Spring has finally arrived here! Well I guess I could say maybe summer is here. It got to 80F today! Just last week it was snowing. Gotta love Minnesota weather, that's for sure.
So I have been trying like crazy to get my new garden dug up and all set up, but my back has decided it want's to be a pain, literally. The last time it was this bad, I was for the most part bed bound for over two years. I am really praying that this is just a minor bump in the road, because I have a TON of stuff I need to do.
With this awesome weather, the boys and I have gotten our first sunburns of the year. The boys got it worse than me, but they have been outside more too.
I finally managed to get the old garden cleaned up and seeded with grass seed. Got most of the new garden fenced in. Got the dogs area raked and now wondering what to do with it. Did some repairs on the car with my step-son's assistance. So many things to do!
Well I just wanted to give yous an idea of whats been going on around here. Busy, busy, crazy as usual.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Thursday, April 11, 2013
It's All About the Babies, and a Chance to Get Warm Fuzzies
When I went into labor with Superman, things got a bit harry carry for awhile. Like in the fact that I wouldn't dilate, and he got stuck so to speak. I knew something was wrong and I told DH that he needed to do what the nurse had done with Jokester. He got up on top of the table with me, and the staff started freaking out at him. I so eloquently told them to shut the hell up, and get ready. DH then laid across the top most part of my belly and started to roll down slowly when I got a contraction, and in doing this he helped pushed Superman out. The doctor didn't listen very well when I told him to get ready, because he almost dropped the baby.
They immediately rushed Superman to the little cribby thingy with DH close behind with the video camera going. The nurses didn't see him behind them and were talking between themselves. Their words were, "I don't think this one is going to make it." That little sentence was recorded on the video. That little sentence that can chill a person to the bone. That little sentence will be heard forever whenever we watch the video of Superman's birth. And being the people we are, we will give a big ole middle finger to those nurses, cuz he survived and is thriving.
But just because we got through that horribly difficult birth, doesn't mean that the way was clear for our little guy. About two weeks after he came home he started throwing up all his food that he ate. Brought him to the doctors, nothing that they could see, blood test came back fine. We put him on different formula, didn't work and he got worse. Put him on prescription formula, and it seemed to help a bit, but he was still throwing up just about everything he ate. I was washing his blankets and clothes twice a day because he was going through that many changings. Brought him back to doctors and they finally set up an appointment for x-rays, but the hospital was an hour away. The night before he was to get the x-rays he got very bad. He was unable to keep anything in him. Screaming and crying non stop. We drove to the hospital that he was to get his x-rays at hoping that they could do them sooner. After watching them fight to get an iv in him they ended up telling us to just come back what was now later that day. They had a bunch of people coming in from a very bad accident, and Superman was stable.
I drove back later that day by myself, thinking that this will be a quick in and out kinda thing. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The doctor came in after seeing the x-rays and told me he was scheduling emergency surgery for Superman. Im sorry, what did you just say to me? Surgery? Holy shit! I called DH, and told him that they were going to operate, and I didn't know when I would be home. It turns out that Superman had was is called Pyloric Stenosis, basically it is the tightening and shrinking of the muscle at the bottom of the stomach and top of the intestine. Most of the food that Superman had been eating wasn't making it into his bowls, and would just come back up since it had no place to go. It was the worst case that the doctor had ever seen and he had done hundreds of these surgeries.
Long story short, Superman is doing just fine now, but the reason that I shared that story with you isn't really to give you information on my kid. The real story behind this is, that while I was driving back and forth an hour each way, money for gas was dwindling. We, a family of now five were living on only $451.00 a month. My vehicle was a Ford Explorer and that is for sure not gas efficient. I was going through a tank a day. Fortunately he wasn't in the hospital for long, or we wouldn't have been able to either pick him up from the hospital or we would have had to stay in that town and do I have no idea what. We didn't have family around to help us either. It was down to the last couple of dollars for us.
One of our Crazies sent me a message asking for help. I don't normally post things like this for various reasons, but I mentioned that the FB page was going to be changing directions, and this is a perfect direction. The ability to help another. You see her story runs the same path as mine. It involves a baby, who is an hour away from home in the hospital, and dwindling finances.
Let me introduce Skye and her son who was born Feb 8th of this year during the blizzard that hit New Hampshire. The following is her message to me:
They immediately rushed Superman to the little cribby thingy with DH close behind with the video camera going. The nurses didn't see him behind them and were talking between themselves. Their words were, "I don't think this one is going to make it." That little sentence was recorded on the video. That little sentence that can chill a person to the bone. That little sentence will be heard forever whenever we watch the video of Superman's birth. And being the people we are, we will give a big ole middle finger to those nurses, cuz he survived and is thriving.
