JeanC's Cat House and Shooting Society

January is almost over

2012-01-31T11:46:00.000-08:00

and February is almost here. Which means Spring is getting closer and closer (and it is now 26 days until DAYTONA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

Time to start thinking garden. I want to get some very early greens going and I think I have a way to do it inside without the kitties deciding the greens are all theirs. Just need to gather up everything I need and set up on the top of the upright deep freeze and hang a grow light. I've got all the seeds I will need for spinach and salad greens and I should be good to go. Will have to start work on that this weekend.

Really getting the hang of the gluten free thing, still haven't found a real good substitute for bread, so until then I've pretty much given up on my beloved grilled cheese sammmies. The breads I make are tasty, but just a bit too sweet and moist to make a decent grilled cheese. When the budget allows I will look at what Udi's and others offer for bread and see if anyone is close.

Going to expand my culinary repertoire into more vegetarian cooking, would like to do a veggie dinner at least 2 nights a week. Still have to find a falafel recipe that works. No matter what I do, the minute the patties or balls hit the lightly oiled griddle, they start to fall apart. The flavor is good tho, hubby still isn't sure of the texture. Will look at how they come out baked, he might like them better that way and I can also cook a lot of them with not so much hassle.

Just puttering along for now, working on getting pics printed and matted so I can display them publicly. I've got 4 done so far, need to get at least 4 more done in time for March. I'll be showing them at Gritman's Wellness center, still need to find out the actual dates so I can have them ready in time and also get it posted everywhere I can think of LOL!

The last week

2012-01-22T11:26:00.000-08:00

We had some snow:

Monday:

Wed morning:

Wed nite (after a very fine freezing rain):

Thursday morning (snow day!):

Managed to get the van stuck Friday morning:

But hubby got it out:

BLACK OUT!

2012-01-17T15:47:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow is the big internet black out to protest SOPA/PIPA. If you don't know what they are (esp since the MSM has been pretty much ignoring it until the last day or two), type in SOPA protest into Google or other web search engine and educate yourself.

All my sites and blogs will be going black tomorrow. If you want to join in, check out Strike Against SOPA and also drop a note to your Congress Critter for good measure.

See ya all on Friday!!!!!

Coolness!

2012-01-07T09:58:00.000-08:00

Been trying to put one of my photos on as a background for the blog, but couldn't get get them small enough to load and still look good. So decided to try one of my "watercolors" I did in MyPaint.

So the background is my lastest "painting," This is the hillside up behind my house.

Happy New Year everyone (3 days late LOL!)

2012-01-04T16:16:00.000-08:00

It was very nice to start the new year with a furnace that won't burn the house down. We did have to go with a down graded model, the code for the wiring has changed since the place was built and the wiring was no longer rated for a 15 watt model and we couldn't swing an extra grand to pay for upgrading the wiring. So we went with a 13 watt model. Does the job and we'd always supplemented the electric heat with the kerosene heaters anyways when it got super cold. We did pick up a small electric heater that will fill in any gaps if need be.

Took the tree down on Monday, the living room is no longer sparkly :( Will have to see about some new decor ideas to spruce the place up. New window treatments to start I think. Just have to figure out what. I will finish ripping out the living room carpeting this summer and then see what I can come up with for a floor treatment.

Still playing with MyPaint. Having fun with it and starting to get the hang of it. Need to see if there are more brushes for it I can add. So far my favorite are the watercolor brushes.I do admit tho, the cloud brush really makes doing clouds a lot easier LOL!

On the Purple Ducky Designs front I am still ticking along. Sales thru my Zazzle shop are doing good and I have been designing earrings and pendants to sell locally (still need to find a venue to sell them trhu). I am working on pins, but haven't found an adhesive that works well on the bits and bobs of hard drives I am using. Hot glue only holds for so long and while the super glue seems to work, all reports I've seen online from other people who do jewelry is that is gets brittle after a while.

Need to get a few more photos printed out and mounted. I want to see about getting them displayed locally. I also need to see about taking lots more that are suitable for showing.

It's not too late to order calendars!

2011-12-31T10:56:00.000-08:00

The new year is almost here, order your calendars today:

Tabby cats by JeanC_PurpleDucky
View other Cats Calendars

A year of kitty cats (US edition) by JeanC_PurpleDucky
make a calendar with zazzle

A year of food (US edition) by JeanC_PurpleDucky
Become a calendar affiliate at zazzle.com

Calendars are half off until Dec 31, 2011:

50% of the calendar net sale price will be deducted when one or more qualifying products are purchased and the coupon code CALENDARSALE is applied at checkout. Offer is valid until December 31, 2011 at 11:59pm PT. This offer does not apply to past purchases and may not be combined with any other Zazzle promotional or volume discount offers. If a volume discount applies to your order, you will receive either the discount set forth in this offer or the standard volume discount, whichever is greater. Offer valid on Zazzle.com only. Expires 12/31/2011.

Use Promotional Code: CALENDARSALE

WOO HOO!!!!!!!

2011-12-30T12:50:00.000-08:00

Old, decrepit, barely running furnace:

Nice, new shiny furnace:

Thank you Ackerman Heating & Air Conditioning:

Winter vacy ticking away

2011-12-29T15:01:00.000-08:00

Been enjoying the week off, for the most part. Furnace problems, toilet problems, leaky ceiling problems. All the fun and joy of owning one's home. But the toilet now works and doesn't leak, the new furnace gets installed tomorrow and we'll deal with leaky ceilings another time.

Had a nice Yule and a very low key Christmas (hubby and I really do't do much). He spent the day fixing my computer which crashed. But I am up and runing now and playing with a new program called "My Paint". Okay, it isn't a new program, it came installed on one of the Linux distros he tried to install (sucked), so he put me on another distro and we installed MyPaint and I have been having fun. Still not sure what I am doing, but followed a tutorial for painting a cormorant:

Okay, it isn't a cormorant, the tutorial is not bad, but I think you are supposed to be better at painting then I am. At least it looks like a bird.

So played around some more:

Not a bad doodle if I do say so myself LOL! Definitely have to do a lot more practicing and see what I can come up with. At least this way I am not wasting paper and art supplies. Don't like what I did, I just delete and start over.

Been puttering a bit listening to music for the most part. Watched "Bag of Bones" with Pierce Brosnan, very enjoyable. Watched "Neverland", not quite as enjoyable. Not sure why, but not as satisfying as the re-interpretations of Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland Syfy did before. Maybe because I never related to the Peter Pan story as I did with Dorothy and Alice.

Haven't got around to doing all the baking and cooking I'd planned on, been playing to much on the computer LOL! I did come up with a very yummy dinner Christmas day. I browned some beef cubes, sauteed some onions, added rehydrated gourmet mushrooms and then made a dutch oven stew I slow cooked in the oven. Seasoned with salt and pepper and some balsamic vinegar it was yummy. Made some gluten free pierogies to go with and YUM!!!!!!

Just in time for Solstice

2011-12-22T11:55:00.000-08:00

Got my tree Tuesday night and in the house with the stand:

Last night it got its sparklies:

So pretty in the dark:

I am loving the new LED lights, they don't put off a lot of heat, use to much electricity and they are nice and bright:

Can't wait for the after Christmas sales at Shopko so I can get more LOL!

Pioneer diary, or a weekend without a furnace

2011-12-12T15:32:00.000-08:00

At least we had electricity and the dragons (kerosene heaters). Our furnace decided to crap out on us on Friday, so it was a bit chilly this weekend in the house. Some wires decided to melt and things stopped working. Hubby called a heating place and since we didn't want to pay weekend emergency rates, opted to have them come in to fix it today and make do with the dragons over the weekend.

Put blankets over all the door openings in the living room and that made a big difference right away and brought in the big dragon. Did a nice job, got the temp in the living room up to over 75 and we turned the dragon off to save fuel. We only turned it back on when it dropped to below 65 when we were up and about. We turned it off at night when we went to bed and cranked the electric blanket.

So with luck we shall be warm again by the time I get home tonight.

A friend who does the Winter Market here in Moscow let me have a corner of her table this last Saturday:

No sales, but a lot of my business cards walked away with people, so fingers crossed I will have some emails from people wanting to buy things. I have branched out into ornaments (pic above) and pins:

I've only two so far, some of the little bits aren't quite suitable for pins.

Made a pair of earrings for me so I can show off my work:

Yeah, that is me with a new hair style and color. My sis-in-law and her hubby came out a week ago and he helped hubby work on cars and she did my hair. Still getting used to it, it is shorter then anything I've had since I was 9. Nice easy hair style tho.

Shop Purple Ducky Designs

2011-12-12T09:57:00.000-08:00

It's not too early to shop for Christmas. Buttons, magnets and key chains make great stocking stuffers and are 15% off at Purple Ducky Designs!

Fireworks 2 by JeanC_PurpleDucky
Sell art online at Zazzle.

How'd the heck did it get to be December already?!?!?!?!?!

2011-12-01T10:36:00.000-08:00

Shouldn't have blinked :P

Ah well, the year is almost over and then it will be next year, but then it will be this year. It is like there is today and tomorrow, but when tomorrow gets here it is today, so tomorrow never actually arrives.

Gotta get more caffeine, my brain is derailing.

My sister in law and her hubby are coming in today for a few days visit. He'll help hubby work on the cars (and maybe figure out why the van isn't running) and she will do my hair. Hubby is bound and determined I will be a serious red head. In order to have the color he wants will involved a serious bit of work and I hope I still have hair when it is done (my hair isn't in the best of shape thanks to the thyroid issue). We'll see, good think I like hats.

Got the last of the turkey day leftovers into the freezer last night. Gotta start using what is in there as both of them are seriously over flowing. I still have to turn the two carcasses into stock and there really isn't room for the containers I need to stash when I am done.

Sales thru my Purple Ducky Designs shop have really picked up, I am glad. Still need to figure out how to sell my recycled earrings and mobiles online. Been looking into Google Checkout and will probably look at that after the new year on a trial basis to see how it goes. I still have to figure out things like shipping and sale tax.

