National Eat Your Veggies Day

I love veggies!  Favorites though include:
potatoes any shape, form or fashion;
asparagus;
mushrooms;
lima beans;
corn;
peas;
okra; and
cherry tomatoes.

Least favorites and will hardly or never eat include:

rutabaga
brussel sprouts
turnip greens;
radishes; and
beets.

When Corey was small, I had problems getting him to eat his vegetables.  When I felt like he needed a good veggie fix, I would take him over to Mom and Dad's house and for some reason he'd eat theirs.   So, if I let them know that we were coming for dinner and needed veggies, they might make fresh homemade vegetable soup and he eat it with no problem, including soups with okra.  I think the most favorite vegetable dish that Corey likes for me to cook is my Stuffed Bell Peppers.

Start with fresh bell peppers that can sit on their own without tipping over.

Cut off the tops and scoop and wash out the seeds.

I usually use ground beeft, but to add more lean meat use ground chuck.  I usually make my stuffed peppers using a large roll of ground beef - no less than 10#'s.  Place in a large bowl for meat "goop" to be mixed.

To the meat, add some chopped onions...

add various spices, i.e. Italian seasonings, salt, pepper - anything you want to add flavor to the meat goop.

Pour in any type of INSTANT rice into the meat goop.  Add as much or as little as you want so that you can still mold the meat goop.

Add some spaghetti sauce in with the mixture to add some moistness as well as ...

two - four eggs depending upon the amount of mixture you are making.

This is what it will look like when all items have been added.  Now, you get your hands in there and mix it all together.  No spoons!  No utensils of any type!

Anticipation, anticipation, Is makin' me late
Is keepin' me waitin'

Somebody appears to be very happy I'm making the Stuffed Bell Peppers!

Remember...NO utensils, only hands!

Note to self...Get Nikki some BIG bowls!

Add more rice if you feel you need to.  It's a guessing game.

When thoroughly mixed, begin stuffing peppers with meat goop.  Fill the cavity all the way to the top.

Once the peppers are stuffed, place them in a slow cooker next to each other.  Then, take the leftover meat goop and fill in the empty areas.  (Nikki introduced me to the disposable slow cooker bags which means you don't soil your cooker so badly since you throw away the bag).

I then take the end of a wooden spoon and poke holes in the goop.  Then I pour spaghetti sauce all over the top and down the holes.  This will help the rice to cook.  No other liquid is needed.

Cover and cook according to the amont of time you wish.  If I'm gone all day, I will put it on low.  Cook until the bell peppers turn a light color and will basically fall apart with pierced with a fork.  When they are done, the meat should be cooked also.

Getting ready to check out this latest batch.

Anticipation, Is makin' me late
Is keepin' me waitin'

Oh yes, another satisfied customer!  (He's so glad we came to visit).

Corey refused to eat tomatoes and I always felt that it had to do with the fact that I ate cherry tomatoes constantly during my pregnancy.  I ate them like someone might eat popcorn or peanuts - constantly popping them into my mouth.  He's eventually gotten around to eating his veggies and hey, I did get him to eat bell pepper!

Mom's Diary Diddle

June 16th -

God Can Dream A Bigger Dream Than You Can Dream Yourself

I was reminded of that quote that I had heard several years ago.  I loved it so much I had it taped to my office wall in my old home in Georgia.  I heard it on the Oprah show one time and thought it was so profound and so true.  We never know exactly what our Heavenly Father has in store for us and we won't know until He has sprung it on us sometimes.

I am living witness to all this.  I thought life was good and life was great a little over a year ago.  I thought I had a great job - the money was really good by normal standards, I had a three day weekend every week sprinkled with a four day weekend occasionally, Joe's health was pretty good, life was good and life was pretty great.

Then the bottom fell out - heart attack, kidney failure, congestive heart failure, infections, seizures, unconsciousness, and so many other medical problems for Joe and then my job loss.  What more did my Heavenly Father want from me?  Why was it necessary that He kept messing with my life?  Didn't I deserve a break, some normal happiness?  When did He feel that I had learned my lesson in life about whatever I was supposed to learn?  Was it patience, understanding, more love, what? 

I tried hard for five months to find another job.  It was a daily search accompanied by frequent interviews.  Why wasn't I getting a job?  I an an "impeccable resume"; I had "stellar references"; I had "outstanding skills"; I could type 79 wpm and talk at the same time; I could design Excel spreadsheets; I could do what was being required for the job!  Why couldn't the interested parties see that I was perfect for them?  So for the past 11 months I gradually felt I was losing me; I was losing the Carol that I knew and loved and regressing back into the days when I was Les' wife and Corey's mother when I felt as though my own personal identity was first disappearing and then lost.  During these last 11 months I was the person who got up at 4 a.m. four days a week, who came home around 6 p.m., fixed meals, kept the house and was the full time caregiver for my husband...a husband who was himself trying to hold on to what independence he had and all the while suffering from depression.  I was hanging in there.  I had to no matter what.  I know I didn't do as good a job as I could have.  I wasn't as patient or kind or understanding or loving as I should have been. 

