Dining together

I've got a post up today at Homemakers Who Work about the family meal. I think it's rather sad how many families don't sit down together for a meal each day.

DUH!!

Ok, I just saw a spot on CNN. They are reporting on a new study linking teen obesity to the food they eat. Wow! Who would have thought it!!! I think that it's a Master of the Obvious study!

Really, the study reports that lack of exercise isn't as big a culprit in childhood/teen obesity as thought previously. This one soundly points the finger at 'super-sized' foods and sugary soda (64 oz drink anyone?) It's about time. The spot talks a lot about portion control- something I definitely need to get a handle on in my personal life. sigh

Zombie broccoli- IDC update

The broccoli that wouldn't die!!

It's Monday and time for my usual Independence Days Challenge update. Just when I thought I was done harvesting, nature surprised me.

1. Plant something- nope but I did sort and organize my seeds. Looking at what I have left over from this year and those I saved, I don't think I'm going to have to buy any. Yippie!

2. Harvest something- YES!! When I was cleaning out the garden weeks ago. I left a few broccoli plants that were still green. They were ones that I had already cut the heads from a long time ago. But they had started shooting out little side shoots and I thought I'd see what happened. Imaging my surprise when I went out yesterday afternoon and found the zombie broccoli (as J15 named it). There were three big side shoots that had heads on them. Not huge but enough broccoli for a meal for the 5 of us. And there are a few more smaller ones out there that I left. If the weather holds, who knows, maybe we'll have broccoli for Thanksgiving.

3. Preserve something- Not this week. Although my pears that I put into the fridge are soon going to need processed, they're getting awfully ripe- but OH, so tasty! Hmmm, maybe a pear pie....

4. Waste not- UM, nothing much too interesting here. Did move lots of leaves from the old house for our compost. Other than that, recycled, repurposed and reused as usual.

5. Want not- picked up another 10 lbs of potatoes (at 88 cents per 5 lb bag!) and 4 bags of sugar for 99 cents each. Reorganized my pantry and put my whole wheat flour, oatmeal and rice into more secure storage containers. Oh, and stocked up on some canned beans (another good sale) and some more white and brown rice. It figures, just when we were going to try to eat mostly out of storage, I end up making lots of purchases to put into storage- but for some reason, they were having really great sales on some staples last week.

6. Community food systems- nope, other than talking to a co-worker about why we do what we do. She seemed genuinely interested but I don't see her making any changes in her life any time in the near future.

7. Eat the food- Hmm, tonight, crockpot chicken, mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli- all from stores or the garden. All week is planned with meals from stores. We'll probably have to get milk before the end of the week but that's not so bad.

I12 helps peel potatoes for dinner.

It feels good to be getting back into the habit of eating from stores. We had gotten side tracked recently. Doing inventory while I cleaned the pantry helped. I finally have a better idea of what I've got- who knew that I have 12 cans of tuna!!!

Of windows and old news

It was another wild day here at the money pit. I didn't get to the bottom of the pantry, other things got in the way. I was outside swinging a mattock to dig trenches for my raised bed blocks (through about 60/40- clay/rock mix!) for a while. Let me tell you- it's a full body workout! After a bit, J15 came to get me, she has decided to try to overcome her fear of driving and had asked me to take her out to learn to drive. She didn't do too badly. I drove her down to a local business park and let her drive around in deserted parking lots for about a half an hour. We both survived with all our hair intact! After her driving lesson, we ran a few errands and headed home. V had been a busy boy while we had been gone.

A new window!

He installed a replacement window on the North side of the basement, between the house and garage. There had been a window there but it had been boarded up and covered over. We decided we wanted all the natural light we can get so we've been uncovering many windows that were boarded up in the basement. The North window went so smoothly that he decided to tackle one on the South side of the house as well. This one is at along the basement stairs and was a bit more complicated:

Before, all boarded up and nowhere to go.

Out with the old.

He's not messing around with this one!

But, best of all, we had a surprise. Stuffed into one of the cinder blocks of the wall below the window were a few crumpled sheets of newspaper. Now we know about when the 'addition' was built onto the house: late July 1961. A few highlights:

What a great headline!

J15 worked hard to reconstruct a recipe from the "Women's pages"

She was excited by all this and found the recipe for a Raspberry Linzer Torte. YUM!! We'll have to try it sometime.