Will start decorating for the holidays next week.

BURP!!!!!!

2011-11-25T12:28:00.000-08:00

T-day was good. Everything was ready on time and came out delicious. There were NO disasters (unless you count my forgetting to pull the baked yams out of the oven, but they weren't missed).

The tequila and lime injection was a success, the bird was nice and juicy and had a nice tangy flavor. I managed to make a gallon and a half of gravy (the gallon baggy of turkey stock I'd previously made and the leftover potato water from the mashed potatoes helped hehehehehe). I hadn't thought of the potato water, but someone on the Good Eats board mentioned that Alton using potato starch flour to make the gravy instead of using the liquid from the mashed potatoes that was loaded with starch gave me the idea.

The corn bread stuffing was okay, will keep looking for a good stuffing recipe for next year. The regular bread dressing in the crock pot came out well (a little too moist, I over estimated the amount of stock it needed). Hubby and our guest said it was tasty tho.

The pies came out nicely, the GF crust recipe from Bob's Red Mill is perfect. I used the pumpkin our neighbor had made from a fresh pumpkin. Very tasty.

So now I have lots of leftovers to play with (plus a 12 lb bird in the fridge we got from our neighbors. She'd sent him to the store for a ham and he came home with a turkey. I will do a simple roast on it this weekend to give us more leftovers and another carcass for the stock pot.

Count down continues

2011-11-22T10:19:00.000-08:00

Got the fixin's for turkey day last night. Picked up a 23# bird and tossed it in the tub with cold water over night to get the thaw started. It is now half frozen in the fridge.

Haven't decided if I will start any other prep tonight, maybe look at doing the corn bread for the stuffing to give it time to dry out a bit before putting it together tomorrow so it will just be a matter of pulling it from the fridge and stuffing the bird on Thursday.

So the menu has finalized:

Turkey shot with tequila and lime with corn bread stuffing
slow cooker dressing
mashed potatoes
baked yams
GF puffs
gravy, lots and lots of gravy
pumpkin pie with whipped cream

My neighbor gave me some pumpkin so will not be using the canned variety. Should make for an interesting pie. I've a GF pie crust recipe I like so will use that.

Trying my hand at making jerky with ground elk for a friend. She'd gotten an elk first day of bow season and we've been the recipient of some of the ground elk. She gave hubby 5#s to turn into jerky and that is in the fridge with soy sauce, pepper and a bit extra salt. I'll start it tonight in the dehydrator. She wants it very peppery so will sprinkle on more black pepper when I get it into the trays. If it turns out well that means I can look at making our own using cheap ground beef so we can have some on hand for munchies.

Probably should post something

2011-11-21T12:18:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I've been a bad blogger, haven't really felt like writing anything on any of my blogs. Whenever I think I will post I just get "meh!" and find something else to do.

So it is count down to Turkey day. We'll be picking up fixin's tonight. Since my mom and brother aren't coming out (after last years snow disaster they decided to play it safe this year and stay home) it will just be me, hubby and a friend. Also decided for a stripped down menu: turkey, gravy, stuffing/dressing, mashed potato, one maybe two other sides and dessert. Okay, probably isn't as stripped down from other years, but not planning on making quite as much of everything (except the turkey and gravy). I have LOTS of turkey/chicken stock from cleaning out the deep freeze and throwing all the poultry carcasses and bits and pieces into the stock pot last week. I'll be making a GF cornbread stuffing for the bird and a regular bread dressing in the crockpot for hubby.

The snow we've had the last couple days isn't bad, esp after what we had this time last year. Is supposed to rain for the next few days, so will not complain. Rum Tum has been a happy kitten.

Still working on making things out of computer parts. I have enough to make ornaments to sell at the Winter Market in a couple weeks. A friend has a table there I will share. I have enough earrings for now, so will only make those if I can get my hands on more laptop hard drives.

Need to see about getting some of my photos printed out and lay my hands on some mats so I can sell them locally with my earrings and light catchers. Will have to order the mat materials online. There is one site with ready made mats, backings and bags I am looking at ordering from when I can.

NOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-11-04T10:58:00.000-07:00

Whimper!

Dad blasted cold!

2011-11-03T11:50:00.000-07:00

is insisting on hanging on :( Just enough to make me slightly miserable with a runny nose and an annoying cough. Seems to be this year's bug de jure.

Had some business cards printed up the other day for Purple Ducky Designs. I'm using the gallery addy since I've expanded into jewelry and art pieces. I figure that is a good site for people to then get to my shop page. Came out nice, but will tweak things a bit for the next batch. Text is a little smaller then I would like.

Need to finish getting ready for Women's Arts and Crafts Fair (Women's Works) on Saturday (10am-5pm Eastside Market Place in Moscow). I need to come up with something to display the light catchers on and get more made. I'm pretty much out of materials for the earrings. Need to get more hard drives to take apart. Tried to talk our computer guy here at the library into letting me have all the dead ones he has, but no go. He takes them apart and does things of his own with them.

Need to figure out how I will sell my earrings and things after Women's Work. I looked into Etsy, but they use PayPal and I don't do PayPal. I would like to be able to do internet sales, but need a place that will handle all the money transactions that does it with something other then PayPal.

Have to see what other venues are available locally I can sell thru. Need to check with some of the other ladies in the artists group to see what they do.

Even more earrings!

2011-11-01T10:40:00.000-07:00

Since I was sick over the weekend and couldn't do much, I sat in my chair, watched movies, TV and NASCAR and made more earrings:

I am also making light catchers:

Need to find a better way to display and photograph the light catchers to show them off better.

Made jewelry

2011-10-24T10:11:00.000-07:00

Women's Works is coming up Nov 5th and I was informed I was making jewelry to sell. When the Crone speaks, you listen hehehehehe. Yes'm! Granted, when my friend told me I was making something that finally got me off my butt and start putting things together. Hit Spence's Hardward for wire (WAY cheaper then the craft store, esp copper wire) and then the craft store for earring findings and then Sure Shot Sporting Goods for swivels of various sizes and types for making my mobiles. Then I got to tear apart hard drives.

Taking apart hard drives is fun and can be done while watching the telly. Putting together the earrings to. I dug out some glittery beads I had from way back when (have to go thru my jewelry box and see what I can re-purpose from there).

Made a total of 16 pairs of earrings, most from the read arms from the hard drives. I've started some simpler ones made from assorted rings and things and still need to go thru the parts bins to see what else can be made jewelry. Then it will be onto mobiles.

The cool thing is I've already sold a pair of the simpler ring earrings to my neighbor. Can't wait to see if I can sell more at Women's Works on the 5th (Eastside Market Place from 10am-5pm).

Fribble

2011-10-20T13:00:00.000-07:00

So recently, thanks to the fact I have recently turned 50, had to go thru the ritual of the scoping of the colon (or in plain English, a colonoscopy).

Great, just what I would like to avoid, but with a family history of various cancers (no colon cancer that I know of tho) I have to keep up on the screenings to just play it safe. Had the boobie squishing done last week (everything is ship shape and Bristol fashion) and now it was time for the camera going places no camera should really go.

The morning before I set up the prep fluid. Went with the cherry flavor as being the least objectionable of the flavors offered (orange, lemon-line and pineapple were the others) and stashed it in the fridge to make sure it was good and cold by that evening.

I had been assured by friends, colleagues and family that the prep is the worst of the ordeal. I can say that as liquids go, the solution wasn't that bad as long as it stayed very, very cold. It didn't taste like cherry tho, more like slightly salty bubble gum.

The really hard part was not being able to eat. We picked up a pizza for hubby since we needed something easy for him to fix and since he got a ham and pineapple I wasn't really tempted to try and sneak a bite (okay, I lied, I was really tempted even tho I loath pineapple on pizza and it was a regular pizza crust. But hey, the one side effect of getting glutinated would help the process along right!).

So I managed to survive the prep, tho we found out the next day while they were trying to put in the IV that I was also rather dehydrated (not surprising considering what the process does) and I couldn't being myself to drink anything, much less water after drinking half a gallon of salty bubblegum flavored stuff. So the poor nurse had a time getting an IV in. Once in tho everything went smoothly.

As with any medical stuff, it was hurry up and wait, but the staff at the surgery center were great. Checking in periodically to make sure I was comfortable and it was finally time to meet the surgeon. He looked like he was old enough to have graduated college, so I was happy (I swear, medical professionals are getting younger and younger every year. It is disconcerting to have your health in the hands of someone who doesn't look like they even have a driver's license).

So I met the surgeon, the anesthetist and the nurse. We went over everything, I signed more forms and the nurse took my CPAP to get it set up and then it was across the hallway to the room.

I got hooked up to various machines, the nurse was nice enough to add water to the humidifier on my CPAP and I lay down. The anesthetist puffed my pillow so I would be more comfortable and then he started the IV and said "you should be getting sleepy", at which point I was and the next thing I knew he was waking me up.

Got unhooked from various machines and then into the recovery room where I was joined by hubby (he'd been with me up until I went in for the procedure). Once I was comfy in my chair with my feet up they gave me a cup of ice water to make sure I could drink. That went down fine, so I then got a cup of coffee. Ambrosia couldn't taste better then that cup of coffee LOL!.

Rested a while and came to the conclusion is the prep isn't the worst part of the whole thing. It is the air still trapped in the system that is trying to get out (even tho the surgeon did his best to remove it when he was done. But there are so many nooks and crannies for it to hide in). Talk about pain, they made some of the worst menstrual cramps I've ever had seem like a pleasure. But eventually things worked themselves out and the pain went away.

They did find one polyp that they cut out for biopsy.

Got dressed, went home and curled up in my chair with a BIG cup of tea to rehydrate myself. Later the hubby hit Jack in the Box to pick my up a bacon double cheese burger (sans bun) and fries. So wonderfully yummy. They wrapped the burger in a couple big pieces of lettuc and put it in a salad bowl. Didn't even miss the bun.

