Living La Vida Loca :)

My life has been a little hectic the past couple of months...you can probably tell from the lack of blog posts that I have been a bit busy!
I am so glad that Kevin (my dear husband) and I decided to take a little 'vacay' mixed in with a family wedding last week! It was an amazingly fun and relaxing time for us...and we also got to see both of our sons (and our daughter in law) at the same time! It does not happen too often, since our sons live on opposite coasts.
We started our trip with a short visit to our old stomping grounds- Mammoth Lakes, CA. I know they have been in the news lately because of their declaration of bankruptcy, but, really, Mammoth Lakes is one of the most beautiful places in the world- at least, in our eyes.
Mammoth is the place I really fell in love with Kevin. He took the time to teach me to ski back in 1978. Some of you know how difficult I can be when I'm cold, or tired, or frustrated- and learning to ski is all about being cold, and tired and frustrated. Today, I am a halfway decent skier because of Kevin and his patience, and, Mammoth.

Next, we drove to the OC to attend the wedding of our niece, Colleen, and our new nephew, Eric! It was an epic wedding reception- Tricia and Erin, the Maids of Honor, gave a fantastic and hilarious speech, and got the party started by chugging PBR...needless to say, I danced holes in my shoes. I may be a little jiggly, but I do love to dance! Oh, and sing...did I mention that I like to sing?  Alll I can say is that the girls at the wedding rocked, "Africa" by Toto. And, of course, we all did, "The Time Warp" with great enthusiasm...including my Mom, the Great Grandma of the family. I think everyone who attended the wedding sang, "Piano Man" Living On A Prayer" and several other family favorites.  We also met some very interesting 'local color' in San Clemente at 2 in the morning, waiting an hour for a taxi home (we paid attention to those PSA commercials telling us to 'drink responsibly') . Thanks, Knuckleheads Bar for the advanced lesson in dive bar-ism.

We spent an extra day in the OC visiting family, and of course, making a de riguer visit to In N Out. Trust me, it's iconic. If you ever get to eat at In N Out, try the Animal Style fries that are not on the menu.

Although it was not on the original schedule, Mammoth Lakes called us back.
We drove back and spent a few more days there, walking down memory lane, going to familiar restaurants, hiking, and fishing. Well, I watched Kevin fly fish. It was AWESOME!

We also had an opportunity to visit with one of the young people I  had the privilege to work with in Youth Ministry at San Francisco Solano Parish. Alisa is a smart and sweet young lady who has traded the rat race of the OC for the outdoor mecca of Mammoth Lakes for the past couple of years. She had lunch with us and shared a little window into her life. I am so glad I got to reconnect with her! Sometimes, you get to see some of the fruit of the work in the labor of love that you perform in serving Christ and his Church...and in Mammoth Lakes, I found a deeply spiritual, mature, sensible young lady who walks in the way of the Lord.

It was a very fun trip with a lot of laughs...I still crack up when I remember that I told Kevin we had to be on the lookout for the 'Nippies' in Nevada (Chippies in California, Nippies in Nevada). I loved meeting the 'new' priest assigned to Mammoth Lakes- Fr. Paul Beaudreau. I kept thinking, I had this nagging feeling that his name sounded familiar. I later found out that he is a columnist for a magazine I read all the time, "Today's Parish" by 23rd Publications, and that he is also a 'mover and shaker' in the life of the Church.
Kevin and I had tears rolling down our cheeks one night, because we were laughing so hard...we played a game with the ipad where we played the first opening bars of a song from the 70s when we met and the other person had to name the song...we had a lot of cocktails, a lot of wonderful meals, a lot of fun with our family, and most important, a time to relax and fall in love with each other all over again.

Back to reality....but, now, we know, we need to do this more often. Isn't that what 'retirement' is all about?

Memorial Day Weekend

Kevin decided to surprise me and take me with him fly fishing on Spring Creek today. We had a freeze last night- not sure the yellow squash is going to make it!- so it was very cold when we headed out this morning after a BLT breakfast.

