Baseball and Thankfulness

I'm just back from about six hours at the baseball field, and loved every minute. We had a double header scrimmage against another high school. It was lots of fun catching up with all the families. It was one of those strange weather nights - cold at 5:00, then kind of warmer, then colder and very foggy. Strange foggy.

Some of the parents arranged a cookout so there was lots of good food. Gosh, that first hotdog of the baseball season tastes good!

Lots of batters were hit by pitches - that's not unusual early in the season. Or mid-season. Or the end. It's always scary. One kid got beaned (baseball-speak for hit in the head/helmet), but luckily all those guys were all right. One kid who wasn't all right was a fielder for the other team who was hit in the mouth by a ball deflected off his glove while he was trying to field it. Two of his teeth were knocked out. The guys walked out to second base, where it happened, and kicked around in the dirt for about five minutes, and naturally did not recover the teeth. We didn't know what was going on, exactly, on the sidelines. We decided all the moms should have gone out and gotten down on our hands and knees and felt around for the teeth (how else could you find them in the dirt?) until we found them. Besides, can anyone with a Y chromosome ever find his socks, much less two little teeth in the dirt?

I don't mean to make light of this at all. We are praying for a speedy recovery. One of the dads said he was in the emergency room and they were waiting for an oral surgeon. Which brings me to the title of this post. I try to remember to be thankful at the end of every baseball game. Thankful for our strong, healthy, good boys. Thankful for a safe environment (including our beautiful ball field) and skilled coaches and supportive families. Thankful for the great education our boys are receiving. Thankful for all the great friends I've made over the past four baseball seasons.

Cool Project + Great New Blog

http://aherncentral.blogspot.com/2008/01/altered-itemme.html I ran across this great project while checking one of my favorite blogs today - Emilie Ahern. I've added a link to her blog at the left and here's the link to her project shown here. http://aherncentral.blogspot.com/2008/01/altered-itemme.html She's a great photographer and is very creative - you'll find lots of fun ideas there. This whole blog thing has become very addictive for me. I hope you'll like some of my great finds.

The Love of Books (bibliophilia)

"Instead of going to Paris to attend lectures, go to the public library, and you won’t come out for twenty years, if you really wish to learn." Leo Tolstoy

"The closest thing we will ever come to an orderly universe is a good library.
Ashleigh Brilliant

"It is with the reading of books the same as with looking at pictures; one must, without doubt, without hesitations, with assurance, admire what is beautiful."
Vincent van Gogh

"If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it." Toni Morrison

"Only in books has mankind known perfect truth, love and beauty."
George Bernard Shaw

I love books and libraries. Even more than scrapbooking but not as much as food. I spent some time at the main branch of the Memphis Public Library today, and now I have lots to read.

Check my latests lists (to the left) - Favorite Books and "Books to Read". Let me know your favorites.

One More Time

Ok, this time, three minutes later. Maybe we'll call this Carol's Rule of Three. Try three times before giving up. If you give up, try again three minutes later. I like it.

Now, to the point of the post, and to tell about the successfully uploaded pictures. I used two packets out of my Homemade Gourmet box today. First was coleslaw mix. It calls for 1/2 cup mayonnaise and 2 tablespoons of vinegar in additon to the mix and 2 pounds of shredded cabbage. I find it interesting that they call for pounds versus heads or cups - a reflection on the trend of buying that kind of thing in a bag (measured by weight).

Here goes. It was very easy to mix up (especially with pre-shredded cabbage), and when I tasted it just after mixing, it was way too sugary. The directions said to let it sit for an hour or two. I did this, tasted again, and it was still very sweet. Nothing some extra vinegar won't cure. Even with the mayo, it could use a little creaminess, I think. Cole slaw is a very personal thing, and I usually have mine on top of a Corky's barbeque sandwich, so who knows. It may be a Texas thing since the company is based in Texas, as evidenced by the names of their products - "Texas Cornbread" and "Texas Cobbler." Even though I made both of these today, the cole slaw doesn't go with the chicken. Not for me. On to the chicken, here goes...

The chicken is phenomenal - hungry, but picky, teenage boy gave his thumbs up (better than a Michelin star). It's definitely more complicated than the cole slaw. I used the garlic lemon seasoning mix. Here's what I did, but I'm not sure I could duplicate it. I tend to complicate things. I'll just tell you what I did - then you're on your own. Before I start, do you ever just pull out the stuff you have and try to find a recipe that will use what you have (I'm not a good planner-aheader-grocery-shopper)? Food Network is a good site to visit - you can enter key-words, but it seems there's always one ingredient I don't have, so I just venture out on my own. In my mind, that's where the great cooks begin. Here's my path to greatness...