So this morning the surgeon calls with the results. The biopsy came back that it was a tubular adenoma. He said as seriousness goes, it was pretty low on the scale, but I get to repeat the process in 3-5 years. Closer to 5 years.

Crap. I was hoping to not have to do this again for 10, a much nicer number. But it is better to be safe and know things early then finding things too late and being in a world of ick.

Zazzle find of the week

2011-10-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

Going to try and get back to doing this regularly :)

From The Minuteman:

What Would JMB Do M1895 Mug by minutemanapparel
View other John moses browning Mugs

Dreary Hump Day

2011-10-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

But at least the week is half over.

Discovered another leak in the hallway ceiling the hard way. Stepping into a cold puddle of water when you aren't really awake and haven't and any coffee is NOT the way to start the morning. SO I mopped up, grabbed the wet book (of course it HAD to be over the book shelves) to set up to dry and grab a bucket. Have to get up and figure out where the leak is this time and get it fixed as best we can.

Had my first ever gluten free beer last night. We'd stopped at the Co-op to pick up some chicken breasts they had on sale and discovered they had some gluten free beers. So we grabbed a couple of bottles, one called Redbridge from Anheuser-Bush and the other from New Planet. Decided to start with the Redbridge and hold the New Planet for another night.

The Redbridge wasn't bad, it had a nice beery taste, tho not quite the full flavor I am used to from regular beer. It was also a little bit sweet, not off puttingly so for me tho I have a friend who had tried it previously and found it too sweet for her. Can't wait to try the New Planet to see how it compares. Once I've tried a number of different GF beers I will start looking for ingredients to make my own this winter.

So I have a new to me gas grill we scored off the Moscowfreeexchange. It is bigger and needs a little work (one burner isn't working as well as it should) and is missing the upper rack, but it is making grilling a lot easier as I am not burning things quite like I had been. If we can't find a home with someone who likes to fix up old, not functioning well grills I will be taking the old one into the scrappers so it can be remade into something else. The big test will be burgers to see if I can grill them without ending up with charcoal hockey pucks.

I brought my tomatoes inside a couple of weeks ago and they are much happier and I am getting some ripe tomatoes:

Can't wait until I have enough to do something with. I'll be saving the seeds as these are heirlooms and I want to grow them again next year (and hopefully the growing season won't be so weird).

Chicken & dumplings - gluten free of course!

2011-09-29T14:53:00.001-07:00

chicken & dumplings, originally uploaded by JeanC38.

ETA: Been getting lots of hits to this post, so I thought I probably should link to my cooking blog for the recipe: GF Chicken & dumplings

Black & White

2011-09-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

Some recent black and white photos using the film grain mode on my camera:

WOOO HOOOO!!!!!!!

2011-09-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

I was very sad when one of my favorite restaurants, San Miguel's, closed earlier this year. I didn't have a chance to eat there one last time.

I had hit Safeway last night to pick up stuff for dinner and as I was leaving the mall I saw this:

OOOOOOO! A new Mexican restaurant AND tapas bar (I have been wanting to try tapas for so long). I looked up info to see if I could find anything on this and found:

New Restaurant to open at Eastside Marketplace!
6/30/2011

Moscow, ID –Two of the former owners of San Miguel’s Mexican Restaurant, Arturo and Annette Lamadrid, have leased 4,500 square feet in Moscow’s Eastside Marketplace on Blaine Street. They plan to open LAMADRID Mexican Restaurant and Tapas Bar, within the restaurant space located on the front of the shopping center. LAMADRID will also be leasing the space currently occupied by Mix, to allow for full bar offerings.

The former owner's of San Miguel's!!!!! SERIOUS HAPPY DANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not sure when they are opening, have to check the sign on the door next time I get a chance. I SOOOOO can't wait to eat there.

Because Tam did it....

2011-09-20T10:47:00.000-07:00

Here is a pic of the knife I keep in my pocket on a daily basis:

I've no idea of the brand, it was an inexpensive folder that fit nicely in my hand and keeps a decent edge. It also make a great SNAP! when I flick it open.

As said, Tam did it and she got the meme from a blog by Og.

Well, fishing from the boat is definitely out this year

2011-09-08T09:59:00.000-07:00

Found a place that could get us the tires and tubes for the boat trailer, but when they attempted to put them on the first rim this happened:

The tire and tube were rated to 65 lbs of pressure, the rim made it to 20 and then exploded. Good thing we hadn't just inflated the old tube and try and take it out to the lake.

SIGH!!

We knew the rim was not in great shape, but everyone thought we probably could get a another season out of them.

Nope :(

We've been trying to find replacement rims, but no one makes the spindle and cotter pin rim anymore and the spindle is 1/2 inch to narrow to take the adapter. Any fixes would cost more then what we paid for the trailer, boat AND two motors!

At least we haven't tagged the boat yet this year.

New from Purple Ducky Designs

2011-09-02T09:49:00.000-07:00

Canvas Wrapped Prints, the newest product line from Zazzle:

Sentinal by JeanC_PurpleDucky
View other Latah Canvas Prints

Bumblebee and Peony by JeanC_PurpleDucky
More Bumblebee Canvas Prints

Geranium by JeanC_PurpleDucky
View more Geranium Canvas Prints

Bubbles by JeanC_PurpleDucky
Print canvas photos on zazzle

Also from Purple Ducky Designs:

Your idea of health by JeanC_PurpleDucky
View other Body T-Shirts

And Purple Ducky Political:

No free man shall ever be debarred.. by PD_Politics
Learn ways to make money as an artist on Zazzle.

Didn't we hire grownups for Congress? by PD_Politics
Create custom tshirts using zazzle

For a people who are free..... by PD_Politics
Browse Thomas jefferson T-Shirts

New semester has started.

2011-08-24T10:34:00.000-07:00

GAAACCCKKKKK!!!!!!!!

How I spent my 50th birthday

2011-08-18T16:56:00.000-07:00

SILVERWOOD!!!!!!

My very sneaky and lovable hubby surprised me with a trip. We've been wanting to go, but never really got around to it for one reason or another.

He'd told me he had planned on a fishing trip up to Lake Pend O'Reille which I was looking forward to. Haven't been fishing up there in a long time. His original plan was to not tell me at all until we turned into the park, but then he realized that the logistics for going to a theme park are completely different then going fishing. So he spilled the beans when we woke up Sunday morning.

Needless to say I was a VERY happy birthday girl LOL!!!!!!! So we got up, showered, coffeed, packed up what we would need and headed out.

Got to Silverwood just after they opened at 11 am and got a parking space (hubby has a handicapped placard so we didn't have to wait in the LONG line for regular parking and managed to get one of the last open spaces they had) and got ready for the park.

We brought Ms Ella:

and the first thing we did was get these way cool cups. They were about $9 or so and free refills all day Sunday. Well worth the cost since we drank more then the cups cost if we were paying regular prices. If we remember to take them next time we go refills are 99 cents.

Next thing we did was hop the train:

It is a great way to see the park and the rest of the grounds:

They stop about half way for water at an old mine:

and a train robbery:

The deputy saves the day and the stolen money goes to charity:

I was SOOOOO happy!

After the train ride we wandered thru the park and I hit my first roller coaster (I will now have to say my pics are out of order, I was so excited to be there I didn't get a lot of pics of rides early on):

I left the hubby with Ms Ella and all my camera gear (Ms Ella was too short to ride and I didn't think my camera would survive) and I hopped on the first roller coaster that I've been on in almost 20 years.

WEEEEEEEE HHHAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

I was a seriously happy camper when I got off, tho rather woozy and couldn't walk straight. I had just discovered I can't do coasters that have ANY inverting to them :(

But who cares, IT WAS A BLAST!

After re-couping a bit we found some lunch. I decided that I would wait until later in the day before tackling anymore rides, so we wandered back to the car to re-charge the camcorder and leave Ms Ella as we were headed to the water park next.

SOOOOOO much fun. It was great, all sorts of people and body shapes and sizes. We rented a locker to stash our stuff and changed into suits and headed for the wave pool. I've swum in oceans and am used to waves, but I danged near drowned a few times in the wave pool. Stayed in for a couple of cycles and then out to rest and dry off. Have to make sure hubby doesn't get burned, so after people watching for a while we got dressed and back into the main park and on to the rides.

Next ride I did was Panic Plunge. We have video that hubby took, but I haven't processed it yet. Since it was also an intense ride I left my camera with hubby since I didn't really know what to expect.

again WHHHHHHEEEEEE HHHHAAAAWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!

I've been wanting to do free fall, but short of throwing myself off a cliff and then having to deal with the sudden SPLAT at the bottom, I haven't been able to (no way in HECK am I trusting a big rubber band to keep me from splatting, so bungee jumping is right out!). The Panic Plunge is great, tho it is over too fast.

A bit more wandering and then it was onto Tremors. No pics of it except this one of Ms Ella in front of a section:

Line was about 20 minutes long (we lucked out on Sunday, Friday and Saturday they'ed broken attendance records) and again I left everything with hubby. Got in the car and ran into a tiny problem.....

Couldn't latch the &^^$%# seat belt. It was an inch too short. Looked at the attendant and said it wasn't going to work. He looked at me and said the belts on the seats behind me were longer and we asked the couple behind me if we could trade. They said yes, we did and with a little help from the attendant, got the belt latched (kept trying to latch it with my shirt in the mechanism). The bar came back and I was secured in the car and off we went.

I went hoarse from screaming it was such a blast. I knew there were tunnels we plunged into, I thought there were only a couple. I lost count as I was too busy whooping and screaming and having fun. It also went on longer then I thought it would from watching the cars come and go when I was waiting in line.

After stumbling off the ride and finding the hubby I sat on the bench with my head between my knees. My inner ear was getting a bit cranky. I still had Timber Terror to do. After a while I finally came to the conclusion I had enough high intensity rides and Timber Terror was going to have to wait for another trip up. Aftershock is right out, there is no way I can do any rides that involve going backwards.

