Homework

It's rainy and cold again here (we're even expecting another 1-2 inches of snow tonight). Perfect for wrapping up in a blanket with a cup of hot chocolate and digging into my companion for the next three months, my Master Gardener manual.

I have four chapters to cover before lectures on Thursday, so now is a good time to begin!

Lower Body Workout

Yesterday was a rare sunny, warm(ish) day for once, so I hit the stables for a nice training ride on Flame. Then, it was off to our regular Monday night two hour dance class, which happens to be Samba this month. To get the real movement and feel of the dance, there is much abdominal crunching, hip opening, trunk rotation, and toe/ankle flexion.

I woke this morning with the realization that my abs, inner thighs, and calves had all endured quite a workout. But the best part is, the activities were such fun that I wasn't even aware of how hard I was working. That's my kind of exercise!

Omlettes, anyone?

Have you ever had an egg cracked on your head? Well, I did yesterday evening!

Okay, not a literal egg. More like an imaginary egg. Last night, after pillow-talk and snuggling down to sleep, we somehow came to the moment when Jeff said "Surely I've cracked an egg on your head before?". (I won't even try to explain how it was we arrived at that conversation; it's a rather roundabout tale!) I replied that no, I didn't know what he was talking about. So of course he proceeded to gently thump an oval egg over my crown (with sound effects included) and "run" the resultant imaginary substance down my hair and face.

The egg was not the only thing to crack up; I thought it was hilarious! We had to turn on the bedside lamp so he could show me the technique and I immediately began to practice.

Am I the only one that missed out on this childhood convention? I've done the whole "Criss cross applesauce, Spiders crawling up your back..." rhyme, the numb finger trick, the disjointed thumb imagery, and a handful of other silly games of the same ilk, but this one was new to me! I guess it's never to late to learn and amuse the child within ;-)

Master Gardener Missives

I'm excited to say I just finished my first Master Gardener class! This was the first lecture of a 13 week course to train interns. Then I will have a year to complete my 50 hours of volunteer work in a variety of gardening and horticulture areas. Once that is accomplished, I will become an official Master Gardener!

I have my handbook and my homework all cut out for me. The course will be covering:

• Soil, Nutrition and Plant Physiology
• Plant Pathology and Weed Science
• Vegetables
• Fruits
• Container Gardening
• Annual and Perennial Flowers
  
• Ornamentals
• Turf
• Landscape Design

That's a lot of material in less than a semester! I've always been an "A" student, so I aim to ace my tests and stay on top of the coursework. It will also be a lot of fun, as the other interns all seem like a great group of people. I'm really looking forward to learning and "growing" (pun intended)!

Going Gray

I took DaVinci for his yearly vaccinations yesterday. The vet tech commented that he was starting to go a little gray around the muzzle, indicating his true age in spite of his puppy behavior. It got me to look back at more of his early years, and I found these digital scrapbook pages I made of some of his first few months with us.

And one when he's a little older, his (fake ;-) magazine cover shot!

Dinner Diary

I've been busy the last few days working on my CEUs. I have to complete 10 continuing education hours each year to maintain my therapy license, which is up for renewal at the end of this month. It's a bit of a hassle now that I'm not employed in the field, but I think it's important to maintain my option (and ability) to practice, should I ever want or need it.

Anyhow, that has been taking some time, so no interesting pursuits at the moment. I did, however, prepare (and photograph) one of my first really southern food creations: turnip greens! I've cooked Swiss chard and kale before, but always in creative and ethnic dishes, not just a "mess o' greens". A friend gave me some turnip greens, and since we were snowed in most of last week, I relied upon them to fill in as our vegetable serving and round out the Beef Pizzaiola and garlic toast.

Let me just go on record as saying that any vegetable that has to be boiled down for that long and then sauteed in copious amounts of fat and seasoning to have any flavor, really shouldn't get any credit for being a veggie. Not a stand-alone one, anyhow! The dish was tolerable and added some nice color to the plate, but that is about all I can say for it.

I might pursue a collection of tasty (and healthy) recipes for turnip greens down the road, but for now I'll stick to its more exotic cousins in the form of my favorite Greek and Middle Eastern dishes.