More news.

Check out the latest fashions!

New furniture anyone?

And I like these prices at the grocery store!

But, back to the job at hand. We did get the window done. It didn't go in as smoothly as hoped but it is in.

It looks out on where the deck used to be.

It will eventually be underneath our new deck that we are planning so we opted to put in a glass block window to soften the view but still let in some light and air.

All done!!!

A productive day

Whew! What a day. I got my painting done, raked and bagged 4 huge bags of leaves and then V mowed the lawn in town with the mulching blade and shredded the rest of them. So the house in town is ready for the open house tomorrow. I brought the bags of leaves home for our compost pile. We haven't been raking leaves here so I didn't have many to add to the compost.

My rose at the town house is still blooming. It's right by the front steps and is a beautiful, inviting splash of color. When we got it, it was supposed to be a red, climbing rose. It is neither. But it is beautiful!

It's almost a shame to leave it behind.

I did get to work on the pantry. I forgot to take a true 'before' picture so here is shortly after I started:

What chaos!

I moved some jars downstairs to the food storage room. That's where most of these will eventually end up. But, we don't have the drywall finished in there yet so I know we'll have to move the shelves at least one time. And they're much easier to move without bunches of jars on them!

After

Much neater. I even found room for my crockpot and my stock pot. I moved my jars of beans from the kitchen cabinets into the pantry and my emergency back up of canned beans as well.

I only did the top shelves. There is also a huge space underneath that I'm thinking will become the recycling space. However, it has been a 'dumping ground' for all sorts of things since we moved in. It's a job for tomorrow- I'm tired.

Too tired to start on this!

There are paint cans, window screening materials, a 'bag of bags' and who knows what all else. J15 was helping me this afternoon and wanted to tackle this tonight but I nixed the idea and we organized the kitchen cabinets instead, putting oatmeal, whole wheat flour and rice into storage containers. I discovered a whole bunch of boxes of pasta that I didn't realize I had tucked down behind some other things. We'll be eating well from storage!!

Now, I've got a pork loin in the oven and we're going to make some biscuits since I have more flour than would fit in my container....oops.

The dawn of a new day?

Yesterday's sunrise from my front porch.

Yesterday was hopefully the start of some new ventures for us. V feels that his job interview went well. He should hear soon one way or the other since they want the job to start Dec 1. Also, yesterday I submitted my letter of interest in the clinical supervisor position that's coming available. Now, I just have to do a formal cover letter and update my resume before Thanksgiving. My department hopes to have these positions in place for the new year so things should progress quickly on that front as well.

Today, I am off to finish painting the basement at the old house. I haven't been able to make time recently but it needs to happen today because our realtor is hosting another open house tomorrow afternoon so I want it done! He did say that there was a family that looked at the house and came back for a second showing so we'll keep our fingers crossed. They evidently have daughters attending the university and are looking for a house. They were concerned that it is only listed as a 3 bedroom house (there is a 4th non-conforming bedroom in the basement) and they want 4 bedrooms. We'll see.

After I finish painting (and probably raking the leaves there!), I need to work on cleaning and organizing the pantry at the top of the basement stairs. I never got around to wiping everything down after all the construction dust we have generated in the last month or so and it's driving me crazy. The pantry area has also become the place where people (not just me) stick stuff that they "don't-know-where-else-to-put-it" so I need to organize things better. I want to shift some things from the kitchen cabinets to the pantry to make more room. I've been gradually rebuilding the food stores and need to find places for everything. We worked hard on eating down our supplies before we moved- so everything fit neatly when we moved in- now, not so much.

Well, I've got a busy day ahead of me. Time to get another cup of coffee, put in the contacts and start a load of laundry.

Have a great weekend!

A bittersweet night out

We had the going away party for my coworker this evening. Her last day is Friday but several people had conflicts later in the week so we got together after work at a local restaurant. There were many laughs and a few tears but mostly just good conversation among friends.

The gang!

I'm incredibly fortunate to work with a fabulous group of people I can call friends as well. We don't socialize together all that much since we work together all week and we're all busy with our own families. But after the baby shower on Sunday and the get together this evening, we have decided that we need to do things like this on a more regular basis to unwind.