So we decided to wander back towards the entrance, taking our time and watching people on the other rides. Picked up some really cool glow in the dark souvenirs (a couple ray guns and a light saber-type thing). Pics of those later when I get a chance to do so.

We ended up leaving a bit earlier then planned, a bit before 8pm, we'd planned to leave at closing, but I was very tired and very foot sore. I managed to pull up a blood blister on my big right toe from my tennie runners, I changed into Crocs after the water park and got a band aid put on at the 1st aid office. I was also getting blisters on my left foot.

So we decided to quite while we were still alive LOL!

Here is a slide show of all the pics I managed to get:

I am still a bit sore, the bruises are looking pretty spectacular now and I am still so very, very happy my hubby came up with the best way to spend a 50th birthday.

Happy birthday to me!!!!

2011-08-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

Hehehehe, turned 50 today :D

Garden news

2011-08-11T11:49:00.000-07:00

Because of the weather and all I don't have much in my garden. I've managed to get quite a bit of dirt and biomass in my raised bin and last night when I was watering the half I planted, saw a couple of walking onion sprouts.

YAY!!!!!!!

I still need to see about getting some more soil in the one half and then I will see about seeding in some greens for this fall and hopefully maybe some sweet onions and garlic.

My neighbor gave me some chives from one of her pots, along with a Greek basil. Both are doing very well in the pots I put them in. I think I will seed in some more chive seeds to the one so I can have some new growth while I work on harvesting what is there now.

My tomatoes have been chugging along, just flowers:

Brandywine:

Moskvich:

Or so I thought until I started pruning some yellowed leaves from the Moskvich and found:

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! My first tomato of the year!!!!!! It isn't very big:

but it is a start. I am hoping to start getting more tomatoes on them. The Moskvich is tolerant of cooler weather, so I can probably keep it outside longer then the Brandywine. With the cages I can put plastic bags over them when the weather gets to cool at night and hopefully keep them going for as long as possible outside to give them a chance to get as many tomatoes ont hem as possible before bringing them in the house.

Veggie goodness

2011-08-10T09:48:00.000-07:00

Been buying zucchini and squash of late (now that I have a solution towards my garden I can't wait to get a raised bed of zucs and squash). I like to sauté them in a bit of olive oil and season with the Penzeys Mural of Flavor and then pair them with some kind of meat or in this case just over rice:

It is also yummy with adobo seasoned chicken on a toasted GF bun:

And with adobo spiced pork and over brown rice fettuccine noodles and sprinkled with Ricotta Salata:

Hubby keeps saying zucchini and squash are evil, well, that just means it is MINE! ALL MINE!!!!! LOL!

Zazzle find of the week

2011-08-08T20:44:00.000-07:00

Moods of Maggie:

Oy, I think summer has finally arrived.

2011-08-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

Didn't get a whole heck of a lot done this weekend, too darned hot. I think Saturday was spent not moving as much as possible and running every fan in the place, plus taking advantage of the AC in the bedroom. We'd hoped to get some fishing done, but too hot for that.

Needless to say, not much got cooked either, tho I tried out some teff flour pancakes for breakfast yesterday. Tolerable, very simple recipe, needs to be seriously tweaked to make them better. The recipe made quite a few, so the extras are stashed in the deep freeze. May look at a bread application for those.

Took some pictures and wrote up more reviews for my review blog. I do like the scheduled post feature, I can write things up and then have them post at a later date. By having things post every other day or so I have about 2 weeks worth of posts ready to go. Now I just need to keep coming up with things to review LOL!

We did manage to get a bit done on Sunday. We finally started ripping down the damaged ceiling. We had some serious water leakage in one corner over the last couple of years, managed to get it slowed down with snow coating part of the roof last year. We discovered there was no vapor barrier and the only thing between the fiberglass pink insulation and the metal skin of the roof was a sheet of 1/4 inch press board. Which disintegrated on touch when we poked it.

SIGH!

So next years project will be to tear out ceilings (starting in the bedroom, tho there are places in the living room that need it) and properly seal everything up, get some of that way cool expanding foam insulation we see on the DIY shows and put up a ceiling that is better then that 1070s crap they have in there now. We half considered trying for this year now that we know what is up there, but we have too many other projects that need to get done (like finishing the snow coating of the roof). In the meantime we sprayed the heck out of all the places we opened up (we've big hold above the bed where we found more rotted press board and a couple cracked rafter beams, now braced with metal strips) with bleach to forestall anymore mold growing in those spots.

My tomatoes are tooling along and I have more dirt in my raised bed. No sign of the walking onions as yet, but I have hope.

Is it Friday yet?

2011-07-25T14:21:00.000-07:00

Had a very nice weekend. Hubby surprised me with a matinee showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt 2 on Friday. We were in such a movie mood we grabbed tickets for Captain America: the First Avenger. Both movies were great. I did cry during Harry Potter and did a lot of cheering during Captain America.

Saturday we seriously slept in and went to Shari's for lunch. Had their Spinach Cobb salad for lunch, very yummy. Puttered about the house and baked cookies. Friday night I'd whipped up a batch of snickerdoodles and on Saturday adapted a molasses crinkle cookie recipe for gluten free. Came out very yummy.

Sunday we drove up to Spokane for a bit of shopping. Had lunch at Dick's, then stopped off at my favorite Asian market and scored two big bottles of white soy sauce, made with rice flour instead of wheat. $2.49 a bottle, so came out WAY cheaper then tamari. I love tamari, but my budget has got to stretch somehow. Hubby was surprised I only bought the 2 bottles, I told him I was seriously restraining myself, otherwise I'd be walking out with a couple of grocery carts of goodies LOL!

We then hit Harbor Freight for a couple things and then the big URM Cash & Carry out in the Valley. Found a new cookie sheet (1/2 sheet) so my cookies should turn out perfect (my old cookie sheets are no longer shiny and edges get a bit too dark if I am not careful).

Into Coeur d'Alene to gas up and hit Costco, priced tuna fish (we'll stick with the cheap brand at Winco. As much as I love Chicken of the sea, it is still a bit out of our budget) and picked up some kitty litter and 3 things of corn tortllas.

From there we headed for Blogfest at Fort Ground Grill where we had a wonderful afternoon visiting with folk I knew in person and only knew from Dave Oliveria 's blog Huckleberries Online or from their own blogs:

I so wanted to steal Bent's BBQ rig, I could imagine all the cooking I could do on that LOL! My cookies went over well, the snickerdoodles especially. Have to whip up another batch to break in my new cookie sheet.

I really wished I could have tried out the homemade brew, but unless it is gluten free, beer is not my friend anymore (others were enjoying it and it looked yummy). Have to see what I can find for gluten free beer recipes, I have my gear just sitting in the shed and I can only make so much mead and I'm not terribly interested in making wine. I think I will be working on GF beer this winter.

Oh ye Ghodz!

2011-07-21T08:33:00.000-07:00

H/T LawDog

NSFW due to language:

For LawDog's take on the situation, read here.

UPDATE: The officer involved is currently relieved of duty pending invesitgation accordign tot he Canton OH PD.

Lunch today

2011-07-19T14:57:00.000-07:00

Brought in some fish fillets, rice, butter and Penzeys Mural of Flavor:

Yum!

MMMMMMM!

2011-07-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

Picked up some baby bok choi last week and made a stir fry for dinner one night:

Pork loin, crimini mushrooms, 5 spice, tamari, onion, garlic, roasted sesame oil and rice vinegar. Served over white rice.

Yum!

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!

2011-07-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

I made basic level ProSeller at Zazzle!!! This means I have been doing pretty good. Now I need to work on going up a level and getting Bronze!

WEEEEEHHHAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!

New blog

2011-07-13T08:59:00.000-07:00

As if I don't have enough of them already LOL! I decided to do a review blog and figured, what the hey! I signed up for Google ads and set them up on that blog. May not make much money from them, but every penny counts and we will see (and that is the last I will say regarding ads on that blog).

Not much on it currently, I posted the two latest restaurant reviews there to start and have several product reviews in the works that will post over the next few days. I'm not going to limit myself on what I will review so the subjects (with any luck) will be far ranging.

My new blog is JeanC Reviews... and hopefully will be fun.

A good weekend

2011-07-11T14:33:00.000-07:00

Had a good weekend, including the aforementioned restaurant in the previous post. Friday we went shopping down in Lewiston/Clarkston and met up with some friends for a couple hours for drinks and visiting.

Earlier on Friday I opened up the shed, hauled out some old computer cases hubby had stored in there so he can get rid of them. Also got out the platform for the AC unit for the bedroom window and got in in place. Then I organized the shed better, now there is room to get some stuff stored on the porch out to the shed. Later on I had the neighbor come help get the AC unit out of the shed and onto the platform.

Saturday we headed up to Spokane/CDA for more shopping. Avoided spending more money then we usually do by avoiding several shops where we know we go nuts. Those will be stops on future trips (like when Trader Joe's finally opens in Spokane).

Sunday was a sleep in and putter day. Light lunch and then I decided to tackle a project I have been wanting to do for a bit, which is to start the first on my raised bed planters. I had some plywood a friend had given us last year that I will be using to rebuild the utility trailer, but I didn't need 3 pieces for it, so I grabbed on for my garden.

I had to think a bit, did I want to have two beds 1 foot high each or 1 bed 2 foot high. Opted for the 2 foot high as that will require a lot less bending and kneeling and pain in my knees. It does mean I need to lay my hands on a lot more dirt and compost then I have at the moent, but it will be a start.

I ripped the plywood into 2'X4' sections and found that doing so by myself with a circular saw means what I ended up wasn't pretty (had to start cutting from one side, then cut from the other side and managed to miss meeting in the middle by and inch or two). But it works. I then cut a long 2"X4" into 2 foot lengths and used those to screw the plywood together in the corners.