Losing my job was a blessing.  I've come to understand that it was my Heavenly Father's way of saying "Stop!  It's time to make a change.  You can't and won't do it, so I will."  And He did.  Despite the job loss of five months, it was a wonderful time for reflection, for healing, for taking life at a slower pace.  It was a blessed time.

This week things changed.  I got a new job - a call that came first thing Monday morning.  Someone wanted me to come and work for them.  They didn't ask me to do a typing test; they didn't ask me to design a spreadsheet; they didn't ask me where I wanted to be in five years.  Their interview was different.  I felt it.  I felt it enough to even mention at the end of the interview that I might need to be excused if my husband needed me for medical reasons.  Long story short, they want, they insist that I take my lunch time and pick up Joe from dialysis.  They understand - they have families and families come first.  I'm starting out at a fairly decent salary and at the end of 90 days I've been promised basically what I had when I left my last job.  And, the place I've been working temporarily to help supplement my unemployment check also wants to keep me.  They offered me the opportunity to keep my job and let me work when I want after hours.  They've given me a raise and I will be given a key to the office so I can come and go.

Joe is now doing volunteer work on the days he's not in dialysis and he's now joined the "geezer" chapter of the Kiwanis at the Senior Citizen Center.  The physical therapy he's been taking to help his walking and balance is improving his physical limitations and life seems to be settling into a comfortable, manageable rhythm in both of our lives.

I am looking forward to the opportunity of discovering myself again - doing things just for me.  I look forward to seeing what other new and exciting things are in store for me and for Joe and I as a couple.  I look forward to leaving the memories of the last few months behind and making new exciting ones in the upcoming months.

Today In History...

June 16, 1960…The Alfred Hitchcock movie "Psycho," starring Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, Vera Miles, John Gavin, and Martin Balsam, had its world premiere in New York City.

One of the scariest movies I've ever seen in my life.  I yelled out loud "No!  Don't go to the top of the stairs"!!!  I was afraid to take a shower for the longest time.

When I was between 16-17 years old, the entire Young Women's program had a sleepover one night.  Someone decided we should go to the movie and we decided to go to the base theater.  Psycho was playing and we all went into the theater and lined up near a back row.

Long story short, there was a lot of screaming; some girls didn't make it till the end of the movie; I was slouched so far down in my chair I could barely see the screen and then when the stair scene came, some guy laid his hand on my shoulder and I came up out of my chair with a bloodcurdling scream.

They just don't make 'em like they used to.

Did I mention that no one slept that night?

Mom's Diary Diddle

June 15, 1961 - Good news! Old Betsy has arrived.  Can hardly wait to see her.
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Note:  Old Betsy was our 1957 black and white Chevrolet Station Wagon.

Magna Carta Day

Today is Magna Carta Day, the anniversary of that June day in the year 1215 when, at Runnymede meadow beside the River Thames in Surrey, English barons presented King John with a written list of rights they demanded that he recognize…and he did.  So what has this got to do with me doing a blog posting?

In 1976, Nancy, Mom, Aunt Rachel and I went to Washington, D.C. to apply for Nancy's wedding license.  One of the places we went and visited was the Capitol Building and there in the Rotunda was being displayed an original copy of the Magna Carta.  I remembered studying about it in English history so it was quite exciting to see the real thing.  It had been loaned by the British government in honor of our Bicentennial Celebration in 1976. 

The copy of the Magna Carta exhibited in the Rotunda in 1976 was one of the two copies from the manuscript collection of Sir Robert Cotton, long preserved in the British Museum and classified as "Cotton Manuscript Augustus II, 106." Who first owned it is unknown. Sir Robert Cotton acquired it in 1629, the gift of a friend, Humphrey Wyems.  The document loaned to the United States is regarded by scholars as the most authoritative copy extant. It was a gesture of extraordinary generosity that Britain loaned a manuscript of such incalculable value so that visitors during the Bicentennial year could see the most enduring symbol of our inherited liberties - liberties common to the free and independent people of both Great Britain and the United States.

Written in Latin, the Magna Carta is quite simply one of the key moments in the history of democracy. Among other things, the charter established habeas corpus meaning that citizens can’t be thrown in jail at the drop of a hat. Much of its content comes from the Charter of Liberties issued by Henry I in 1100.

