Baking Bread and Other Resolutions

Here we are again at the end of yet another year.  I am one who does make resolutions, most of them are attempted and some are even considered successful in retrospect. Many though are tweaked from year to year in an attempt to make them a reality. 
Over this year past I have been successful in losing some weight, not what I had envisioned but definitely a decent start.  I joined the Y and I actually go!  Amazing.  Exercise makes me feel good.  I had forgotten over the years just how important it is, just how important I am.  So many of us, as mothers, tend to work on the successes of those in our lives..husbands, children, even friends, and forget the very most important of all. Ourselves.
This now leads to the title of this blog.  In my quest these past months to reconnect with myself and what is important to me, I have done some research on 'clean' living.  I am not a fanatic, and take everything I read with a grain of salt.  What I do absolutely and without any doubt believe is that Americans are digging their own graves.  We are the fattest and the unhealthiest society on earth.  You don't need any scientific study, all you need to do is look around you.  I am a nurse who works in the area of Case Management. What I do among other things is work with families on post hospital care and management. I am appalled at what I see on a daily basis. Young people are literally killing themselves through the choices that they make.  We are overrun with drug abuse, alcohol abuse, food abuse, no exercise, no preventative medical care, no basic understanding of healthy living and nutrition.  We have a generation of elderly who are neglected by their families and by our social system, resulting in depression, illness, alcoholism and malnutrition.  We are a total frigging mess. 
As one individual, I cannot change the world, but I can change myself and try to positively affect those around me. If we all do a little, the effect will be great.
Hence, making bread.  I have had a bread machine since the 80's.  It has been dormant since the 90's. No more!  Just one of the many things I am doing to hopefully avoid cancer, heart disease, diabetes  and on and on the list goes.
I have decided to use the 'clean' principal in the following ways:  avoid preservatives and artificial anything like the plague. I read the labels on everything I buy and am making better choices.  There is a lot out there that is made without the ingredients that I cannot pronounce and don't know how to define.  I make my own bread and it's delicious!  I buy organic produce as much as I can, organic eggs and chicken.  I eat very little beef and am choosey when I do. I eat more non-meat meals.  No ariticial sweetener is found in my home and all the alcohol is gone. 
My intent is to live the next year making a conscious effort to improve my health and wellbeing and influence my friends and family to do the same.  These are my resolutions.

I Love Hobby Lobby

I am off this week, a time to be able to do some catching up and some fun stuff.  My daughter has a lovely condo that she is decorating, and has finally made some decisions as to color and style.  Tulips are her absolute favorite flower in the whole world and her dining table is empty......


Looking online had given inspiration, with Sarah making note of the simple yet elegant style that she prefers.  Pricing on these gems started at about $81 before shipping upward.  So, mom will make one. Can't be that expensive and I've done florals before. 



It is currently fall (late summer) in Spring.  Tulips are a spring flower.  Making the rounds at the designer type stores in the Woodlands and Spring did not yield a single stem much to my dismay.  Also to my dismay was the price they wanted for what they had. Made ordering look like a super deal. 

Then I decided to try Hobby Lobby.  That place is getting more upscale by the day.  And guess what!  I found purple tulips,  the good ones with the stems and leaves that look real, and look EXPENSIVE!!!
50% off (way to go), and 2 stores later to get enough, I ended up with every purple tulip in the Tomball/Woodlands area.  11 to be exact,  at a total cost of  $21.95.   That might cover 2 stems if lucky at places like Picket Fences.  Don't get me wrong, I love it, but it is pricey!

Was able to get a lovely heavy glass vase at H.L at 50% off as well, for $11.50.  Amazing deals are everywhere!  

Discussion with a dear friend as to filler for the clear glass container that Sarah prefers lead to the decision to do grey river rock rather that the clear acrylic 'water' look.   Now, where to get rock?
Another online search and Lowes looked like the place.   I was not able to find just grey rock, but the multi color is actually nicer I think.  For $4.95 I got all the filler I needed.

This is the end result, total cost of $38.40 and maybe 30 minutes or less of my time.

Not bad!    Hope she likes it! 