Had fun with the chop saw on the 2"X4", it only went thru half way, so I had to flip the board over to finish the cut. There is a depth adjustment, just didn't know how to do it.

But I got it done and in place:

I put a couple layers of cardboard down inside, wet it down and then put in one load of compost from my compost bins to start. It is going to take a lot, I probably won't get it more then half full this year, but it will be enough to plant the Egyptian walking onion sets I picked up on freecycle last week. The walls should be tall enough to keep them corralled for a while.

I'll keep adding soil and compost to it as I get some. I still need to pick up materials so I can build at least 4 more that size and then a couple that are 4'X2'X2' for tomatoes in my other garden spot behind the house.

I do need to get my utility trailer re-done so I can use it to haul compost from the landfill.

Since qwe were still satisfied from lunch on Saturday, we opted for a light dinner. I thawed some boneless, skinless chicken thighs, diced them up into small pieces and sauteed them in olive oil, The I sliced some crimini mushrooms and tossed those in and seasoned the chicken and 'shrooms with the Penzy's adobo seasoning.

I then diced up some red and green bell to go on hubby's and hauled out the cheese. I set my non-stick electric griddle for 350F and hit it with cooking spray. Down went the first tortillas, then cheese, meat/'shrooms, peppers and then topped with another tortilla. I sprayed the top tortillas with cooking spray and then when the quesadilla was ready, flipped it to cook the other side.

Mine was pretty much the same, minus the bell peppers (they don't like me too terribly much). Once they were done, cut and plated. Made for a very yummy and light dinner:

Ate them while watching the race from Saturday and just kicked back and relaxed Sunday evening.

Grille from Ipanema

2011-07-11T10:45:00.000-07:00

I have just one thing to say...OH...MY...GODDESS!!!!

This restaurant opened in Coeur d'Alene recently and we simply had to try it. We got our opportunity on Saturday when we had to drive up to do some shopping.

We got there a bit before 3 for a late lunch and there were still a few patrons there, most out on the patio. We opted for sitting inside. Our waiter arrived and asked if we had eaten there before, so he explained how the full Churrasco (pronounced shoo-RAS-koo) experience worked and of course we said yes (why go to a Brazillian steakhouse and not experience it properly). He then took our drink orders (iced tea) and left the red/green discs we would be needing:

Green means we wanted more meat and red meant we were not ready for more or we were done. I tended to keep mine very close at hand to flip back to green if I saw a skewer coming with something I wanted LOL!

First up tho was a visit to the buffet for salad and side dishes:

There were so many choices, but I started with a little green salad, fresh mozzarella, heart of palm, Brazilian rice and collard greens to die for:

The first of the meat arrived:

The shredded beef is asada and so tender and flavorful, the other is top sirloin. I was in beef heaven. Since it was lunch, the meat choices were limited, but still more then enough. I pretty much stopped taking pictures of food at that point I was so into enjoying my meal. We also had grilled vegetables, grilled Brazilian sausage, grilled chicken wrapped in bacon and garlic steak.

We had a nice view of the rest of the restaurant:

I made a 2nd trip back to the hot dishes for more collard greens and to try their chicken stroganoff, along with more mozzarella and heart of palm. The stroganoff was very tasty, the sauce had mustard in it. I had lost my head at that point and didn't think to ask if it had any wheat products tho. I had made sure I stayed away from everything I knew was wheat. I didn't have any problems after, but I will think to ask next time what went into it (not to mention so I can duplicate it at home LOL!). I will have to ask next time how they did their collard greens, they were the best I have ever had.

I finally had to flip my card to red and just sit and enjoy being there. The atmosphere of the restaurant was wonderful, the music was good, the staff were fantastic and we just wanted to linger. I did flip my card back over to have them stop by with the grilled pineapple. A small piece, but so yummy and the perfect way to end the meal.

Soon it was time to go, so we paid our check and headed out, but not before I snapped one final pic:

We are so going back up there for dinner when we get the chance, I do want to try the fish in mango sauce and the spicy chicken.

As we were leaving, hubby turned to me and said "As much as I love your lasagna, that was the best meal I have ever eaten!". I have to agree with him, I have never had a better meal and I eaten in lots of place here and abroad. Not only was it satisfying to the taste buds and tummy (while we had quite a bit, at no time were we so full that it was uncomfortable), it was very soul satisfying. So much so we were still soul satisfied the next day.

So run, fly, take a bus or drive to Coeur d'Alene and try out Grille from Ipanema, you won't be sorry.

Had a very good 4th of July weekend

2011-07-05T12:09:00.000-07:00

and a 4 day weekend at that. Puttered about on Friday, worked on getting my pantry cleaned out and in order. Boxed up all the things with gluten in them that I couldn't have and took them to the neighbors. Some stuff is still there since hubby likes it and I don't.

Labeled everything I could, put spices and such in baggies into bottles. Found 3 containers of turmeric, so they went into a big bottle and labeled. Had to go out and buy refills for the label maker I was labeling so much LOL!!! At least I know what is in containers now.

Next will be the freezers!

Did laundry, dishes, cleaned up the living room some and took all the inserts out of the windows. Those need to go out to the shed soon. It is so nice to have light coming in the windows now.

Baked chocolate chip coconut gluten free cookies on Saturday. Used a recipe for chocolate chip cookies out of my old Betty Crocker cookbook, added coconut and swapped flours:

Came out quite yummy, but I need to tweak the ratios a bit, use more GF AP flour and go half and half butter and shortening (I'd used all butter). Took the batch over to friends last night for a 4th of July party and fireworks watch, left them there (rats). So will have to bake more.

Saturday night we were next door around the fire pit. I made up a pitcher of Margarita's and we had a wonderful time sitting around chatting, eating and roasting marshmallows for s'mores (in my case, a marshmallow on a square of chocolate. Gotta find GF graham crackers).

As mentioned, we went over to friend's last night. They live in Pullman and have a great view across the way to watch the fireworks being set off. They set up the grill and I took some burgers

and the aforementioned cookies. She had GF bread and cake and some yummy salads. I took buns for hubby and hit Winco and picked up a package of Udi's GF hamburger buns:

Needless to say, I was a very happy camper. I hadn't had a burger on a bun since last November. The buns were almost $4 for a package of 4, a bit pricey, by worth it for being able to simply stop at the store to buy buns. I do plan on coming up with my own, but it is nice to know I can hit the store and pick some up when need be. And they were very tasty. I hope Winco gets the hot dog buns in, I so want a Nathan's hot dog on a bun!

Didn't get any fishing in, hubby had a client's computer that needed serious attention this weekend. Hopefully we can get out this week after work.

New from Purple Ducky Designs

2011-07-03T15:18:00.001-07:00

Scrapper in a pot by JeanC_PurpleDucky
See more iphone cases

Bumblebee and Peony by JeanC_PurpleDucky
Browse Bumblebee Posters

Very disappointed

2011-06-29T10:06:00.000-07:00

Had a couple of thunderstorms roll in last night and both petered out before they got good. Some rain, some lightning and boomers, but not anything spectacular. It has been a long time since we've had a decent thunderstorm.

On the plus side it is a bit cooler today. Not used to it suddenly being so warm, it has just been a weird year for weather.

When we were down in Lewiston this last weekend I hit Cash and Carry and picked up a BIG can of coconut milk. 96 ounces worth for $9.99. Works out to a little over 7 cents an ounce, compared to the 10 cents an ounce for the 14 oz can of the same brand and I don't even want to think how much the next brand up was as it was double the price of the other. Picked up some freezer containers and I poured off the coconut milk and stashed it in the freezer. Pulled on out to thaw last night and used it for dinner. Worked out pretty well.

Dinner last night was Panang curry pork and chickpeas over rice noodles. Very filling and I have lunch for today and tomorrow.

I do need to sit down and finally take an inventory of my pantries and freezers and get organized. I've a few things in the deep freeze that either needs to be used or dumped. I am thinking I will take the strawberries I have in there and pop them onto the dehydrator so hubby could have dried strawberries in his morning oatmeal to give him some more variety. I'm thinking I may have some partial bags of other fruit buried in there to that will get the same treatment. Maybe some veggies too.

Of course that means I really need to get my pantries organized, with all the new flours and other things I need for I have containers taking over my counters and any other flat space I might have. Heck, I just need a bigger kitchen LOL! I need more storage space!

Ah well, put it on my to do list with the zillion other things I need to do around the house.

The Filling Station, Troy ID

2011-06-24T18:30:00.000-07:00

A while back a small restaraunt was opened up in Troy at a remodeled gas station and is called The Filling Station. We've been driving by for a while and kept telling ourselves we had to stop in some time and check them out. After we determined I was gluten intolerant I figured there wouldn't be much I could have besides coffee, tea and maybe a salad.

So imagine my delight a couple weeks back when my mom and I drove by and I caught a glimpse of a sign that said gluten free (at least I thought it did, we didn't go back to check). I looked them up and sure enough, there was an post on their Facebook page saying they had gluten free options.

YAY!!!!!!!

So today we went for a late lunch.

They have a few items on the menu :D

and a fair selection of desserts:

Deciding what to order was hard, everything sounded delicious. Finally decided and ordered. I went up and said "gluten free?!?!?" and the gentleman at the counter smiled and said they had options available. I wanted a GF Magharita panini and he said no problem. Also asked if I was Celiac or not. I told simply gluten intolerant and in my case we didn't have to be too stringent on preparation. It is good that they ask so that someone with Celiac can work with them on their order. The hubby ordered their French dip and we both had fresh brewed iced tea with lemon.

We picked out a spot to sit and kicked back to relax. They did a nice job on the remodel, the place was comfortable and while it was mid-afternoon, people were coming in and out.

Our order eventually came out and oh my:

I had the option of the gluten free bread or between two corn tortillas. Since I so seldom can get a real sandwich in a restaurant now, I went for the bread. This had fresh mozzarella, tomatoes and pesto sauce.

