Happy Veteran's Day

There's nothing new, really, to say except a renewed Thank You to all of our Veteran's.  Here's a revisit to a day that Tiana made me very proud (You'll have to follow the link).

Tiana singing at a Veteran's Day assembly

 And two of my favorite veterans!

Well...

So, I kind of promised that I'd think about doing more blogging since I'm not currently Facebooking, but I'm finding that we lead kind of boring lives!!  We're in the process of refinancing and so we had to have an appraisal done today.  We made sure that the house was in tip-top shape since, although the loan isn't based on my housekeeping skills, it can't help but make a home more attractive if it's kept up!  Also, I made some bread because who doesn't like the smell of freshly baked bread?!  Wouldn't you know it?  Our appraisal had a cold!  Probably couldn't even smell the aroma!  Oh, well!  Win some, lose some!  Of course, if I'd known she was sick, maybe I wouldn't have gone to the effort after my morning!  We have a new labor management system at work and so far, it is a nightmare.  I'm in charge of distributing tips each week and this week, well, nightmare doesn't even begin to cover what it was!  What normally can take me as little as 45 minutes took me 2 whole hours, and would have taken even more if I hadn't just finally said, "Forget it!!  That's enough!"  and if my co-worker hadn't told me to just pay out the one girl out of next week's tips!  Good grief!  Who designed this program?!

So, then, what else?  I went and bought a scrubs top at school the other day.  Had a bit of a frustrating experience with all of that.  Maybe you remember me being so excited and telling everyone that I'd made the phone call that made me a nursing student?  That would have been approximately on October 7.  I didn't feel really good about that call -- like maybe the person who took the call didn't actually pay one lickin' bit of attention to what I said.  So, I decided to go into the school on the day of the deadline, buy the scrubs, get the photo ID and stop in and verify that my name was on the "accepted" list.  I went to the counter and the woman rudely told me I would need to tell her my name if she was to look.  She never wrote my name down, never looked it up on any lists, nothing.  I also gave her my immunization records and she told me that it probably wouldn't work.  Long story and I promise I will make my case for letting me into the program no matter what.  Anyway, that was October 30 at about 10 in the morning and deadline was noon.  Friday rolls around and I have a phone call from the nursing office.  I'm thinking, well, shoot, I have to defend my hepatitis B shot already!  Nope!  Nothing that easy!  The lady's calling because "[they] haven't heard from me yet and I'm the last one to respond to whether or not I'm accepting the position they offered me!!"  ARE. YOU. KIDDING. ME.?!?!  I called AND I walked in and they still didn't get my name on the "accepted the offer" list!!  I'll be going in person again, to make sure nothing else gets missed!  The lady seemed slightly sorry, but not really sorry enough for my taste!  But she did say that, even though it was now past deadline, they would accept my acceptance and I'll start in January.  We still have to see about the immunization that I won't have a titer for before clinicals, but...

So, I guess that's kind of non-boring details of our life right now.  But now I need to go to bed because 4:10AM comes VERY early!

Christmas Dinner Theme is PLANNED!!!!

Sometimes all you need is the Seaside (Oregon, that is!)

Just what we needed!  A weekend at the beach, a book to read, some sunshine and we're rejuvenated.  A few more days would have been perfect and we had to cut our time short due to obligations at home, but the getaway was awesome!!  Click on the picture for some of my favorites of the pictures I took!  And here's a clip of the surf in action.  Don't blink or you'll miss it! :-)

Happy 11th Birthday, Coda!

This is the (was) napping birthday boy!  If he knew what was in the oven right now, he'd probably be sitting inside creating a saliva-puddle in front of the oven door.  Would you like to join him for some cookies later?  There's baby food chicken, peas, sweet potatoes and oatmeal cereal, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, bacon bits, cheddar cheese, egg, oat flour and oats all basted with bacon grease.  Are you sure you won't join him for his birthday treat?! ;-)
   

Or, if you'd rather, we can just have some cinnamon applesauce!!  This is the second large batch of applesauce I've made from the two FULL grocery sacks of apples that I received from friends.  I've eaten a number of the apples, but I LOVE the applesauce that come from these apples!  No sugar, just the pure flavor of the apple!  And it makes such a beautiful mauve applesauce!

Well now isn't that something?

Ah...the glorious days of fall -- something to be enjoyed while on a leave of absence from work!  EXCEPT I'M NOT ON LEAVE.  Oh, wait!  Yes, I am.  But I'm not supposed to be and so why did I work today?!  Somehow, in preparing to get ready for my Coffee Break Sabbatical and doing everything right to have that start on the 13th of January, it got entered into the computer as pending, but also completely "finished" because the date the specialist entered was January 13, 2013!!!  But my leave isn't until 2014!!  Anyway, so that explains why I couldn't assign a till today at work, and also why I couldn't even access the partner portion of the Starbucks website.  So, hopefully my specialist should be able to fix that first thing in the morning and I'll be able to work until January 2014!!!  Phew!!

So, off to coffee for my hard-working, lawn-mowing, still-sniffling husband!  And I might just need something to calm my nerves after having to try and take care of a mess I didn't create!

Lessons of the Heart

Yesterday I had the extreme pleasure of introducing the heart to three adorable young ladies!  We listened to the heart with a stethoscope, found our pulse, dissected a sheep heart and talked about what makes for a healthy heart.  I didn't feel it quite right having these girls here right after school without a snack, but I also wanted the snack to be heart healthy so I looked for an oatmeal cut-out cookie recipe that I could cut into heart shapes.  I found this recipe and want to make sure to keep it on file!  I made just half of the recipe so I had just an egg white and I also used part whole wheat flour and did NOT pack the brown sugar!  The cookies were huge hits! (As was the whole heart experience!)

Iced Oatmeal Cut-Out Cookies

• 1 c. butter
• 1 c. brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1½ c. flour
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 tsp. cinnamon
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1½ c. old-fashioned oats (cut with a knife)

Pre-heat oven to 350°.  Prepare parchment covered baking sheets; set aside.  

Cream butter and brown sugar.  Add egg and mix well. Add flour, vanilla, cinnamon, baking powder and oats and mix well.  Dough is VERY sticky so make sure work surface is very well floured and roll out with well floured rolling pin.  Cut out with well floured cookie cutter.  Place on prepared cookie sheets and bake 7-9 minutes or until golden brown.

White Icing

• 1 c. powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. corn syrup
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 tsp. water

Mix all together and pipe onto cookie with a #4 tip.  Start with outline and then fill in until smooth.

Cinnamon Icing

• 1 c. powdered sugar
• 1 tsp. corn syrup
• ½ tsp. cinnamon
•  5 drops cinnamon extract
• 2 tsp. water

Mix together as for white icing, adding drops of water if needed to get a creamy consistency.  Ice cookies in same way.