Growing up so fast...

Jeff is officially middle-aged today (if you take Psalm 90:10 literally). Thirty five seems so young to us now, though. It doesn't hurt that many of our friends and colleagues are several decades older than we. Quite a few of the professors in Jeff's department are nearing retirement, the majority of our ballroom friends are in their 50's or 60's (and that's being rather generous)! Even DaVinci is getting older. He's eight, which is a bit over the hill for canine life, though I hope he has many good years left.

Speaking of my two favorite boys, I found some old photo montages I made of them several years ago. They haven't changed much!

Big smile now!

A few people have pointed out in the past how many of our photos look the same due to similar poses each time. In large part, this is because Jeff often takes the photo himself; hence, I'm always on his left side, the shot is fairly close-up, and Jeff usually has a rather concentrated half-smile.

So I had to post this picture from last year that I found while searching for something else. We were fascinated with a friend's new camera that has a "smile recognition" feature. Once you press the shutter button, the camera will wait to snap the picture until the subject is smiling. We wondered how it would work with multiple parties in the shot, so we started making faces until one of us suddenly smiled, and bang! You can see the results for yourself ;-)

Lest we leave you scarred, here's a more normal photo to conclude (I guess the smile feature can still function while I'm eating hair).

Marshmallow Madness

I've had several requests for my marshmallow recipe, so I'm including it below. At the campout, I was brainstorming with another woman and we thought substituting peppermint or lemon for the vanilla extract might be delicious. We even discussed adding some cocoa powder to the sugar syrup to try to make chocolate marshmallows. I will add the disclaimer that I have not attempted any of these modifications, and candy making can be very finicky business, but it sounds yummy! Let me know if anyone tries this.

Homemade Marshmallows

1 cup powdered sugar, for dusting
2 cups white granulated sugar
1 Tbsp light corn syrup
1 1/4 cups water, divided
1/4 cup unflavored beef gelatin
2 egg whites, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract

Lightly spray a 9x9 inch baking dish with vegetable oil spray and generously dust with powdered sugar. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan (ideally with tall sides) over medium-high heat, stir together white sugar, corn syrup and 3/4 cup water. Heat to 250° - 265° degrees F (121° - 129° degrees C), or until a small amount of syrup dropped into cold water forms a rigid ball.

While syrup is heating, place remaining 1/2 cup of cool water in a small metal mixing bowl and sprinkle gelatin over the surface. Place bowl over double boiler or set in pan of very hot tap water. Stir occasionally until gelatin has dissolved completely. Keep warm until syrup has come to temperature.

Remove syrup from heat and whisk a small amount of the gelatin mixture into hot syrup. Syrup will bubble and froth significantly; stir gently until settled. Continue to add gelatin mixture until fully combined. Set aside to cool slightly.

In bowl of powerful standing mixer, whip egg whites to soft peaks. Slow beater to medium and pour syrup mixture into egg whites in a thin stream. Add vanilla. Once all ingredients are incorporated, beat on high speed until the egg whites are very stiff (10-12 minutes; watch your mixer to prevent overheating or motor damage!). Spread evenly in prepared pan, cover with cling wrap, and let rest 8 hours or overnight.

To cut, loosen edges of marshmallow sheet and turn out onto cutting board. Slice into squares or rectangles with a serrated or bread knife, cleaning blade in between with very hot water. Shake marshmallows in ziplock bag with additional powdered sugar to coat cut edges. Seal bag and store up to 1 month.

Snow Day!

As forecasted, we received a real winter storm last night and into the morning. Snow started falling around 8 pm yesterday evening, and we may even get some more tomorrow.

Everything, and I mean everything, is closed in the region. As I type, the happy squeals and shrieks of neighborhood kids playing in the snow can be heard. I'm rather surprised how many of them actually have boots and decent coats, given that it is Alabama and rarely are such outer garments necessary here. But a full 7-8 inches of snow is a once in a decade (or more) occurrence here, so I'm sure they want to live it up while they can!