Hubby's French dip, with cheddar cheese, roast beef and caramelized onions and au jus:

I tried a bit of the roast beef and it was quite delicious and very flavorful.

I seriously savored every bit and it was wonderful. Hubby liked his sandwich and we loved the atmosphere of the place and just felt like lingering. Hubby decided to try their chai tea. Quite good, a lovely flavor. They didn't have a large enough cup for the size he'd ordered, so when he finished the first bit, he went back for the rest. He also came back with a piece of their triple chocolate mousse (gluten free of course):

I spent the next several minutes slowly enjoying the mousse, savoring every bite and purring the entire time. They had several other gluten free desserts and I am looking forward to trying them on later visits (oh yes, I WILL be going back LOL!).

They also have gluten free pizza, either hot or take and bake, so do want to give it a try.

So if you find yourself near Troy Idaho, do stop in and give them a try, you will not regret it.

COOKIES!!!!!

2011-06-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

As previously mentioned, I hit Bob's Red Mill in Milwaukie OR and scored. I picked up a 25 lb bag of brown rice flour and a 25 lb bag of gluten free all purpose baking mix:

As you can see, I have broken into the AP mix. Still need to pour off some of the rice flour and there will be some naan on the horizon.

So the first recipe I tried is from Bob's, a GF sugar cookie:

Turned out quite yummy, tho to get a flat cookie I had to flatten the rolled dough myself, they didn't flatten in the oven on their own.

The next batch I tried were some peanut butter cookies, also from Bob's:

Again, I had to flatten them prior to baking, but some peanut butter cookie recipes I have done in the past have had you do that anyways.

And again, YUM!!!!!!!!!!!

So Sunday I decide I will try baking cookies from a recipe that is regular and see if I could adapt it to use GF AP flour. So I dug out my favorite snickerdoodle recipe from my Grandma Florence's old Betty Crocker cookbook:

added 2 tsps xanthum gum to the mix, flattened the rolled dough and:

YUMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Needless to say, I have been in cookie heaven LOL! Can't wait to see what else I can make. I do want to play around with the recipes a bit. Was taking to a friend about the cookies not flattenign in the oven problem and she suggested subbing in some tapioca flour for the AP. So will see about doing that for the snickerdoodles next time to see what happens.

What I've been up to

2011-06-21T11:47:00.000-07:00

Sorry for being a bit MIA of late, just haven't been up for blogging of late. Weather being so erratic hasn't helped much :P

So we popped over to the Portland area a week ago, some friends needed some computer work and we needed to get away for a while. Had a very nice time, stayed with my mom a couple nights coming and going, giving serious consideration of maybe moving out that a way in the next couple of years. Lots in the plus column, not sure tho if they can outweigh the lots in the minus column. Have to see, need to make a few more trips out there.

Did a bit of shopping, took Ms Ella to OMSI

(the hubby and I had fun seriously geeking out) and I hit Penzeys and Bob's Red Mill.

Last Friday I attended my very first artist's reception. I have a "book" in the Palouse Women Artists "Books" show at Safari Pearl. Wore a really cute dress I got at Torrid in Portland with some really cute textured stockings. So I guess I am officially a real life artists LOL!

Other then that, I have just been puttering along. Need to get into gear and start getting some things done, like paintnig the shed, finish painting the trailer, rebuilding the utility trailer and painting the boat (which still needs to get tagged for this year). Going to go out at lunch today and get my fishing license so I can get more fish for the freezer and try using my gas grill as a smoker (MMMMMM smoked trout!)

So, puttering onwards.

Trace Adkins - Just Fishin'

2011-06-20T15:13:00.000-07:00

No knock raid

2011-06-18T15:21:00.000-07:00

The "War on Drugs" has got to stop. It isn't a war on drugs, it is a war on the American People and our Rights.

New from Purple Ducky Designs

2011-06-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

Bubbles by JeanC_PurpleDucky
Learn how to make money as an artist online at Zazzle.

Bee and dandelion by JeanC_PurpleDucky
Make a greeting card design at Zazzle

What a friend we have in Cheeses by JeanC_PurpleDucky
Browse Cheese Bags

and introducing Doodle speakers by OrigAudio™:

Colored ice by JeanC_PurpleDucky
Browse Ice Speakers

Wednesday food porn

2011-05-25T14:03:00.001-07:00

Tamales topped with sauteed onions, crimini mushrooms and wilted spinach, originally uploaded by JeanC38.

Very yummy lunch today, brought some tamales and topped them with the leftover sauteed onions, crimini mushrooms and wilted spinach from last night's dinner (which was burgers topped with the aforementioned yumminess) and fries.

Monday again

2011-05-23T12:10:00.000-07:00

but outside of slamming the little finger on my left hand into something solid, so far not a bad Monday. Even tho I had a 3 day weekend, I wish it had been longer.

Had a very nice weekend, mostly puttered about the house. Friday was wonderful and I finally got outside to do some work. Cleaned up quite a bit of my front flower bed and got a small bit on my strip along the driveway cleaned up and transplanted some violas and crocuses that my neighbor gave me. I'll be getting more cleaned up and getting some daisies from her to put in also.

Kind of over did it tho, I was seriously sore all of Friday night and a good chunk of Saturday, but it was worth it.

Put some chickpeas and pinto beans on to soak overnight. Saturday I set the pinto beans to cooking in the crock pot with some dried Walla Walla sweets. I turned them into refritos Saturday night. Drained the liquid off and popped that in the freezer to use in soups later on. Then I kept the beans in the crock pot and added some pork fat I'd rendered off a ham and saved. A bit of salt and then I took the stick blender to them to mush them up and then added some cheese and reheat. Turned out wonderfully yummy and I did it in one crock.

Sunday I made tamales with the refritos and also roasted the chickpeas so I can have a morning snack this week at work. This batch came out better, roasted them at 350F and every 10 minutes shook them around on the tray so they wouldn't burn and then upped the temp to 400F for the last few minutes. I'd tossed them with cumin and coriander. Very yummy. GOing to try them with garlic seasoning next time.

Watched a few movies, the All Star Race and the Sprint Cup Pit Crew Challenge over the ocurse of the weekend. A really interesting movie we caught was A Face in the Crowd which was Andy Griffiths film debut. WOW!!!!!!!!! I grew up with him as Sheriff Andy and light movie roles. I did see him do some serious stuff in later life, but his performance as "Lonesome" Rhodes was...WOW!!!!!! I seriously recommend this movie. As we were watching it and the underlying commentary about the power of someone in the media to sway people all we kept saying was "the more things change, the more they stay the same".

Hump day

2011-05-18T14:39:00.000-07:00

and I start my summer of 3 day weekends this Friday. YAY!!!!!!!!

Also started my 8am-5pm schedule, which means that 6am is coming rather rudely in the morning. But the extra time in the evening is nice.

Still cruising gluten free, have had a couple of oopses and accidently glutenated myself, but not too badly. Getting a lot of baking and such figured out, just need to get the results to look as good as they taste LOL! I want to make some more cooking videos, but I need the end results to look good for the camera. Getting there.

Decided to give roasted chickpeas a try this weekend. Quick soaked some chickpeas, tossed them with olive oil and a couple packets of ranch dressing mix and roasted them:

Need to work on them a bit, some got a bit too roasted and I think next time I will go for an overnight soak to make sure the chickpeas are soft enough before roasting. Tasty tho.

I really do need to get back on top of getting things in the freezer for lunch. Have had to wing it a few times and I can only be so creative with the limited supplies I have. Today wasn't too bad, brought some fish a friend gave me and cooked it up in the microwave and then topped it with butter and oregano.

Very yummy, have to do that more often for lunch.

Getting tired of the weather, I want lots of warm days and sunshine. Esp since I want to get something resembling a garden going. Ground is to soaked to do anything right now. Looks like I will be doing a lot of container gardening. Hopefully I can get something started this weekend.

Scrapper & Later

2011-05-13T14:48:00.001-07:00

Scrapper & Later, originally uploaded by JeanC38.

Scrapper made himself comfy on hubby's legs and was so cute. Later (as in "the kitten who shall be named later") came up for a sniff. Was a bit worried that Scrapper wouldn't like it, but he is adjusting to the new furball.

Speaking of new furball, he's at the spay & neuter clinic today getting edited and his first shots. So he's not a happy kitten today, but will be once he finds out he gets to go back outside once he heals up.

Obligatory new baby pics

2011-05-09T14:55:00.000-07:00

Yes, we have anew kitty in the house. Hadn't planned on it since we are still working on the Tig, but clients of the hubby called to say a kitty showed up at their place way out in the country and they are not cat people and they were afraid the dogs and kitty would't get along. So we popped out on Friday after work and brought him home.

Needless to say, it was a very interesting weekend. He is fairly young, less then a year old and not edited (that will be remedied later this week). We weren't too sure he knew what a litter box was as we found a couple oopses on Saturday, but by Sunday after showing him the boxes after salting them with his oopses, he was using the Littermaid in hallway.

We have been checking around with friends to see if we can find a home for him (yeah, right! Said that with Scrapper and look where we are LOL!).

The other kitties are not terribly happy with us right now, tho Rum Tum and Scrapper are taking it better then Phoebe is. The little one took one look at Phoebe the first night and I swear he went "MOM!!!!' and raced over to her. We now have one seriously freaked out Phoebe.

Ah well, he is settling in nicely, such a love bug and hopefully he will tell us his name soon.

Oy! What a weekend

2011-05-02T14:44:00.000-07:00

Helped out Friday night at Relay for Life. Was a bit concerned because the weather was pretty icky on Friday, snowed at least once. But the weather got better and tho a bit chilly, not bad at all. We were up til midnight and then up again to be back on site for a while about 6:30 am.

Hit Shari's for breakfast and then home and back to bed for a while. Puttered about when we got up, but mostly watched TV.