He offered to let me wear his winter neoprene chest waders. They almost fit. NOT!
OK I looked like a moose wading in the water, but it was pretty cool! By the way, the water was FREEZING cold!

I stayed in the water and took some awesome pictures downriver...

And, eventually, I took some pictures of Kevin actually fishing ....

He didn't catch anything, but, it was a lot of fun!
I love living here.....snow, rain, thunder, lightning, sunshine, clouds, gardening, fly fishing, new truck buying...all in one weekend!

Happy Memorial Day, everyone...and NEVER forget the sacrifice of our veterans. Kevin's Dad is a Vet of the Korean War, our son Patrick is a Veteran of Iraqi Freedom...and we have many friend who have served over the years....we honor them all this weekend.

Last night, we watched, "The Devil's Brigade", and tonight we will watch, "The Longest Day"...and tomorrow, I can rest assured that we will most likely watch, "Heartbreak Ridge", "Glory" (best movie EVER) ,"The Dirty Dozen", " The Outlaw Jesse Wales", "She Wore A Yellow Ribbon" and "In Harm's Way.". Maybe "The Big Red One" or "A Bridge Too Far"...all of which we own on DVD.

Snow and the Chicks

Foggy refused to exit the coop yesterday. We had a little snowstorm (usual for Memorial Day!) and she did not like the snow. She made little chicken noises of distress....and paced back and forth in the run.

She finally jumped out and walked around a little bit with the other girls...

But she was very vocal about her objection to the cold white stufff!

Of course, by today, we had snow, rain, hail, sunshine and wind...again. Here are the girls relaxing in the garden, hanging out on the tomato cages. We keep catching them trying to eat the squash plants....I am hoping we will at least get a zucchini plant to maturity! Oh, and the green things are called "Walls of Water". Greatest invention for gardeners who have a very short growing season and unpredictable spring/summer weather!

Ceili the German Shepherd

Ceili, our German Shepherd, will be 12 years old in a couple of weeks. We got her from Deblyn's in Gustine, CA in 2000. Her AKC name is "Deblyn's Irish Ceili". She has certainly lived up to her name!
Ceili has been slowing down a lot in the past few months. She loves to romp around the yard in either the snow or the grass...but her back legs have been giving her some trouble for the past couple of months and she just can't run around like a nut anymore.
Ceili has always loved babies...of all types. She was the one who guarded the Yorkie puppies and let them sleep on her head and between her paws. She still loves it when Bridget the Yorkie lays on her back or uses her as a ladder to look out the window! She has also developed a great curiosity about the chickens.

She will lay on the grass, endlessly, and just watch them. They chickens drive the Yorkies berserk...but Ceili just wants to watch them.

This is Ceili's couch. She hangs out in the living room with us, just watching TV or snoozing.

This is another very common pose...fast asleep and snoring on the living room floor. For a 90 lb. GSD, she spends a lot of time napping...but just wait until the UPS truck drives down our street or someone rings the doorbell....it's TIME TO BARK!

We hope she has many more years with us, but I wanted to post about this special girl in case her time is coming to a close.She has been a very faithful companion. I spend a lot of time with her, and we have done some very fun training. And-she is the biggest lap dog I've ever had!

Moving to Blogger!

I have decided to move my blog to Blogger. I can connect with my Google+ account, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook and it looks like I'll have a LOT less problems with posting!

This is a pretty funny picture of the girls...they do enjoy roosting on Kevin's tomato cages. Bo is mid-flight to join Moa in the bug hunt!
This is before they got scared and ran into the coop--we have had rain, sunshine and hail on and off all day.

