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Mexican Chicken Soup

26 November 2011, 2:38 pm

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Mexican Chicken Soup

(Caldo de Pollo)

  • 1/2 dried chipotle chili, seeds removed and chopped
  • 1 box (32 oz) chicken broth
  • 2 skinless chicken breasts, each cut into 3 pieces
  • 1 pkg (16 oz) frozen soup vegetable mix
  • 1 bag (16 oz) steamable spanish rice
  • 2 jumbo avocados, sliced
  • 1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese and chopped cilantro

Combine the dried chili, chicken broth and 1 qt water in a large soup pot.  Bring the stock to a boil, add the chicken breast pieces, reduce the heat to medium low, cover and cook for 1 hour.  Remove the chicken chunks from the stock and set aside in a shallow dish to cool.  Shred the chicken, remove the bones and return to the stock.

Add the frozen soup vegetable mix to the soup and continue to cook for 15 minutes uncovered over medium low heat.  Season the soup with salt and pepper to taste.

Prepare the steamable rice according to the package directions and serve with the soup.  Top each bowl with avocado slices, shredded cheese and cilantro if desired.

Makes 6 servings.

I got this recipe from my new HEB Plus.

Filed under Soup, Vittles.
2 Comments

Book stores used to ROCK, and now they don’t.

13 October 2011, 6:20 pm

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I went to the book store yesterday.  And I even bought a book.  But just wasn’t the fun time I had hoped for.

I forgot how worldly the… um… world is.

I’m sure that lots of the books in the children’s section would be fun to read.  That is, if you don’t mind your kids being inundated with VERY WORLDLY THEMES.  Such as government school stuff, feminism, rebellion-as-a-normal-way-of-life, evolution, I could go on and on and on.  I’m sure I’m just the very most naive person on the planet to think that there was anything in that store for my littles.

I did find a nice field guide that we needed.  And Joe found some books he’d been needing.  So the outing wasn’t a complete wash.  But I’d like to remember the lesson I learned about going to actual book stores.  It’s a far, far better thing I do to click on amazon.com.

Also, we had a yummy burger at Wendy’s.

And, in looking around the books on the shelves there in the book store I was reminded of all the many wonderful books we already have on our shelves here.

  • Ballantyne
  • Henty
  • Tolkien
  • C.S.Lewis
  • Brian Jacques

Again, I could go on and on.

I need to remember all the (free) classics I have on my Kindle.

It’s just not worth the effort to go into a book store anymore.  (Hello Borders.) I guess it’s the end of an era.

 

Filed under Books, Joe.
5 Comments

We are Readers

12 October 2011, 12:32 pm

Confession: I love to watch movies.  I watch movies way too much for my own good and the good of my family.  We have a huge collection of  DVDs and we watch “re-runs” of our favorites.  A LOT.

Desire:  It is my hearts desire, and that of my husband, that we both set a better example of right living by spending far more hours reading than we spend gazing into the idiot box.

I got a Kindle for my birthday this year.  It’s a wonder.  I love it.  (Deep breath.) However, it seems more natural to me to have an actual book in my actual hands.  I suspect that I just need to play around with the Kindle more and get more comfortable with some of it’s  features, like highlighting and bookmarking and so forth.  Anyhoo…

Book reading, that’s the topic.  I know some of you (Frankie) use software to keep track of what books you own and enjoy, and what your favorites are.

What I’m wondering is, well, it’s actually twofold.

  1. Can y’all hook me up with the different sites for cataloging my massive collection.  (Really need to un-clutter the shelves before that big event.)  I want to organize my stuff, but I also want to be able to see what is in your collection.  Is that the way those things work?  Or am I just dreaming?
  2. Those of you who don’t have it all categorized and cataloged for me to peruse via internet, could you leave a list of your favorites in the comments here?  I know there are only seven of you out there reading this, but, you know, y’all are who I am meaning to ask.  I value your opinions.  Leave this info on any category of book you care too.  My favorite categories include, but are in no way limited to:
  • Cookbooks
  • How to:
  1. Build stuff
  2. Teach stuff
  3. Improve myself
  4. Survive T.E.O.T.W.A.W.K.I. (The End of the World as we Know It)
  • Historical Fiction
  • SciFi (mild, not horrific)
  • Classics
  • Poetry
  • Kids books – Starting with easy chapter books and on all the way up.
  • Biographies

Seriously, I could go on and on, but there is a Baconator with my name on it somewhere in town.  I have to go google Wendy’s locations and get out of here.