Saturday night we went out to our friend's farm for Beltaine. Had a flippy circle with lots of laughter, planting of spring bulbs, tasty cakes & ale and then a bon fire. A wonderful evening all together.

Sunday I gathered up Ms Ella and we wandered up to the new Arboretum at the university. We wandered about, I took TONS of pictures and we watched the painted turtles sunning themselves or swimming. Watched a pair of Canadian geese and their gooselets. Enjoyed the sun (when it wasn't behind the clouds.

Afterwards I stopped at the cemetery. I like old tombstones and as a kid used to do rubbings. Now I prefer to take pictures using the black and white setting on my camera since rubbings wear down the stone.

This one made me very sad, poor thing was not even 2 years old when she passed away so very long ago. It was very beautiful at the cemetery on Sunday.

Picked up some steaks and corn to toss on the grill for Sunday dinner. Made plenty so I had leftovers for lunch today:

MMMMMMM! Cookies!!!!

2011-04-25T14:24:00.000-07:00

Had a hankering for cookies and decided to try a no-bake recipe someone had found and posted to her Facebook after making a batch.

After reading thru the comments I changed up the recipe a bit. I doubled the amount of peanut butter, reduced the sugar by half a cup and used semi-sweet chocolate morsels in place of the cocoa powder. I also added about 2 more cups of oatmeal.

OH.MY.GODDESS!!! They are seriously yummy. Very, very rich and very, very yummy. These will be going into my GF repertoire for when I want a nice chewy, gooey cookie.

Thank the Ghodz it is Friday!!!!!!

2011-04-22T14:57:00.000-07:00

It has been a long week and I am looking forward to a couple days of rest and relaxation (and lots of puttering around the house and possibly getting a start on a table top green house I want to build).

I picked up a packet of Panang Curry Paste from A Taste of Thai when we were down in Lewiston shopping this last weekend. Made some chicken with it and coconut milk and served it over jasmine rice for dinner last night. YUM!!!!! The heat wasn't too much for the hubby, I only used a little less then a teaspoon. I'd picked up the coconut milk at the same time and next time we are down there, will look at getting the 96 ounce big can of it so I can save a few pennies on it. I can break it down into smaller containers and always have coconut milk on hand in the freezer.

Going to attempt no bake chocolate peanut butter cookies this weekend, always on the lookout for gluten free anything.

Black & White challenge

2011-04-20T13:55:00.000-07:00

The newest challenge for my one photo group is Black & White, so I have been having fun:

Break room:

Monster dog:

Lily kitty:

Puppy and kitty own friends of mine.

Goose on the roof

2011-04-14T11:34:00.000-07:00

I've never seen a goose on a roof before, esp on the peak:

Tried getting in closer so I wouldn't have to use my zoom at full, but he took off.

My grandmothers' hands

2011-04-13T10:53:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure when it happened, but I looked at my hands one day and realized they weren't my own anymore, they were my grandmothers':

I'm not unhappy about it tho, I loved my grandmothers and have very fond memories of them and their hands. Hands that worked the soil, baked, cooked, caressed and brushed my hair. The hands of my Grandma Mabel as she handed me a baby chick to hold. My Grandmother Florence's hands as she tucked me into bed when I visited her and she handed me Little House on the Prairie to read.

I look at my hands and I remember all these and more and am glad I have their hands since this means they aren't gone from my life. They are still with me in my hands.

Hmmmm, to enter or not to enter....

2011-04-05T15:06:00.000-07:00

There is an online photo contest that I have entered the last couple of years, but this year they are charging an entry fee. Okay, it is only about $16.00 (10 GBPs as they are located in England) and then I can enter up to 5 photos in each of the categories, so 50 photos in all. Have to think about it.

Speaking of photos, joined another photo group and this one has a different prompt for every day of the week. Here is the photo I took this weekend for Monday's prompt Heat:

Was cooking dinner Sunday night and pulled the frying pan off the burner, turned off the lights and started snapping. Came out pretty cool.

Had a very laid back weekend, watched a lot of movies, started the 1st season of Stargate SG1 and puttered. I got two new fishies, a pair of Black Skirted Tetras. Was going to get a couple of Cherry Barbs, but the guy at the store said they liked to pick on other fish and I prefer to have pretty much all non-aggressives. I read up on Cherry Barbs later and found out they liked to nip fins, esp of fish with long flowy fins, unless they are in a large school so they can pick on each other. Since I didn't want my Betta Alfie to be picked on, went it the Black Skirts. Their names are Bud and Lou and they have settled in nicely. Will see about picking up a couple more in a few weeks so I can have a bigger school of Black Skirts.

Hubby wanted pizza last night and ordered himself some Pizza Perfection. So we stopped at the store and I picked up what I needed to make my own. Found out Winco is now selling Bob's Red Mill GF pizza mix, so went with that instead of making my naan crust or going with corn tortillas. Very yummy and leftovers for a couple days lunches.

Picked up a few thinks and Sunday night had pork and rice noodles in Pad Thai sauce for dinner. Tonight will do pork in spicy peanut sauce and jasmine rice. Hopefully I'll be able to score some leftovers from dinner for lunch this week. Sunday nights dinner was so goo there was no leftovers.

A very silly bird

2011-04-01T10:37:00.000-07:00

We have tons of pheasant in our neighborhood and they usually take off running when we hop in the car and drive towards them

Not this guy:

We almost hit him twice yesterday when he refused to move off the road. So when we got home last night I hopped out of the car, walked to about 5-6 feet from him and zoomed in my camera.

This morning as we were driving out he was again right there on the road and I got a very close look at him. Looks like his tail feathers got chewed off. Not sure if he isn't very bright or what, but if he isn't careful Phoebe just might bag her very first pheasant.

What do you get...

2011-03-30T14:43:00.000-07:00

when you mix leftover cheesy onions, bacon and beef broth?

A very tasty, quick faux French onion soup (without the bread):

YUM!!!!

Still puttering along

2011-03-29T13:55:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I get to have a couple tiny cavities filled. ICK!!!!! It shouldn't be too bad. It has been a long time since I've had to have it done and my dentist has some new technology for doing it.

Been chasing down a photo of mine that seems to have gotten loose. First I knew of it was last week when someone commented on it on my Flickr page that they had seen it in an article on Extreme Chocolate Chip Cookies on Yahoo. Someone on Facebook posted a link to the article so I was able to find it. Sure enough, there was my photo! Luckily they posted the URL back to the photo, so that explained that.

Wanted to look at the recipe Yahoo had, but the page they had was a dmain up for sale. So I googled chocolate chip cheese ball and found someone else was also looking for the recipe on Ask Yahooo. Someone else found one and I checked it out. There was my photo again. No link.

So I fired off an email tot he site asking them to put a link back and sure enough, they did.

Tried using Tin Eye to see where else the photo might be showing up, but that didn't work. So I googled the image and found 3 more sites using it. So am firing off more emails.

I suppose I could have just told them to take the pic down, but the link will bring people to my Flickr page where I have links to my shop. Have to seriously sit down and figure out how I am going to do this in the future.

More signs of spring

2011-03-23T14:11:00.000-07:00

MMMMMMMMM! Spring!

Spring is officially here, recent weather notwithstanding.

2011-03-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

The crop duster was making practice flights over the field next to the house when I got home from work last night.

Sun is shining this morning and the crocuses in the neighbor's flower bed are blooming. Have to go over at some point and get some pictures. I really do need to plant some of my own one of these years. I also need to clean out my flower beds, I didn't this last fall and they are looking seriously sad.

Scrapper is being much better about sticking around the house and not disappearing at night. I think he learned his lesson from his little adventure of a couple weeks ago. He started not feeling well again last week, spent a lot of time on the bed. Came home one evening to find him looking rather sheepish on the bed and the biggest hair ball I've ever seen next to him. Black fur, so I think Scrapper had gotten a toxic mouse a couple days previous and his poor tummy was giving him fits. But he is back to his perky self and demanding as much attention as he can get.

Went shopping in Lewiston on Saturday, found a great dress at Ross, can't wait for it to be warm enough to wear it. Also picked up some very nice fresh goat cheese at Grocery Outlet and stocked up on boneless, skinless chicken thighs at Costco.

New from Purple Ducky Designs

2011-03-22T15:56:00.001-07:00

The Tig:

The Tig by JeanC_PurpleDucky
View more mousemats on zazzle

I love naan!

2011-03-18T11:56:00.000-07:00

I have been loving the gluten-free naan recipe I got form a friend a while back. Not only is it great as naan, it is versatile.

As an accompaniment for that yummy lentil soup I made with stock from a lamb bone:

Topped with white American cheese, ham and blue cheese and then popped under the broiler for a very yummy lunch:

Now it is my go to recipe for when I want pizza. Hubby loved it so much he kept wanting to eat it long after he was painfully full!

Hubby's pizza made with garlic Alfredo sauce and topped with Canadian bacon, crimini mushrooms and cheese:

Mine with tomato sauce with garlic, rosemary, oregano, red pepper flakes sauteed in olive oil topped with pepperoni, criminis and cheese:

Mine was extra thick crust, still working on splitting the dough into equal batches. Hubby's pizza was the perfect thickness and texture he loves. He isn't a crispy crust fan. I added Johnny's garlic seasoning to the crust. Will use Italian seasonings next time. I want to make a couple batches so I can have some stashed in the freezer so I can have quick dinners. The dough doesn't take too long to make from scratch, but I want some on hand for week nights and quick dinners.

I pre-baked the crust a bit before topping it. I probably could have topped it without pre-baking, but this allowed the crust to rise a bit and dry off the water still on it from spreading it out with my fingers. The dough is still pretty sticky even tho I use less milk. I think I could have rolled it out using rice flour to keep things from sticking, but didn't want to go that far. Patting it out onto the baking sheets was faster and less mess.