Red and Green Tomatoes

So I'm on the trail of what to do with tomatoes. We had a hard frost a couple of weeks ago, and my husband and I picked over 200 very green tomatoes. We wrapped them in newspaper, and let them rest in a spare bedroom. Now, we have a freezer FULL of tomato sauce, we've given tomatoes to every person in Klamath Falls and we still have over 50 on the kitchen counter! We pulled out one of the plants and hung it up in the garage and almost all of the tomatoes on that plant are ripe, too. We did cover one yellow tomato plant in the garden- and it's still producing! Along with the swiss chard and butternup squash and pumpkins...so after another giant batch of pizza sauce, 3 one gallon sized bags of 'oven dried' tomatoes and 6 cups of fresh tomato juice, what else can I do with tomatoes?? What a wonderful dilemma!

Frugal & Green Living

I've wanted to write about some of the strategies that have worked for me and my family through the past few years. We have been GREEN for many years-way before it was trendy! And we have looked for economical ideas to help with the bottom line for even longer.
I laughed recently because our local newspaper recently ran an article about saving money in tough times and one of the biggest ideas was to eat at home more! Since I've always loved to cook, we rarely eat out and often we are disappointed in a pricey dinner out when we realize we could have had it at home, in more comfort, for a lot less! So I'll be posting lots of recipes and ideas that work for us on a practical level but I won't be giving you many ideas on how to save on eating out! Right now it's just my husband and me since one son is in college at Cal State Fullerton and the other son and his wife live on the other side of the country. Many of my recipes or ideas will feed four, but we plan to eat leftovers for lunch or freeze for additional dinners. (I'll let you know what you can freeze safely) All will be very tasty!
GREEN for us is also frugal and a time saver- when we consciously recycle, reuse and compost every thing possible, we spend less on trash fees and save on soil amendments. We also save on buying new seeds or pots to transplant seedlings. We don't have to buy new as often and find new ways to use old things. but on the other hand, we also keep energy costs in check by spending a little-an example is a recent purchase of a new Energy Star Washing Machine, Dryer and Refrigerator. We have saved a bundle by upgrading older appliances, and also recycled the appliances so they can be 'reused'. You have no idea how low our water bill dropped when we switched to a new Maytag HE washing machine!
So I'll try to talk about several different things in each post. Today, I'll give you a quick and delicious recipe that everyone will love: Alfredo Sauce. First a small note- I only make this when Grocery Outlet http://www.groceryoutlets.com/ has 3 packs of Boursin cheese (5.5 ounces each) for $1.50.
Alfredo Sauce:
2 tablespoons of canola oil
2 tablespoons of flour
1 cup of 2% milk- warmed in the microwave for 1 minute
one 5.5 ounce pack of Boursin cheese

in a saucepan, heat the oil on medium heat. Add the flour and whisk constantly for about 2 minutes. Slowly whisk in the warmed milk. It will begin to thicken. When it starts to thicken, turn the heat to low and add the crumbled Boursin cheese, whisking constantly. When all the cheese is incorporated, you are ready to serve!
Serves 4

We serve this over steamed Sapghetti Squash, but it is equally good over whole wheat pasta.
Nutritional information for the Boursin cheese is found at http://www.boursincheese.com/about/facts.htm Round this out with a nice green salad and a loaf of free french bread from Albertson's surveys, www.albertsons.com and you've got a great meal! (You do call in on the suveys from register reciepts, right? We eat free french bread at least twice a month and win all kinds of other free stuff by simply filling out computer surveys or calling in--and with the "Do Not Call" Registry, and an unlisted phone number, we don't get harassing calls, either. )
One GREEN Tip:
for years, I have had a small metal bowl on the kitchen counter for compost scraps and 'greywater'... dead flowers, water that ran in the sink to get warm, broccoli ends, onion skins, garlic skins, celery ends, carrot tops, coffee grounds,potato peels, strawberry hulls, you name it, it went into the compost bowl! Every night, rain, shine or snow, it goes into our homemade composter and eventually into the garden soil. Free soil amendment! Just remember- no meat, oils, sauces etc. http://www.howtocompost.org/