I made my favorite yeasted waffles for a spontaneous brunch this morning, and we'll be curling up big steaming bowls of chili and cornbread to watch the football game tonight. I was tempted to make some of my favorite chewy molasses spice cookies, but Jeff said this snow had better not last more than a few days or we'll be three hundred pounds by the time they dig us out!

Just so you believe me about the 7-8 inches:

Snug as a bug in a cozy house covered with snow nestled in a frosty subdivision:

We won't be going anywhere soon:

Out and about (on foot):


Some of the many snowmen and snowladies appearing on the block before noon:

Easy Peasy Personal Pizza

I usually like to use up left-overs and clean out the fridge on Sundays in preparation for my meal planning and grocery shopping early in the week. This sometimes leads to creative uses of the "found" items. Today, I spied about half a cup of homemade barbecue sauce and a little baggie of cooked chicken thigh meat from my broth-making. This, combined with the freebies a family at church gave me yesterday, sparked a fun, almost free, lunch. I made BBQ chicken mini pizzas!

On the whole grain thin buns, I spread the remnant barbecue sauce, distributed the orphan chicken scraps, topped with thinly sliced red onions and lots of fresh cilantro, and sprinkled with cheese. After just a short time in the oven, we savored the tasty treat while enjoying our favorite radio program on NPR, Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! This was just the thing to warm up after a cold game of tennis in the 19 degree weather and wind.

Handmade

My sweetie niece Sharon made us some monogrammed coasters and sent them in the mail this week! She and her sisters are very gifted in the craft and artistic department, so it's neat to have some fruits of their labors (I have an art file of drawings from when they visited this summer, too).

Sharon even specified the nifty coasters for the family room coffee table, which I found very well thought-out as we sometimes take a meal in there or snuggle up with a cup of hot chocolate.

They look right at home and will be just perfect for our drinks when we settle in to watch the big Auburn vs. Oregon bowl game on Monday!

Back in the Saddle

We've had a streak of cold, wet, and snowy weather the past few weeks. That combined with Jeff being home put a bit of a kink in my regular horseback riding schedule. But, the sun and warmth have returned and Jeff is back at the office, so I'm jumping back into my breeches and boots and returning to the saddle.

I've had my first two rides this week since early December, and I have to say I'm quite pleased with Flame's performance (and attitude). I really expected some "badness" out of him after a lazy vacation, but he's picking up almost where we left off. I did hear that he didn't do very well for his owner over the break, and that's disappointing but expected. The greatest challenge with any animal training (and human training, too ;-) is making sure the trainee knows he/she has to behave, cooperate, and execute for everyone in authority, not just the trainer. I've seen parents go through this with kids, so maybe there are some good child-rearing tips I can find and apply!

A Month of Sundays!

Having Jeff home the last three weeks has been like a month of Sundays. It's fun to spend morning, noon, and night with my best friend! We accomplished most everything on our to-do list; but never fear, we weren't working so hard as to not enjoy ourselves. We had several "dates", a camping trip, a baking lesson, and a few other pleasant diversions.

We are very thankful for his job, but lest you think Jeff was slacking, he works very, very hard during the 16 week terms. He often teaches class or has office work well into the evenings, and sometimes on weekends, too. It's definitely not a 9-5 job. I think this was a much needed mental break for him, so he's refreshed and ready to push forward. I miss him now that he's back on campus, but I'm so grateful for the opportunities and experiences we enjoyed!

Day Trip

To cap off a fun-filled time working and playing together over the winter break, Jeff took me to Southern Accents, an architectural salvage company about half an hour away. It's all antique and historic elements and structures that have been saved from old homes and buildings in the region. Southern Accents is one of the largest salvage companies in the southeast, and they have an impressive collection.

We enjoyed touring through their multiple warehouses and the outdoor "plumbing garden". They have an astounding selection of mantles and doors, but there are also plenty of light fixtures, stained and leaded glass windows, drawer pulls, hinges, knobs, flooring, banisters, claw foot tubs, faucets, tile, ironwork, you name it!

Need a giant wall sconce, anyone?


Just a tiny fraction of the neat things we saw!