But just because we got through that horribly difficult birth, doesn't mean that the way was clear for our little guy. About two weeks after he came home he started throwing up all his food that he ate. Brought him to the doctors, nothing that they could see, blood test came back fine. We put him on different formula, didn't work and he got worse. Put him on prescription formula, and it seemed to help a bit, but he was still throwing up just about everything he ate. I was washing his blankets and clothes twice a day because he was going through that many changings. Brought him back to doctors and they finally set up an appointment for x-rays, but the hospital was an hour away. The night before he was to get the x-rays he got very bad. He was unable to keep anything in him. Screaming and crying non stop. We drove to the hospital that he was to get his x-rays at hoping that they could do them sooner. After watching them fight to get an iv in him they ended up telling us to just come back what was now later that day. They had a bunch of people coming in from a very bad accident, and Superman was stable.
I drove back later that day by myself, thinking that this will be a quick in and out kinda thing. Wrong, wrong, wrong. The doctor came in after seeing the x-rays and told me he was scheduling emergency surgery for Superman. Im sorry, what did you just say to me? Surgery? Holy shit! I called DH, and told him that they were going to operate, and I didn't know when I would be home. It turns out that Superman had was is called Pyloric Stenosis, basically it is the tightening and shrinking of the muscle at the bottom of the stomach and top of the intestine. Most of the food that Superman had been eating wasn't making it into his bowls, and would just come back up since it had no place to go. It was the worst case that the doctor had ever seen and he had done hundreds of these surgeries.
Long story short, Superman is doing just fine now, but the reason that I shared that story with you isn't really to give you information on my kid. The real story behind this is, that while I was driving back and forth an hour each way, money for gas was dwindling. We, a family of now five were living on only $451.00 a month. My vehicle was a Ford Explorer and that is for sure not gas efficient. I was going through a tank a day. Fortunately he wasn't in the hospital for long, or we wouldn't have been able to either pick him up from the hospital or we would have had to stay in that town and do I have no idea what. We didn't have family around to help us either. It was down to the last couple of dollars for us.
One of our Crazies sent me a message asking for help. I don't normally post things like this for various reasons, but I mentioned that the FB page was going to be changing directions, and this is a perfect direction. The ability to help another. You see her story runs the same path as mine. It involves a baby, who is an hour away from home in the hospital, and dwindling finances.
Let me introduce Skye and her son who was born Feb 8th of this year during the blizzard that hit New Hampshire. The following is her message to me:
Would you mind asking your fans if any of them have extra baby boy
things/ diapers? Our son was born at 25 weeks. & all the money we
had saved is going to drive back & forth to the hospital every day.
we live & dad works an hour away from the hospital so all of our
money has been going to gas! I am willing to PM someone my address if
they want to ship something. thank you.
I asked her to give me a bit more information about him and where they live.
He is doing good. he is on CPAP of a level of 7. once we get it down to 5
we can try bottle feeding. we are doing all right just getting
exhasted. we are in NH. he was born on feb 8th in that bad bliazzard we
had. there is no nice you at my hosptial so a special team had to drive
up to get him. it took 3 hours for a drive that normall takes one. they
said they didn't think he would make it, but he did. he is a fighter. he
was born at 2lbs 4oz & has made it to 6bs 3oz now. & i'm hoping
to be home by our due date which was may 20th.
As you can see, Skye isn't asking for money, but rather items for her son. As a mom who also had to drive back and forth while my son was in the hospital I understand the pressure of trying to make ends meet, and deal with a wee one who is sick. So my Crazies, what do you think? Might you have some baby clothes stored away somewhere, could you maybe send her a package of diapers? This is a chance for you to help someone, and get those warm fuzzies that come with doing a great deed. After all, how could you refuse a beautiful face like this?
If you would like to help Skye and her family please message her and she will give you her address and info. She is the first comment.
Thank you all my Crazies, and God bless.
Tuesday, April 9, 2013
Something for Free, You Can't Beat That.
The last two years I have had a garden. I am currently working on planning and starting stuff for garden number three. I have to say the first the garden looked awesome! Kind of resembled a small jungle of sorts. We didn't get much out of it though because earwigs attacked the corn, and rabbits had a field day with pretty much everything except the tomatoes and beans.
Year two was a hard year. It rained, and rained, and rained. Then a drought, then more rain. Very weird summer weather last year. Everything was either swimming or dying of thirst. I put up a fence in hopes that all the good stuff the rabbits kept eating the year before would be safe and sound. Tomatoes didn't do as well, and there was a lot of splitting, earwigs got the corn...again, but we didn't have as bad of an infestation as we did the year before. Then we were adopted by a duck, Pigpen.
Since I had no place to keep the duck, he got locked in the garden at night and roamed the yard during the day. Yeppers you guessed it, Pigpen ate the remaining stuff that was growing. The only things he wouldn't touch were the peppers and tomatoes.