 It's summer in Spring, and the rains have come. 
Last year's drought is long gone, the plants have survived (most of them) due to my $200 monthly water bill! Luckily our neighborhood never went on restriction last year, and I am soooo glad.  As it was I lost a few trees, now also long gone.
Today I was home from work, a day off before working the weekend.  It has been raining for days, the ground is saturated and soggy.  I didn't take a picture, but I have a rain gauge.  Yesterday morning I emptied 2.5inches of water, today at 3 pm I emptied 5.5 inches.  When it rains here, it rains! No ifs, ands or buts...it RAINS!!.   My yard slopes to a creek in the back, usually just a trickle of water in a deeply gouged meandering stream bed probably about 10 feet deep.  Will have to take a  picture and post as a comparison when it dries up again.  I have a dry creek bed to route the runoff downward without eroding the yard, as well as granite pathways that work in the same fashion.  They were rivers.  Drains are also located on the inside of the fence to shuttle all that water down to the creek.

 This is the water level about 4 hours after the rain has stopped.  The rock is on top of the drain pipe that does down toward the creek.  Currently the drain end is under water (they didn't listen to me when they did the work..duh),

  The other side of the back.  I threw a chunk of philodendron stalk in the back a few years ago.  Guess what!  It rooted!.  There is a lovely plant back there!

 I discovered some erosion a few weeks back in one area and have yet to get it repaired, but I piled the bags of topsoil over the eroded area and added new stone edging to route the water where it should be going (not in the photo) and it worked!  I am psyched.  Next week I will do the repair work.

I love living here.  In spite of all the work that is involved in maintaining this property it is my heart and soul.  My father was a man of the land.  He had a deep conviction that land was of the utmost importance, preserving it, working it, supporting it.  He was an avid gardener, built and maintained miles of country roads and spent most of his hours outdoors.  I hope he would be proud.  I miss him. 

It started with a little paint...

You know that room. It's the one many of us have, that used to be something, maybe a child's room or a guest room, that suddenly became the place to put anything that didn't immediately have a home. Well, I have a couple. The one under discussion is Sarah's old room, destined to be the catch-all after she left for Singapore, a mixture of her discards and my "what do I do with this" room.

It all started with a water leak, a leak that had been insidious for many years and suddenly made itself known. What resulted was significant expense and the replacement of a window seat, framing and sheet rock among other things. To save a little money I decided to do the interior painting myself. Painting is easy.

I chose a soft violet with grayish tones, stark contrast to the electric lemon yellow chosen by my daughter in her teen years. Going on the walls, with that yellow beside it, it looked hideous! The end result is lovely. Of course, a stark window is crying for care, and I found the perfect fabric when not really looking for it! Tends to happen that way, so I keep fabric swatches and paint samples and measurements of everything in my purse like others keep family photos.


I have a very dear friend who is a professional seamstress. She can make anything, and makes everything look really easy. I struggle, but I did manage to make a simple valence window treatment that looks professionally done, and did not have to call her once for help. That's progress. I did learn through my friend Google how to prepare the valance board, pre-drill for the L-brackets and get the thing together. What they didn't tell me was trying to drill through fabric and batting to attach the L bracket causes the batting to wad up into a ball. Not good. Anyway, I figured it out.


Mounting the thing was something else. Expletives that I didn't know I knew flowed freely from my mouth. I needed 4 hands and for some reason I have only 2. It's up there, securely and level. I have learned to measure, measure, measure and use a level always. So I now have an almost completed guest room, just a few finishing touches like a window seat cushion, a little art on the walls and a throw rug to cover the stains on the carpet by the bed (til I can get the carpet changed)!

Hanukkah starts this week.  This year will be different with neither of my children here for any part of the 8 day celebration.  We are not heavy on tradition but do enjoy the gifts and being together, and  I make a mean latke!

All of this has started me thinking, something I have often entertained before but have never written.  Hanukkah is NOT the Jewish Christmas. It is a rather minor holiday, but in Western culture at least, has been magnified due to it's proximity to the Christmas season into a blend of the 2 events by at least the Reform Jewish population. I pulled out my decorations yesterday.  As I was sorting them out, I realized the majority are Christmas based that I thought I would be able to modify to "appear" appropriate to Hanukkah. This is a joke!  They are Christmas decorations. I know people who actually have "Hanukkah Bushes", but I have never gone that far!

