A "Magic Pill"

I saw a sign on my doctor's office wall. It said something like this:

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What if you could reduce your chances of all these just by taking a pill every day?

Premature death by 30-50%

Heart disease by 40-50%

Stroke by 30-40%

Diabetes by 30-40%

Breast cancer by 20-30%

Colon cancer by 30-50%

Osteoporosis by 40-50%

Also reduces kidney stones, and depression!

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Of course the "Magic Pill" is 30 minutes of exercise every day.

My Beautiful Day.

I haven't posted much lately. You guys know how it is. There is just not enough time in a day. This morning I woke to the such a beautiful sound. It was the sound of a Mourning Dove cooing it's song. I love listening to that. I could have listened to it all morning long. But my husband wasn't so excited by it waking him up. So he got up and shut the window, and turned on the fan so we couldn't hear it. I guess the poor guy really needed his sleep. He ended up sleeping in fairly late, and that is just not like him. I thought it was kind of funny that something so beautiful and relaxing to me was bothering him enough to keep him awake.

I hear that mourning doves are native to our area, but I had never seen one in my neighborhood before. I have heard many meadowlarks, and I do love those too! They are one of the benefits of living right by a big field. I hope the mourning dove comes around more often. Then I can hear both of their beautiful songs. If you don't know what they sound like, here are a couple of links so you can hear them.
Western Meadowlark
Mourning Dove Song


There is a very sweet lady that lives in my neighborhood. I think she is just beautiful inside and out. She is a very talented artist. The picture above is one she did. This afternoon she had an open house at her studio. I went in for a little while before I had to go to work. It was very cool. Her paintings are so pretty. I love the style she paints with. I don't know a lot about art. But I do know I love Vincent VanGogh's paintings. And I love Renoir's and Monet's paintings. There are others too, but I don't know their names. I do think my favorite so far is VanGough. I don't know what style they are, weather they are Impressionist or Expressionist or what. But I like the colors and the visible brush strokes, all put together to give the feeling or idea of what they are rather than a realistic picture that is more like a photograph.

Marla has so many pretty paintings. I have seen some of Marla's paintings in her home, but it was so impressive to see her beautiful collection all on display in her clean, bright and cozy little shop in an art studio. Here is her website, although it doesn't do her paintings real justice compared to seeing them in person. And some of my favorite ones are not on her website.

Marla Duggins Fine Art

Ceviche

Have you ever heard of Ceviche? Traditionally it is a Seafood dish where fresh raw seafood is marinated in lime juice to “cook” it. Usually it also has peppers, tomatoes and other things added to it so it is almost like a seafood salsa. It is delicious!

We don’t actually use raw seafood in our family. The thought is just a bit hard for me to get by. Although I did have it that way once and it was good too. We used precooked imitation crab, and precooked shrimp. My family likes to eat it by scooping it up with tortilla chips. That is really good. Since chips are not very healthy, I like to eat it out of a bowl with a spoon, kind of like a cold soup. Mmmmm. It is so good, and healthy.

It is a fairly new dish for our family. Kayla learned how to make Ceviche from watching her boyfriend’s mother make it. Actually, she didn’t learn directly from her. Kayla said she couldn’t get the recipe out of her. So Kayla did a little searching on the internet until she came by a ceviche recipe that was similar to what she had seen made. She then tweaked the recipe just a bit so it was pretty close to her boyfriend’s mother’s recipe. Kayla makes fabulous ceviche.

I tried making my own version of ceviche a few days ago, since Kayla wasn't home. I have to admit it was really good too. Although Kayla thought I messed up a few things. Apparently I am not supposed to put onions in it, and I cut the avocados too small, I cut the seafood too big, and I used the wrong kind of peppers. But it was really good anyway. I’m sure there is more than one way to make ceviche.

I’ll share the recipe with you. But I don’t have an actual recipe. I’ll just tell you how I made it. And then if you want to do internet searches to get an actual recipe you can. Remember this is kind of my way I did it. Kayla might disagree with some of it.

This will make a large bowl of it. Start with a whole bunch of tomatoes, about 8-12. Dice them up pretty small. Use about 5 serrano chilies, deseeded. Dice them up really small. (I used an Anaheim pepper and a jalappeno pepper, Kayla said that was wrong.) Be careful when working with the chilies. You might want to protect your hands with plastic gloves or sandwich baggies. Every time I skip this, my fingers really hurt a while after I am done. I can’t tell I am burning my skin when I am cutting them, but they really hurt later. Use a lot of cilantro, chopped up. I used about ½ of a bunch. But more might have been good. I love cilantro! Squeeze about 3 limes into the mix. I put a fair amount of onion in, cut small. Red or green would be good, unless you are like Kayla, and would rather skip the onion altogether. Dice up some avocado, maybe two. Kayla prefers larger chunks of this. I did mine small. Either way is good. Then put in corn. Kayla uses canned, I used frozen. Put in cooked shrimp and imitation crab, cut into chunks. Kayla says they should be kind of small. Pour on some Clamato juice. Don’t make it too juicy. Add salt, pepper, and oregano. I hope I am not forgetting anything. I think celery or cucumber would be good in it, but I haven’t tried it yet.
This is good right away, and even better then next day!