Why are we going to town again so soon?  Not just for the Baconator, although, if you’ve ever had one you know that it could warrant the trip all on it’s own.  No, the Baconator is just a perk.  We’re heading to the book store, and the thrift store (book section).

I made the mistake of going into Books-a-Million yesterday.  I steeled my resolve not to buy a book yesterday, and I didn’t, but those kind of pacts only last till sunset.  Beyond that I became vulnerable.  Vulnerable to recalling the aroma of new books. Vulnerable to dreams of cracking a brand new spine.  Vulnerable to the craving to meet new characters.   And the desire is overwhelming.

Must buy books.

If I’m smart I’ll stick to useful stuff for the kids, who do I think I’m kidding here?  I know this urge is going to compel my feet to carry me into the sci-fi section, or the survival novels shelves.

So, since we all love books so much we should point each other towards our favorites for consideration, IMHO.  So here is my tidbit for you to mull over.  Alas, Babylon.  Yes, it’s a “survival novel”  but oh my does it have story!  It was originally published in 1959, and that right there is a good recommendation.  And since it is older, the crisis is a different one than we normally think of today.  Ditto the difficulties to overcome.  Fascinating.

***Yeah, I just re’read this post.

***What is the matter with me?  Why do I feel guilty over buying a book and not over eating a Baconator?

***(Deep breath, tiny talk with self, pulling up boot-straps.)

***I’m so over it now.  Ok, book stores.  Look out, here I come!

Filed under Books.
3 Comments

Minimalist Much?

12 October 2011, 8:37 am

I copied these from my facebook profile “Favorite Quotes” section.  I could add a ton more, but in keeping with the general, over-all tone of the thing…

LESS IS MORE.

  • “Earthly possessions dazzle our eyes and delude us into thinking that they can provide security and freedom from anxiety. Yet all the time they are the very source of anxiety.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • “The Word of God is like a lion. You don’t have to defend a lion. All you have to do is let the lion loose, and the lion will defend itself.”– Charles Spurgeon
  • “Keep calm, and carry on.” ~Queen Elizabeth
  • “Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.” ~Thomas Edison
  • “It is perhaps a more fortunate destiny to have a taste for collecting shells than to be born a millionaire.” ~Robert Louis Stevenson
  • A gun in the hand beats a cop on the phone.
  • The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten. – Benjamin Franklin
  • I do not want people to be agreeable as it saves me the trouble of liking them. – Jane Austen
Filed under Makin' Do.
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I’m peeved!

10 October 2011, 2:24 pm

And now, because you have no troubles of your own and must run around the internet borrowing  problems from others (are ya buying any of this?) a list of my peeves du jour.

  • The cd player on my Suburban stopped playing cds without notice, now what am I supposed to do?  I actually know the answer to this bratty question from my dirt poor days of yore, but I have nearly forgotten the words to “She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain When She Comes” in all the subsequent years of listening to cds at my leisure.  (shouting to kids) “Somebody find that songbook with those corny-campfire songs y’all used to sing with me when y’all were little, it won’t embarrass you at all to sing with me in the car.  Promise!”
  • My grocery store is closing so that they can open a bigger (and hopefully better) grocery store right next door to it, so, guess what?  The shelves are getting kind of bare.  Now I have to shop in San Antonio for the next 2 weeks until they open the new store and actually have groceries again.  It’s like living in a third world country around here.  I tell ya.  (I know, I know, it’s not really, but people, a grocery store should have some groceries.)
  • WalMart and Amazon have it in for me concerning the CDs I want to buy.  I guess I have weird (read: non-mainstream)  taste in music.  (That’s probably a good thing)  This whole peeve is not as big a deal once you’ve fully digested the first point in my list here, which I haven’t yet.
  • It’s too late in the day to cook the black beans in the crockpot.  (Hey, nobody said these peeves would all be as earth-shaking as my grocery not having Thumb-Tacks today.)
  • The lady at the feed store blamed me for my red cow being out in the road this morning.  Ahem, I don’t own any red cows.  The cows that live around us are black, and they don’t belong to me, so even if I did own cows, they’d be black, not red.  Grrr.  (Weird problem though, huh?)

I just ate pizza for lunch so I don’t really feel entitled to complain any more.  AKA – I should just shut up now.

Later y’all.

Filed under Rant, What?.
4 Comments

Wonder if I remember how to work this thing…

3 October 2011, 5:08 pm

Once upon a time I was a blogger.  I thought I had time on my hands and I filled it with blogging.  Turns out I was robbing my kids of the time I should have been spending doing things with them.  OUCH!  Ok, ripped that bandaid off all at once.