Year three, here's hopeing that this year is better. Although the weather has been most uncooperative. Winter just will not go away. As I type this we are under a winter storm warning. Parts of Minnesota are going to get a dumping of 12+ inches of snow. Yippy,skippy ...not.
If this weather ever gets straightened out I am going to be moving my garden to a better location. When we moved here, where it is currently located was the sunniest spot, and let me tell you it isn't all that sunny. Last year the neighbors cut down two HUGE trees that were shading the yard so they could build a garage. Now the back end of the yard gets sun all day long! I am going to so rock the heck outta my new garden, that is whenever the weather finally straightens out.
This year I will be trying to do a really lazy square foot gardening with companion plants. I have always just plopped stuff wherever I had room for it. I will also be fencing the garden, and we no longer Pigpen, as he passed away this winter. I should be good to grow. I hope. Three years in a row of disasters will for sure bring me down.
As I was searching for information to chart out my garden, I came across a free PDF book called Growing Guide Making the most of your raised bed garden. It is from a program that Massachusetts has called Build-a-Garden-program. Very cool little book for you to print out or save. It has lots of good information on gardening. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Year two was a hard year. It rained, and rained, and rained. Then a drought, then more rain. Very weird summer weather last year. Everything was either swimming or dying of thirst. I put up a fence in hopes that all the good stuff the rabbits kept eating the year before would be safe and sound. Tomatoes didn't do as well, and there was a lot of splitting, earwigs got the corn...again, but we didn't have as bad of an infestation as we did the year before. Then we were adopted by a duck, Pigpen.
Since I had no place to keep the duck, he got locked in the garden at night and roamed the yard during the day. Yeppers you guessed it, Pigpen ate the remaining stuff that was growing. The only things he wouldn't touch were the peppers and tomatoes.
Year three, here's hopeing that this year is better. Although the weather has been most uncooperative. Winter just will not go away. As I type this we are under a winter storm warning. Parts of Minnesota are going to get a dumping of 12+ inches of snow. Yippy,skippy ...not.
If this weather ever gets straightened out I am going to be moving my garden to a better location. When we moved here, where it is currently located was the sunniest spot, and let me tell you it isn't all that sunny. Last year the neighbors cut down two HUGE trees that were shading the yard so they could build a garage. Now the back end of the yard gets sun all day long! I am going to so rock the heck outta my new garden, that is whenever the weather finally straightens out.
This year I will be trying to do a really lazy square foot gardening with companion plants. I have always just plopped stuff wherever I had room for it. I will also be fencing the garden, and we no longer Pigpen, as he passed away this winter. I should be good to grow. I hope. Three years in a row of disasters will for sure bring me down.
As I was searching for information to chart out my garden, I came across a free PDF book called Growing Guide Making the most of your raised bed garden. It is from a program that Massachusetts has called Build-a-Garden-program. Very cool little book for you to print out or save. It has lots of good information on gardening. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Chubby Chicken and Some Yummy Guacamole
It's really awesome living in an area that has so many different authentic ethnic foods around. A couple of my favorite are of course Mexican. One is a taco truck, and the other is an actual restaurant. Prior to eating at these two places, I absolutely hated guacamole. Gross, yuck, nasty stuff! Turns out I just was not getting the best ever stuff. These two places have the best ever guacamole ever! They totally rock.
Moving on, I'm sorry I get side tracked so easily. Especially when it comes to really good food. A couple of weeks back I came across this recipe that sounded like the ultimate Mexi comfort food. Today I decided it was time to make it, and I'm so glad I did. I wanted to make something to put over the top or to dip the Taquitos in, and I of course thought of the awesome guacamole. So I decided to make my own. Scary I know.
So to begin first we have the Chubby Chicken and Cream Cheese Taquitos. I cheated on this one since I got it from Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice.
Ingredients:
3 C. cooked and shredded chicken
6 oz. cream cheese softened
1/3 C. sour cream
1 1/2 C. shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 1/2 C. chopped fresh spinach with stems
removed
1/2 C. salsa
salt and pepper to taste
9-10 flour tortillas
vegetable oil for frying
Directions:
1.) In a large bowl, mix together the chicken, cream cheese, sour cream, salsa, cheddar, and spinach. This is wickedly thick and I found it hard to mix by hand. Then again, I'm a wimp.
Season with the salt and pepper
2.) Working with one tortilla at a time, spread 2 heaping tablespoons of the chicken mix off center and spread out. Make sure you leave just under half the tortilla bare. It spreads as you roll it up which is the next step. Roll that tortilla up, and place seam side down. Roll those suckers all up.
3.) Add enough oil to a large skillet to generously cover the bottom. Heat on medium to medium-low heat. Cook tortillas in batches, turning to brown each side. Remove and set on paper towels to drain.