The menorahs, dreidels, Stars of David are the appropriate symbols to Hanukkah, not the tinsel and "modified" wreaths and such that I have accumulated.  I even trudged through Michael's and Hobby Lobby searching for that "perfect" item I could pass off as something else again this year.


It started me really thinking about the reasons I have done this.  Is it social pressure and a need to try to make this Hanukkah holiday something of similar social value to Christmas?  I can see no other reason.  If Hanukkah fell in June, I doubt very much there would be any significant decorating aside from the holiday table.



I also have accumulated "seasonal" decorations, snowmen and such, that I used to put out with the pseudo-Hanukkah fare. My dear son Brendan always scoffed, "Mom they're Christmas decorations, why are you putting them out".  This is the same child who bought his mother a stuffed red Santa when he was very small, to have me not "feel bad" about giving up my childhood holiday.  I treasure that, not for the fact of what it was, but for the sentiment and kind-hearted thought  that was behind it.

I don't believe my children suffered any loss by not having Christmas. They were always the odd ones out at school, but that provided an opportunity to share different traditions.  They helped decorate the tree with Christian friends, and Christian friends were invited to participate in the Hanukkah celebrations. 

Anyway, I have decided to forget the decorating. I will leave out what I have done and will donate all the rest, minus my this one  REALLY COOL guy, to charity.  Someone is in for a great supply of snowmen! 

It's winter is Spring! 32 degrees this morning and clear skies. Today is day 2 of my slab repair. Texas is in a drought, houses here are built on slabs of concrete sitting in the ground..ground composed of clay and other shifting materials. Stupid. I am not certain why basements are not done here. I know in Louisiana it was due to the water table being so close to ground level. Maybe it is similar here. But anyway, if I ever were to build a home here I would insist on pier construction to keep it steady. My house is older, and I have seen subtle signs of settling for years which I chose to ignore as they were minor. Many homes, again due to our soils, settle and no one really cares. When the walls and grout on the floor tiles start to crack, when doors will no longer close and your mascara, carefully placed on the counter, rolls into the sink, you know you have something that might need attention. My slab has a crack, my house is settling downward toward the creek, following the slope of the land, and the garage is settling to the side, pulling away from the house. After several estimates and a hefty wait time due to all the business these guys have this year, we are underway.
Pics of the back, including the massive hole Mr.Win got into last night and couldn't get out of. Needed a neighbor to help fish him out. Deaf and partially blind, but that sense of smell. There is a piece of foil in there, probably had some tempting tidbit or wonderful smell left to lour him in! He is fine. I am shaken.

Baked Pasta with Meat Sauce

I came up with this recipe last night, great for freezing and for re-heating leftovers. I made it into 2 2-serving portions, but it can be done into single serving or a larger casserole as desired.

Weight watcher points plus with cheese is 6 per serving, without cheese is 5. The cheese adds a creamier texture to the dish. This would also be good with a sprinkling of parmesan and fresh parsley as soon as out of the oven instead of the mozzarella.

Preparation: Begin by cooking 4 oz of high protein or whole wheat shell pasta as directed, but til barely el dente. I use Barilla.

Saute 1/4 cup chopped red onion, 1/4 cup chopped green pepper, 1 clove minced garlic in 1-2 tsp olive oil. When vegetables are starting to soften, add 5 oz 97% lean ground beef, salt and pepper to taste, a little cayenne pepper and a few shakes of Italian seasoning. Cook until meat is browned.

Add 1 cup of your favorite pasta sauce. I used Barilla tomato and basil (2 WWP points per 1/2 cup). Cook til hot and bubbly, taste and adjust seasonings if needed.

Spray olive oil spray into baking dishes, place 1/4 cup of sauce in bottom of each dish, covering with the pasta and the remaining sauce. Top with the cheese if desired. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.

Enjoy with a fresh steamed vegetable or salad!