Time, lots of time has passed since I was a blogger.  Time passed and I have changed, but those of you who know me well, know that time doesn’t even have to pass for me to change.  Sometimes I do it in the blink of an eye.  Don’t you feel sorry for my man.  Women are hard enough to “understand” but it’s really not fair when I change my opinions and ideals like a cuttle fish changes her dress.  What can I say?  It’s who I am.  Several things do remain the same.

  • I love God.
  • I love my husband.
  • I love my kids.
  • I love homeschooling.
  • I love watching movies.
  • I love these bullet thingies.

These are the steadiest parts of my life.

So what’s different about today?  I don’t know.  I’ve been thinking I just need a place to put my thoughts down and show off pictures of my kids and visit with you folks every once in a while.  I sure don’t have time to do this everyday, but I think it won’t hurt to try a “when I have a minute” approach.  Again.  So, here I go.

Okay, so today was hard.  Not the “heart-rending” kind of hard.  The “boy-howdy do my feet and back hurt from all the work” kind of hard.

This morning the kids helped me check (wait a minute, I have to do math, yes, it does hurt a little, I’m gonna get out the calculator)(11 cartons x 18 eggs per carton) ok, about 200 eggs for freshness using the “does it float or sink” method.  Then we took them and gave them to some of our friends and the staff at our local veterinary clinic.  I never told y’all at the time, but when Trixie died the nice folks at our vet. clinic sent me a very heart-felt card and everyone on staff signed it and wrote a little note.  People, those folks had only seen Trixie twice.  They’re just good people.  Anyway, we took 7 cartons of eggs to them and took 4 cartons to town for friends.

The bank was next on my list and I had completely forgotten that it was the first banking day of the month.  Lo-o-o-o-o-ong line.  And the A/C in the car quit.

After that forever chore I went to drop off some kids and a couple of pizzas and pick up the husband to go out for lunch.  What a nice time we had, just the two of us.

Then off to Sam’s Club.  Just me and my 2 littlest kids.  The littles are now 8 and 11, so it’s not like I went to Sam’s with a couple of toddlers, but you can’t tell my feet and back that.  My feet and back think they did ALL THE WORK ALL DAY LONG.  Granted we did have a big haul at Sam’s, but …well, not sure why.  I guess it’s the floor at Sam’s.  Sucks the strength and energy right out of a person, can I get an AMEN on that?

So part of the huge haul was two rotisserie chickens.  (I knew spell check was gonna flag me on rotisserie.)  Anyway, brought those tasty birds home and plunked them into the crockpot to keep warm until the rest of the family gets home in a couple of hours.  Then we’ll heat a couple of cans of ranch beans and dig in.

Until then I’m gonna sit on a cushion and put my feet up.  I might read a book.  I might try reading a book with my eyes closed.

Thanks for listening.  Maybe next time I’ll put some photos of the kids on.  For now I think I’ll try to get one from my phone.  Never done that before.  Cross your fingers.  (I don’t even know what “cross your fingers” means, I just said it to rile Perry.)

 

 

Filed under MATH STINKS!!!, Shopping, Trixie-the-Wonder-Dog.
8 Comments

Teacher In Service Day – Oh Help!

23 June 2011, 12:21 pm

I’m taking the day “off” today to do some long neglected and way overdue ORGANIZATIONAL stuff.  I like being organized but why does getting organized have to hurt so  much?

Take the math, please.  (barum pum, tshhhh!)  Like my rim shot?  You should, I played drums in school.  (Checking to see if Kim is paying attention.)

Anyway, the math, for just the 3 youngest kids, I am making/have made 4 pages per kid, per day.  So the equation looks a little like this:

3 kids times 4 pages per day times a variable number of weeks left in the Summer depending on how I look at it minus another variable number of days each particular kid gets to go to work w/Dad equals about 4 million pieces of paper I have to sort, 3-holepunch and put in logical order in their respective notebooks, and then we have to factor in the distance I can get from this pile of papers if I jump in my Suburban at 12:30 p.m. and head north at 90 miles an hour on 3/4 of a tank of gas  (assume a 32 gallon tank when full) and a track record of 15.5 miles to the gallon, because math makes me run away screaming under the best of circumstances, and we’ve already covered the fact that this day is no fun whatsoever.

And NO, the kids cannot help do this!  Do you want to see what I look like bald-headed from all the hair pulling that would bring on?  Good.  Then why even bring it up?  OK.  I’m glad we got that squared away.

