, I always put these chunks of bread in the freezer for the following uses:

Breadcrumbs - thaw bread, run through blender or food processor, and spread out on a half sheet pan to dry out (to avoid mold). If the crumbs will not dry out in a couple hours, or if you have the oven on any ways, place the pan right where the oven vents (ours vents at the back and "blows" onto the back elements), or pop it in the bottom of the oven when you are doing something else to get them dry. Store extra in air tight container.

Croutons - the recipes for croûtons vary, but all include using older bread, cut into bite sized cubes, tossed with flavored oil and baked. Search your favorite recipe site until you find one you like.

You can make your own homemade stuffing mix - no more shelling out for Stove Top!

You can take a couple of dried out pieces of bread and just crumble them up into your ground meat mixtures in place of bread crumbs - much more tasty! (If they are really dry you can run them under a bit of water to make them more manageable.)

I save all the raisin bread to make dressing (stuffing) for our roast chicken! So much better than just plain bread!

Or you can also make one of my favorite casseroles from the More With Less Cookbook (link on sidebar)

Garden Supper Casserole page 138 in my book

2-4 cups cubed soft bread
1/2 c shredded sharp cheese (because I use the 4 cups of bread I also use more like a cup of cheese)
2 Tbsp margarine, melted

Spread half the mixture in a greased 1-2 quart casserole and top with:

1 cup cooked peas (I just use frozen) 2 sliced carrots

Saute until tender:
3 Tbsp margarine
2 tbsp chopped onion (we like a little more, so I usually use more like half a medium onion)

Blend in:
3 Tbsp flour
1 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper

Cook over low heat, stirring until mixture is bubbly.

Stir in:

1 1/2 cups milk

Cook, stirring constantly, until thickened.

Stir in:
1 cup cooked beef, chicken or pork diced (I always use chicken)

Our this mixture over the peas and carrots. Arrange on top:

1 large tomato, sliced (optional)

Sprinkle with remaining bread mixture

Bake uncovered at 350F for 30-35 minutes.

(my changes to the recipe are in italics)