Wheat, and other things...

I had an interesting conversation this last Sunday in my Sunday School class. There were some of the men that mentioned that they want to learn how to cook with their food storage. One thing they want to learn is to make bread from wheat. I thought I'd talk to the lady in our ward that is called to help us with our food storage and see if she can set that up.

Have any of you made bread from wheat? I have made bread before, but not from my own ground wheat. I'd like to learn to do that. But I guess first I have to get a wheat grinder. And some wheat would be a good idea too.

Do any of you have a manual wheat grinder? Does it work well? Which one do I buy? I imagine that they might be hard to use if you have wimpy arms like I do. Is that true?

I remember when mom used to make cracked wheat cereal and whole wheat cereal. Mmmm. I loved that. Here is a website I came across while looking into using wheat. It has ideas about how to use it everyday in more than just bread. Wheat-More Than Just Bread

This next website isn't exactly on the subject of just wheat. I came across this while I was snooping around on the internet. It is about cooking with your long term food storage. I thought it had some great ideas for what to store, and ways to use it too. It even has recipes. Cooking from Long Term Food Storage

One final thing. Here is a link where you can find a nice new updated list of foods at our local dry pack cannery. LDS.org Longer Term Storage On the side of the page there is a place to click on that says "New Home Storage Center Order Form.


I guess that is enough rambling on this. Let's keep working on what we can with food and water storage now while we have plenty.

What's up with us...

Here is Kayla with Max

I posted this on my family site too, so if you've already read it there, just skip it here.

Hi family, I just thought I’d do a post and tell you about what my family has been up to lately.

For the most part, it is just life as usual. We get up, and go to work (or school), we come home, we make dinner and work around the house or in the yard. And then we go to bed and do it all over again the next day.

Kayla is growing up way too fast. It is kind of freaking me out that she is almost 18. She is almost done with school. She started a new job a few months ago. She got a job doing collections for Gold’s Gym. She has done so well there that they are promoting her on Monday to a receptionist and giving her a raise. Kayla is dying to buy a new car. I am trying to steer her towards economical cars, but she really wants a fancy new jeep.

Travis is doing well in school. He is getting good grades, and he is attending seminary. He likes seminary. (I remember I used to love seminary too, when I wasn’t sluffing it.) Travis and Bryan have been taking long bike rides around the neighborhood. They are way too long for me to go on. I’d probably die. The other day they rode from my house all the way to Copper Hills High School, they ran around the track, and then rode home again. Copper Hills is probably about 4 miles away from my house.

We trying to spruce up our home here and there. We replaced some floors that needed replacing. I did a little painting. And you should see the back yard now! We dug up a bunch of our grass and made a “patio” type area. It has small pea gravel and is lined with blocks. We also bought some hanging plants for our backyard. It looks pretty. Supposedly, we are buying a hot tub.  We’ll see if that happens later. It might be kind of fun to have a hot tub.

Nikki and TJ and their kids are doing pretty good too. TJ has been doing some schooling along with his job. And Nikki just got a new job too. She is working at the same place that Kayla works. Nikki is not as outgoing as Kayla is, so she is having a hard time adjusting to the new job. But I hear she is doing a good job. Nikki is a bit shy when it comes to talking to strangers. I hear Sharaya is walking how! I can't wait to see that. And Gabriel is a smart little handful as usual.

Lane and Darcel are expecting a baby in September. Poor Darcel has been pretty sick with this baby. They have an apartment that is not very far from my house. Darcel has a little girl named Kaylee Ann. She is a very cute 5 years old bundle of energy. They make a cute family. I’ll post their picture when I find where I put them. Lane and Darcel will find out if their baby is a boy or a girl in a couple of weeks. I can’t wait to find out. I’m crocheting him or her a baby blanket. I couldn’t wait to hear what gender to make it for, so I picked a color that I thought would work for either one. With this baby, and now Kaylee Ann, I will have 4 grandbabies! Whoo Hoo!

Well that is all I can think of for now. I love you all!

Almost Resting

This is Maximus and Chloe' resting in the sunshine. Max, as you can see can fit nicely in the chair. Chloe likes her food, and she is a bit more of a couch potato than Max. So it is harder for her to curl up in a small circle. She didn't quite get on the chair enough to let her head rest on the chair. I was watching her head bob up and down as she was falling asleep, waking up, falling asleep and waking up again. I've seen kids do that before when they fall asleep sitting in a chair. But this was the first time I noticed it with a dog.
A few hours later, Chloe got smart and moved to this bigger and more comfortable chair. She is a pretty princess!

The Apostle Song

This is a cute little video that my friend emailed me. I hope you enjoy it :)