4.) Serve with your choice of dunking sauce, which in this case would be the guacamole.
Guacamole Recipe
This turned out to be a cross between my two favorite places. I for sure will be added more garlic next time. By the way, this makes a HUGE batch. You might want to half the recipe, or freeze half of it like I did.
Ingredients:
5 large Hass Avocadoes (black in color, slightly soft to the press)
2 large limes. I confess, I used lime concentrate too since the two limes didn't give it enough taste. I have no idea how much I used as I sort of spaced out while squirting it into the food processor. Maybe about 1 Tablespoon or so.
1 medium onion, diced
3/4 C. loosely packed,finely chopped cilantro
1 large tomato, diced. I used two large romas as they were bigger than the biggest beefsteak tomatoes at the store. I can't wait for my garden!
2 large garlic cloves minced
salt to taste
1/2- whole fresh jalapeno (optional)
First off I whipped mine up in the food processor since mashing things hurts my hands. You can mash it all up by hand if you want though.
1.) Slice avocados in half, remove pit, and scoop out the "meat" with a spoon. Place in a bowl, or processor.
2.) Add juice of one fresh lime immediately to prevent browning. Mash or process to desired consistency.
3.) Add chopped onions, tomato(s), second lime, garlic and cilantro. Make sure you mix it all up nice and good.
4.) Add jalapeno to taste
5.) Let sit and chill for a couple of hours for the flavors to mix and meld all together. Enjoy some yummy goodness.
I would have had pictures, I actually remembered to take some this time. However, I can not find the cord for my camera. I will have to add those later. Hope you enjoy this as much as we all did here.
Moving on, I'm sorry I get side tracked so easily. Especially when it comes to really good food. A couple of weeks back I came across this recipe that sounded like the ultimate Mexi comfort food. Today I decided it was time to make it, and I'm so glad I did. I wanted to make something to put over the top or to dip the Taquitos in, and I of course thought of the awesome guacamole. So I decided to make my own. Scary I know.
So to begin first we have the Chubby Chicken and Cream Cheese Taquitos. I cheated on this one since I got it from Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice.
Ingredients:
3 C. cooked and shredded chicken
6 oz. cream cheese softened
1/3 C. sour cream
1 1/2 C. shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 1/2 C. chopped fresh spinach with stems
removed
1/2 C. salsa
salt and pepper to taste
9-10 flour tortillas
vegetable oil for frying
Directions:
1.) In a large bowl, mix together the chicken, cream cheese, sour cream, salsa, cheddar, and spinach. This is wickedly thick and I found it hard to mix by hand. Then again, I'm a wimp.
Season with the salt and pepper
2.) Working with one tortilla at a time, spread 2 heaping tablespoons of the chicken mix off center and spread out. Make sure you leave just under half the tortilla bare. It spreads as you roll it up which is the next step. Roll that tortilla up, and place seam side down. Roll those suckers all up.
3.) Add enough oil to a large skillet to generously cover the bottom. Heat on medium to medium-low heat. Cook tortillas in batches, turning to brown each side. Remove and set on paper towels to drain.
4.) Serve with your choice of dunking sauce, which in this case would be the guacamole.
Guacamole Recipe
This turned out to be a cross between my two favorite places. I for sure will be added more garlic next time. By the way, this makes a HUGE batch. You might want to half the recipe, or freeze half of it like I did.
Ingredients:
5 large Hass Avocadoes (black in color, slightly soft to the press)
2 large limes. I confess, I used lime concentrate too since the two limes didn't give it enough taste. I have no idea how much I used as I sort of spaced out while squirting it into the food processor. Maybe about 1 Tablespoon or so.
1 medium onion, diced
3/4 C. loosely packed,finely chopped cilantro
1 large tomato, diced. I used two large romas as they were bigger than the biggest beefsteak tomatoes at the store. I can't wait for my garden!
2 large garlic cloves minced
salt to taste
1/2- whole fresh jalapeno (optional)
First off I whipped mine up in the food processor since mashing things hurts my hands. You can mash it all up by hand if you want though.
1.) Slice avocados in half, remove pit, and scoop out the "meat" with a spoon. Place in a bowl, or processor.
2.) Add juice of one fresh lime immediately to prevent browning. Mash or process to desired consistency.
3.) Add chopped onions, tomato(s), second lime, garlic and cilantro. Make sure you mix it all up nice and good.
4.) Add jalapeno to taste
5.) Let sit and chill for a couple of hours for the flavors to mix and meld all together. Enjoy some yummy goodness.
I would have had pictures, I actually remembered to take some this time. However, I can not find the cord for my camera. I will have to add those later. Hope you enjoy this as much as we all did here.
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