I sliced up one huge chicken breast. In a non-stick skillet, I melted butter till sizzling, then added raw chicken slices (note to self - bleach the countertops). I sliced 4 big green onions (my neighbors brought them the other day) and tossed them in. I threw 2 tablespoons of the Homemade Gourmet garlic lemon seasoning in. I cooked all this on medium-high until the chicken started to brown. At some point, I decided to add a couple of teaspoons of minced garlic in the jar - it browns quickly. I took the chicken out. To the pan I added 1/2 cup white wine (Sauvignon Blanc), juice of one lemon, more butter and a couple of spoonfuls of capers. A little more butter, then I turned off the burner.

I served the chicken with a little sauce over the top of the chicken and seasoned rice(same garlic lemon seasoning. It really is good. I'm going to eat now...

How Many Times...

...how many times do you try to do something before you give up? Specifically, on the computer? For me, it's probably three. I've just tried three times to upload a picture to this blog (clearly something I've done before), with no success. I'll try later. Too bad, because I was in a blogging mood. I've been cooking, so the food-photographer wanna-be was raging. One success, one not-so-much.

More later, when Blogger (I KNOW it's them, not me) is working properly. Life lesson: It's usually not about me.

New Favorite Blog

For those of you new to the world of blogging (see previous post - "What's a Blog?"), I want to talk about my newest favorite blog (I still love you, Pioneer Woman!) I've added the link at left - it's called "Just Us." This is probably the first blog, besides Lundy's, I started reading regularly. I was reading Creating Keepsakes, my favorite scrapbook magazine, and found the reference to this blog. Elizabeth (author of "Just Us" blog) is the Scrapbooker of the Year (SOY), a huge honor in SB World. I should back up and tell you that many of the blogs endorsed/accompanying a magazine are very dull and just serve a promotional function for the magazine. They're seldom updated. More and more, I'm reading that frequent updates are the key to a thriving blog.

I digress. I clicked on "Just Us" and was pleasantly surprised. Elizabeth posts nearly every day and she always includes beautiful photos, often of her scrapbook work, but sometimes just great people pictures or other fun stuff. She's so original and beautiful and downright sweet, not unlike Pioneer Woman.

Elizabeth also includes music on her blog. That can be irritating if you don't share similar musical interests. It interferes with any streaming music if you do that. It turns out that I like Elizabeth's musical choices better than my own! If you don't know about Pandora.com, try it sometime. It's like a radio station that you tailor to what you like. It's too hard to explain in this post, but really a simple, brilliant concept. I'll add the link to Favorite Links at left, in case you want to try it. Warning: It uses band-width. My friend Keith explained that to me when I joyfully showed him my work-place fun with Pandora. The place in which we were working used a borrowed wireless connection and I was unwittingly turning the friendly neighbor's "high-speed internet" into "a stroll in the park internet" connection. All that to say, when it's just me here at home, I pull out all the stops and stream whatever music I like, usually the "Just Us" playlist.

Ok, all that to say, take a look at "Just Us" - it's worth your time!

Nothing to Eat!

After spending no less than $500 on food last week (well, $300 of that was at Sam's and included plenty of non-food items, I'm sure), I had nothing for dinner last night. The picture is of the great kit of seasonings and mixes I bought from Homemade Gourmet. It has lots of ideas, but I have to actually look in the box and pick up all the handy recipe hints included, and maybe remember what I decided on when I stop by the grocery store. I bought chicken on my way home today, gambling that I'll be able to pull something out out the box to combine it with. I'll let you know.

Just to be safe, I have some hamburger patties - that never fails to please the kiddo. Speaking of Sam's, don't you just love their stuff? My current Sam's favorites are lump crabmeat, Tuscan Bruschetta, mini-cucumbers that aren't bitter in the winter, fresh salsa and great strawberries for a bargain. I always buy a big thing of bananas, too - they're something like 98 cents - the only thing there for less than $9.88! Everyone says CostCo's better, but I hate to drive out to WolfChase (unless it's for the two amazing scrapbook stores), and there's a Sam's practically five minutes away from me on Covington Pike. Have to go during the week - it's a zoo on weekends. And don't ever go when they have a tasting event - I promise you, half of Memphis' families feed their kids there. The normally sweet old ladies hawking their samples get very grouchy that weekend when the kids are swarming around like catfish. It's kind of funny and sad at the same time.

Gotta call. Aforementioned kiddo's on the way home from baseball practice so I've got to start the aforementioned hamburgers! More later...