And now you may well ask, “I thought you LURVED that Teaching Textbooks math?”  And my answer to you is, yes, yes we do love TT to the max!  But there is a familial trait at play here, one that causes math facts to bounce off of our brains like a watermelon dropped from the window of the third floor into a swimming pool filled with jello mixed to four times the proper density, as in “jello jigglers.”  Plus, Rachel is not ready for 3rd grade TT yet.  Maybe she will be after this nasty Summer-O-Math-Facts-Bootcamp.

BTW~ all I really got online for just now was to look up that math drill site and print off some more pages.  Stop distracting me already!

Filed under Extra-Categorical.
2 Comments

A Prayer for Rain After a Long Drought

22 June 2011, 11:18 am

Thou hast never left Thyself without witness, but hast been continually doing good, even to the unthankful and unworthy, in giving them rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling their hearts with joy and gladness.  We acknowledge that the heavens over us might have been brass, and the earth under us iron.  We have justly deserved the calamity; and Thy power, without a miracle, could have inflicted it.  But though Thou hast tried our patience, and awakened our fears, Thou hast not forgotten to be gracious.  We praise Thee for sending us the seasonable and plentiful rain, by which Thou hast refreshed and revived the drooping fields, so that the earth promises to yield her increase.

 

Another wonderful prayer from Prayers for the Use of Families by Rev. William Jay.

Find it free at:

Oh, and just so ya know, it rained here last night.  While I was at the vet’s office this morning I talked to a man who lives nearby, he said his rain gauge measured 3/4″.  Pretty cool!  More rain in the forecast for today and tomorrow.

Filed under Prayer, Rain.
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Black Bean Soup

20 June 2011, 5:28 am

I’m so tired of beans!  But we have to eat the beans because we’re old and beans are ever so good for our health.  So I have been searching, SEARCHING, searching for yummier bean recipes.  So far this is the one.  And it’s easy, so now I have the double-duty of making myself continue to search so we have variety and don’t get burned out on this too.

The recipe started out on Allrecipes.com and I changed it a bit.

You’ll need:

  • 2 T coconut oil (or whatever oil you like to sauté your onions in)
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 T chili powder
  • 1 t cumin
  • 1 qt chicken stock
  • 3 cans black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 1 can corn, drained, I like to use the Fiesta or Mexicorn style ‘cuz it’s zippier
  • 1 – 8 oz can chiles, chopped
  • 1 can diced tomatoes
  • 1½ c parboiled rice
  • 1-2 t salt

I like to cook this in my enameled cast iron dutch oven.  Sauté the onion in the oil.  While that’s happening you need to open all those cans.   Drain one can of beans and put it into the blender, along with the can of tomatoes (don’t drain those) and the can of chiles (don’t drain them either).  Liquefy the whole mess.  Rachel said it looks like a black smoothie and it does look kinda icky at this point.  Add the seasonings, the rest of the beans, the corn and the black smoothie.  Pour in the chicken stock and bring to a boil.  Add the rice, give a good stir, plop the lid on, turn the heat to low.  Now go sit down and drink some iced tea, ‘cuz it’s hot out there y’all!  Stir the pot every once in a while and after about 20 minutes you can take the pot off the heat, leave the lid on and let it sit until supper time.

This is the tastiest beans and rice I’ve ever made, maybe.  And did you notice?  It’s easy and it’s vegetarian and it’s good for ya!

Do you have a favorite bean recipe?  Care to share?  I need more variety!

Filed under Beans, Soup, Supper, Vittles.
3 Comments

Pray for Rain

17 June 2011, 10:25 am

–Are there any of the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? Or can the heavens give showers? Art not Thou He, O Lord our God? Therefore will we wait upon Thee, for Thou hast made all these things.

Thou visitest the earth and waterest it: Thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God which is full of water. Thou makest it soft with showers; Thou blessest the springs thereof. Thy paths drop fatness. They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness and the little hills rejoice on every side.

We have been made to feel the worth of this blessing by the want of it; and it would be easy for Thee to continue the privation till the heavens over us were brass and the earth under us iron; and the husbandman be ashamed for the wheat, and for the barley, because the harvest of the field is perished, and because joy is withered away from the sons of men.

But, O deal not with us after out desert. Turn not a fruitful land into barrenness. Command Thy rain to descend. Cause Thy grass to grow for the cattle, and herbs for the service of man, and bring forth food out of the earth.

A Prayer for Rain from the book Prayers for the Use of Families by Rev. William Jay.

Available for free in the following locations online and on your phone.

Filed under Extra-Categorical.
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