Flag Day

In the United States Flag Day is celebrated on June 14. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States, which happened that day by resolution of the Second Continental Congress in 1777.  The United States Army also celebrates the Army Birthday on this date; Congress adopted "the American continental army" after reaching a consensus position in the Committee of the Whole on June 14, 1775.

In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson issued a proclamation that officially established June 14 as Flag Day; in August 1949, National Flag Day was established by an Act of Congress.

When I visited New York City a year after 9/11, it was very hard not to notice the amount of American flags flying around the city.

These flags were flying around the pit where the Twin Towers had once stood.

This is the memorial that was set up across the street which listed the names of those killed on 9/11.  People left items and lots of flags.

My biggest memories about the American flag are these:

• I attended so many movies at a base theater and before the previews and the movie began, the Star Spangled Banner would play and everyone would stand in silence and cross our hearts or if in uniform the would salute.  It was always a very silent and solemn event and there was never the yelling that takes place at so many venues these days.
• I remember while living in Japan that if you were on base at 4:30 p.m., speakers would come on and play the National Anthem to retire the colors.  People would stop their cars and military personnel would get out and stand at attention.
• I remember every morning in our classrooms at school we always said the Pledge of Allegiance and had a Bible scripture read.

I feel very honored to have grown up and been taught to respect the flag.  I feel very fortunate also to have seen the original flag - The Star Spangled Banner - in the Smithsonian (see Star Spangled Banner Day  posting).  I've also had the opportunity to see the flag that hung at the Pentagon (see The Death of Osama Bin Laden posting)when it was hit on 9/11.  While in Philadelphia, I visited the home of Betsy Ross who sewed our first American flag.

But the time when I appreciate the flag the most, and have stood and wept at the sight, is when flags have been placed on the graves of soldiers who have died during war.  The most poignant time was when Joe and I observed all the flagged graves at the Andersonville cemetery one year.  Seeing all those hundreds of flags was unbelievable when you realize the story behind the cemetery.

I only wish that people would respect the flag they way I was taught to do so. 

National Lobster Day

Lobster is considered a delicacy all over the world, especially in the United States. This explains why lobster fishing is a $1.8 billion industry in Maine alone. In fact, New England is known for its lobster. The crustaceans were so plentiful in the 1800's that New Englanders could simply walk down the shores of beaches to find lobsters for dinner. Indentured servants were fed lobster so often that one community in Massachusetts instated a law prohibiting lobster dinners from being served more than three times a week. Nowadays, many of us, including myself, would gladly enjoy this seafood seven days a week!

Back in November of 2006, I had to fly to Boston for about 4 days to do some trainings.  Since I was going to be gone so long and I found an inexpensive ticket to have Joe fly there, I took him along with me.  It was almost like a paid vacation for the both of us since my rental car, hotel and food was paid for and all we had to pay for was the ticket and Joe's food.

Since I had almost a full day from one training to another, we took off one day exploring.  Since I'd never been to Maine that was our objective.  (If we'd had one extra hour I would have made it to Vermont and had the entire northeast visited).  I always tried to eat local food so that meant I was going to eat me some lobster!

We stopped at the rest area in Maine.  It was so nice on that November day that we were even driving with the sunroof open on the rental car.

Well, it was cool enough to wear sweaters and wool caps.

We drove along the coast of Maine, but finding a restaurant open during the winter season was really difficult. Most everything was closed and there was not even any fast food restaurants where we drove. We were beginning to think we would never find an open restaurant, but we finally did. It was the Maine Diner and I spent every bit of my company food money on everything lobster that I could order. We had lobster macaroni and cheese, lobster pie, lobster roll, etc. And, everything I ate was FANTASTIC!

The menu describes the hot lobster roll as FANTASTIC! The menu is correct. It is a Connecticut-style roll, nothing but sweet, lobster meat falling out of a grilled weiner bun. You cannot eat it with your hands, because the bun is soaked with butter.

This was the Lobster Pie.  I got an individual ceramic dish which contained whole big portions of lobster tail, claw, knuckle meat-drenched in butter, topped with a mixture of breadcrumbs and tomalley. What is tomalley? It's the liver of the lobster, which turns green when boiled and is considered a delicacy. Yes, this was unbelievably delicious.

The furtherest north we could drive to was Kennebunkport.  This is where the first President Bush and Barbara used to vacation while he served in the presidency.  These are pictures either in Kennebunkport or on the outskirts of the quaint little town. 

I also discovered a very old cemetery, but unfortunately could not explore it since time was quickly passing and I needed to get back to Boston.

