Food for Thought

 "Give what you have.  To someone, it may be better than you dare to think."

-  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Amish Baked Oatmeal

I got this recipe for Amish Baked Oatmeal from Blissfully Domestic in 2008.   I don't know if it is really Amish, but I do know that it is baked and has oatmeal.  What?  You don't know what baked oatmeal is?  Basically, you mix together oatmeal, milk, butter, egg, a little sugar and bake it.   It is a great thing to have as the weather cools down.  Best of all, you can prepare it the night before and put it in the oven when everyone is in the shower.  A half hour later, warm breakfast is ready for everyone and you did not start your day by slaving over a stove.  What can be better than that?

Amish Baked Oatmeal

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups quick cooking oats
1/3 cup brown sugar (recipe calls for 1/2, but I reduced it)
1/2 cup of milk
1/4 cup of butter
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Pinch of salt (I used 1/8 teaspoon)

Directions:
Mix all together and place in greased 8 x 8 pan.  Cover and place in refrigerator or leave uncovered and bake immediately for 30 minutes at 350F.  (If you leave the cover on when you bake it, it is too soggy.)

Top with berries or eat plain (we like it straight out of the pan).

Seriously, is a quick and easy addition to your breakfast rotation.  

Before and After of my Own...Drawers to Shelves

I have loved my desk since we bought five years ago.  It has served its purpose well.  In five years, however, my needs and wants have changed.  I've reduced, tremendously, the amount of paper I'm keeping/storing.  The drawers were inefficient for my purposes, so I decided to do something about it.

This is what my first one looked like before I modified it.

This is what it looks like now.

I liked it so much that I decided to do the same thing to another part of the desk.  This time, however, I took pictures along the way to show you how I did it.

First, I pulled out the drawer.

Then I removed the drawer hardware.

Then I added those little blocks of wood so I could attach a new shelf base to the section.  [I had to redo those little blocks of wood because my original ones were too thick and didn't allow the bottom drawer to close.]

Then I attached a board (the back from one of my Ikea shelves, cut down with the saw) to the center divider and to the pieces of wood I added.

Viola!  I went from a drawer to a shelf and my efficient use of my desk.  Oh, and yes, those are Swiffer refills...if I have them in the basement with me, I dust the basement more often!

I can't tell you how much more I like this desk.  Having a place for more of our school books and a better way to store my various papers and reference books feels so nice.

I am SOOO cool!

For this moment, at least, my kids say that I am sooo cool!  In case you don't read the date/time on blog posts, I'll fill you in.  As I type this, it is 12:48 AM on Tuesday morning.  We got home at 12:20 AM.  Yes, we have been out quite late, especially for a Monday night.  Why?  Well, for those of you who might not know it, at 12:01 AM this morning, Halo Reach became available for sale.    You also might not know that we all need to find out if Halo is worthwhile without the Master Chief.  Now, don't ask me anymore.  That was the sum total of my knowledge.

No, I am not cool because I knew that.  I am cool because I loaded up the kids, drove to our local Best Buy and waited around until 12:00 AM to be let in the store so that Valiant (and Buttercup) could buy Halo Reach long before the traditional 10:00 AM store opening.  (Apparently, those 10 hours are vital to game play.)

Look at those faces!  Even after spending their own money, these kids are happy campers.  So, for this brief moment in time, my kids think I am cool.  Now that I'm done being cool, I'm going to bed.

Food for Thought

The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment, it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.

- Orison Swett Marden

Life is Right Now

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.

-Dale Carnegie 1888-1955

On the anniversary of the 9/11 hijackings and the destruction of the World Trade Center Twin Towers, the damage to the Pentagon, and the crash landing into field in Pennsylvania, I urge you not to forget.  Ever.

As we watched in stunned shock, almost 3000 people died.  It wasn't an accident.  It was a coordinated effort by a small number of people to do tremendous damage and cause extensive loss of life.  There is no nice way to describe it.  It was deliberate, it was well-orchestrated, and it was largely successful.  Evil has always existed.  That is just a fact.  The truth, however, is that your life, my life, all of our lives is right now.   Everything can change in an instant...

Beyond this moment, we have no guarantees.  So live...just live.

Not-so-Green Smoothie

Have you ever heard of Green Smoothies?  I heard about them by reading The Lazy Organizer's blog.  She was really inspired by them and her success with incorporating them into her family's lifestyle.  They are so popular, there is even a blogger called Green Smoothie Girl who has written a book and has quite a following.  While I'm not going vegetarian anytime soon (I just haven't gotten there), I'm definitely learning to eat fewer and fewer processed foods and trying to get us all to eat more and more vegetables and fruits. 

My point is that I'm not particularly hard-core, but I'm always willing to learn new things.  Combine GreenSmoothieGirl with a few demonstrations of the Vitamix and the Blendtec at our local Costco and you have the inspiration for the increased usage my blender is getting quite the workout.  It sounds so weird, but I've stepped up from just fruits and started incorporating leaf spinach into my smoothies. 

They look really weird/gross, but the kids think they're fabulous.  Also, if I can't make things the kids and I will eat and enjoy, I certainly can't justify buying a better blender.

This smoothie?  1 1/2 cups of fresh baby spinach, one frozen banana, one cup of frozen strawberries, and three little apples from our tree, all combined with some ice and some water and blended with my cheap-o Oster blender from Walmart.

So, I'm here to tell you, you can't judge a smoothie by its color!  Be brave and try something crazy...it might turn out really well, just like my "not-so-green smoothie".

Fertilizer Friday--Season is winding down.

Nature's bounty...

Look at what our apple trees have produced thus far this year.  Isn't this absolutely amazing?

Buttercup took these fabulous pictures of our first apple harvest and there are still a ton of apples on the tree.

Our tomatoes look fabulous.  They all started growing well and bearing fruit.

Now we're just praying for the freeze to hold off long enough for them to ripen.

We had pollination issues with our zucchinis and pumpkins (as in, they weren't pollinated unless we did it manually with paintbrushes!), so we've planted some "bee attracting" echinacea in hopes that we'll have better luck next year.  (Anybody have any other tips?)

We'll be wrapping things up in the next few weeks.  Two bags of bulbs need to be planted and our poppy seeds need to be planted.  Our vegetable garden needs to be cleaned up and prepared for winter.  I love this time of year, as fall is making herself known and summer is having her last fling.  I'll miss all my flowers, but I like the downtime that winter provides.

Head over to Tootsie's place and join Fertilizer Friday.  You can always learn something new and at the least see some gorgeous gardens.