Mondays Aren't So Bad Sometimes Like Today

I was chatting on the telephone with my friend Marla telling her I had decided I wasn't going to go into the office for my part-time job this morning.  I had decided that when Joe left for dialysis I was going to stay home so I could get a million-bijillion things done and would be able to do so with no one bothering or interrupting me.

While in the middle of this conversation, the phone rang with great news.  I am now going to be gainfully employed full-time as of next week.  Apparently I must have aced my last job interview or appeared to be extraordinarily pitiful and they felt sorry for me.  Either way, I'll take the job. It's for an RV dealership which states "that they were established in 1976 and since then have become the largest and oldest RV dealerships in the Rocky Mountain region with extremely knowledgeable employees and personalized customer service".  And, as of today, I will one day be one of those extremely knowledgeable employees who offers personalized customer service.

I called Marla back to tell her the wonderful news and she insisted on taking me to lunch to celebrate.  (So much for staying home for a few hours of some extreme house cleaning done to the beat of my jammin' music on the television.  No interruptions of anyone asking me where to find something or listening to a blaring television sprinkled with constant news furnished by CNN, MSNBC, Fox, HLN or listening to stations being flipped and surfed at the beginning of every LOUD commercial break).  Now with Marla's call it was hurry, hurry, hurry and get what I could get down in 60 glorious minutes and then hop into the shower and become a beautifully dressed individual going to lunch with one of her favorite friends.

She told me in advance to pick the place, but since she was the one buying the lunch, I felt it was better for her to do so.  After listing off a half dozen places we decided to go to the Firerock since I'd never been there.  Hey, I'm up to trying new restaurants when possible.  So, we met for lunch.  The hostess was going to sit us at one table and then we asked for a booth.  Because of those two bolded sentences, we wound up with Erica, the cutest young waitress who was "our kind of people" in personality and conversation.  Through discussions throughout our meal, we discovered that Erica who is from Boise, Idaho was a convert to the church but because of some wrong information that someone told her in the recent past, she has not been to church in a while.   It was determined that she would be in Marla's ward and Marla who is in Relief Society presidency can assign her the perfect visiting teachers.  I, who am in the other ward, can provide opportunities to feed the sweet thing and her friends if she desires.  We exchanged phone numbers - all three parties being excited that we had the opportunity to meet each other.  What a coincidence about all of this?!  My co-mommy and I have decided though it was not coincidence at all, but rather providence for us to meet Erica and love her and maybe she will join us in church.  So, we'll be having Erica and Marla over for dinner next week.  Throughout the day I was reminded of a quote that I used to have hanging on my office wall in Georgia which read...

"Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous." 
   

After lunch I headed to the part-time job since I wasn't dressed for housecleaning any longer and I had about an hour before time to pick Joe up from dialysis.  I informed the powers that be that I had secured permanent full-time employment and would be leaving them entirely next week.  I was then offered the opportunity to keep my job and work on it at my own convenience.  Hmmm, additional money - who can't use that?  It's something to consider.

Then ward friends invited us to dinner to celebrate my new employment so off we went this evening to eat at Olive Garden.  It was a very nice pleasant evening, but I am so "fooded out".

So, tomorrow brings another day and if it goes as well as today, I am one lucky and blessed female type person!

Diary Diddle - June 14

Wednesday 1970 -
Got my wisdom tooth pulled since it was infected. 

Vacation Bible School

I grew up not attending any church at all until I was baptized into the Mormon faith at the age of 10 while living in Japan.

My parents never went to church so therefore neither did I.  When I look back on that, it's rather strange that they didn't do so.  My mom was raised in the Holiness church and my dad came from a solid Baptist background.

So, it was quite a surprise when I ran across my attendance card for attending Vacation Bible School when I was eight years old.  The only other time I remember any church attendance was when visiting Grandmother Cattell just before leaving for Japan and I think it was Vacation Bible School at that time also. 

Mom's Diary Diddle

June 12, 1961 - I had the girls hair cut today.  All for only 300 yen.  It is hard to believe.  No more haircuts for me.

This is a picture of a later visit to the beauty salon to get our hair fixed.  Lovely aren't we?

Mom, Nancy, Susan and me, Carol

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Note:  Even at today's rate, 300 yen = $3.24.  Wow, really cheap haircuts!


June 13, 1961

Today I made "Tiger" some p.j.'s and went to the commissary.  A very busy day.
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Note:  "Tiger" was Jimmy.  I don't know how he got that name though.

Susan, age 7, "Peanut", age almost 6, me, age almost 9,  "Tiger" age 2 and the father, age almost 29, parental unit on our way to Japan.  This was at the Grand Canyon or Painted Desert.