Help with the relief efforts for Japan

2011-03-14T15:21:00.000-07:00

Royalties from the sale of this t-shirt will go to the Japanese Red Cross to help with relief efforts:

Hippie Dippy Hippie hearts Japan by JeanC_PurpleDucky
View more Japan T-Shirts

Please visit:

http://www.zazzle.com/japanrelief

for more products donated by other Zazzle artists and designers for the earthquake and tsunami relief efforts.

Other places you can donate:

Below are organizations that mobilize relief efforts for countries hit by disasters.

AMERICAN RED CROSS: Emergency Operation Centers are opened in the affected areas and staffed by the chapters. Donate here

SAVE THE CHILDREN: Mobilizing to provide immediate humanitarian relief in the shape of emergency health care and provision of non-food items and shelter. Donate here.

AMERICARES: Emergency team is on full alert, mobilizing resources and dispatching an emergency response manager to the region. Donate here.

GLOBALGIVING: Established a fund to disburse donations to organizations providing relief and emergency services to victims of the earthquake and tsunami. Donate here

INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS: Putting together relief teams, as well as supplies, and are in contact with partners in Japan and other affected countries to assess needs and coordinate our activities. Donate here

Week almost half over

2011-03-09T14:22:00.000-08:00

YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Had an appointment today to go over my recent thyroid levels. Things are looking good, we'd up my meds 5mgs so that is working and we'll keep it there for the time being. Won't have to check again until June.

Week started off sucky, had a dentist appointment first thing in the morning. Just the way I wanted to start my week, teeth cleaning. But everything was looking lots better and it is finally time to get a couple tiny cavities taken care of, so will have that done the end of the month.

At least the weekend was good. We did dinner with friends on Saturday night, Moroccan themed. I made some gluten free garlic naan (okay, not Moroccan, but it was a flat bread) and a leg of lamb:

The lamb was presented on a bed of saffron rice. Our friends also made flat bread along with a yummy lentil soup, a raw veggie salad marinated in vinegar and goat cheese and herb stuffed eggplant rolls.

Oh Great Goddess it was all so good. We split up the leftovers and I had a couple days of very yummy lunch. I'd also made a yogurt sauce with dried mint leaves and a splash of lemon juice to go with the lamb.

I peeled off the rest of the lamb to make fried rice with the leftover saffron rice and lamb:

That did us for dinner and a couple lunches. I'll pop the stripped down lamb bone into the oven to roast and then into the crock pot it will go to make the basis for lentil soup this weekend.

The only bad thing about cooking this weekend is I managed to burn my right arm on a baking sheet. Managed to burn an old scar from a kitty cat gouge I'd gotten a few years ago. Skin over scar tissue burns and peels differently then normal skin tissue.

OWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh well, I figure I have pleased the kitchen gods if I manage some kind of sacrifice and happy for myself if it doesn't involve any amount of blood LOL!

Scrapper is starting to perk up some. I gave him some wet cat food last night and he tucked right in. He was also jumping up and down off the bed with very little trouble during the night. This morning he wandered out to the kitchen for breakfast (more wet food) and sat and watched us while we had our morning coffee. He wandered back to bed when we left. Hopefully he should be totally back to his perky old self soon (but he still grounded for life!).

Return of the idiot orange child

2011-03-08T10:10:00.001-08:00

Scrapper finally came home last night. He wandered off a week ago and while he'd been sighted on several occasions by the neighbors, I hadn't seen him.

Hubby found him wandering up to the house when he came back from a client's last night. Scrapper is moving very slowly and stiffly, has lost at least 2 lbs and is very, very subdued.

He is currently tucked up on the bed and slept on the end last night. This morning we swooped him up and gave him lots of cuddles and scritches. He wasn't interested in the wet kitty food I offered last night, so we'll pick up more tonight on the way home and make sure he gets all he wants.

WHIMPER!!!!!!!

2011-03-01T14:06:00.000-08:00

Make it STOP!!!!!!!

I've said it before, I'll say it again....

2011-02-28T15:01:00.000-08:00

I. HATE. BEING. SICK!!!!!

Down with a cold, on the weekend no less. Still out with it, had to re-schedule a dentist appointment this afternoon. Colds and teeth cleaning don't go together.

Tried to rest as much as possible this weekend, but the hot water lines froze (hubby thinks the hot water heater tripped off and since the hot water lines don't have heat tape, froze) and we ended up getting a heat canon from Moscow Building Supply (very nice guys there and the rental wasn't too pricey). With hubby's back out on him and on his meds, guess who had to drive?

Ah well, we finally got hot water Saturday evening, our neighbor D helped get the very heavy propane tank out of the van and to the back of the house, after shoveling a path (snow was a good foot deep). Loaded up the van on Sunday and took the equipment back.

The bummer of having to go gluten free means all my cold fall backs are out of the question. I really, really want a nice greasy pepperoni and extra cheese with extra sauce pizza from Pizza Perfection, but can't. Same with hot and spicy chicken, hot and sour soup and other hot and spicy dishes at Super China.

SIGH!!!!!!

Did discover A Taste of Thai at Winco, almost all their stuff is gluten free. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Picked up a Red Curry noodle that was microwavable. OH DOUBLE YUM!!!!!!!! Cleared up my sinuses for quite a while. Just wish I'd picked up several more (but they are pretty pricey at a little over $3 a pop). But now that I know I can do make similar meals on my own with easily gotten ingredients from Winco, I am a happy camper.

In fact, I thawed some turkey stock and put in a couple very healthy teaspoons of Tom Yum paste I have in the fridge for some very spicy and yummy sipping liquid. Really helping clear the sinuses.

LOVED the race yesterday. YAY Jeff Gordon!!!!! WOO HOOOOOO!!!!!! So happy to see he finally broke the dry spell and beat KY by quite a lead.

Been watching a lot of movies this weekend. Watched "Men who stared at goats" and "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time" Friday night. They were surprising better then we thought they were going to be. We very much enjoyed "Men who stared at goats", it was NOT what we were expecting.

Saturday was lots of watching shows we've DVR'd. Sunday we watched "Planet 51" and just howled with laughter and spent the time playing spot the movie reference. The people who made that movie definitely know and love their movies.

Today is sleep, rest and watch old Doctor Who episodes on discs from Netflix. They put out a disc called Doctor Who - Lost in Time which has whole episodes, but unfortunately the film parts from some of them are missing. So just watched the Moonbase epi with Patrick Troughton that just had audio for parts 1 & 3 and the surviving footage for parts 2 & 4. I do hope that someday they find all the issing footage. The 2nd disc has some parts of several story lines that only had one surviving part.

Time for more both and tea with honey and lemon.

This is getting ridiculous!

2011-02-24T11:36:00.000-08:00

This morning there was MORE snow!!!!!

Rum Tum was a very happy kitten tho:

Not looking forward to the low and below zero temps the next few days. Luckily we still have a dragon in the house and it is ready to go.

OW!!!!!!

2011-02-23T10:55:00.000-08:00

So a while back we'd gotten a PS3, in part to watch Netflix and because it was recommended as best for watching videos (Blue Ray) and such as the picture resolution was great. Well, yeah, but when we compared the Blue Ray player to our HD DVD player, there was pretty much no difference between the two, so paying an extra $4 a month for Blue Ray discs from Netflix was not worth it.

So fine, came with a game controller, so a friend gave us a game he didn't like and we tried it. Probably would have been fun if I didn't spent half my time screaming in frustration trying to figure out 3/4s of the buttons to make it do anything.

So we had a pricey Netflix streaming device. Decided to sell it and ended up trading it for a Wii, some controllers and a game.

WOW!!!!!!!!!

Okay, it doesn't have HDMI hook ups so we can't run it thru our home theatre and the resolution of things like YouTube thru it isn't as good a quality as the PS3, but game play!

We rented The Conduit and Cabela's Big Game Hunter and gave those a try. Conduit is a blast, using a pistol holder for the controller made it even more fun and using the controller and nunchuk was so much easier then the PS3 controller.

I did discover a wee little problem playing Conduit tho, I get motion sick. So will have to figure out how to play it and not end up curled in the corner trying to not throw up.

The Big Game hunter game was okay, much prefer shoot'em up games where someone is shooting back at you to make it more exciting. So we took it back yesterday and picked up the Wii Racquet Sports disc.

OW!!! OW!!! OW!!!!!!

I've a very sore right arm and shoulder today. All I did was play the training module on the tennis and ping pong games, not for very long. That was a work out!!!!!! Was showing the hubby the games and decided to try out a match of squash.

WHEW!!!!!!!

A definite work out and LOTS of fun. Can't wait to try the other games on the disc. We'll see about buying copies of both games if we can find them cheap enough and look at renting some of the racing games that both the hubby and I can play together.

The things you see

2011-02-22T15:52:00.000-08:00

when driving in Idaho at 65 mph. We went to Lewiston to do shopping and thought we saw an owl walking in a filed just off the highway. Needless to say, we whipped around to double check and found this:

Not an owl, a balloon of a monkey (at least we think it was a monkey, it was pretty far away and my camera can only zoom so far) that was stuck in the field on something and just bobbing around.

The view out the break room window this morning

2011-02-22T14:33:00.000-08:00

Also playing around with the aspect ratio settings on my camera. This is 3:2 at 12.5M, supposed to be similar to 35mm film.

AARRGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!

2011-02-22T09:44:00.000-08:00

I would like to find out who ordered December and beat them senseless!

NO MORE SNOW!!!!!!!!!

2 purple ducks

2011-02-16T14:18:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've done some photos for the challenges that the photo group I am on has. Current challenge is purple:

Fuzzy duck:

Devil Ducky

I had a most difficult time getting the pic of the Devil Ducky. I have two and I could not snap a pic of either one that showed they were purple! Every pic except this one had them blue. Color me very confused!

No hot dog buns?

2011-02-15T14:36:00.000-08:00

No problem. Haven't gotten around to attempting homemade GF hot dog buns or hamburger buns. My last loaf of GF bread went off, so I came up with this idea:

pop sausage dogs under the broiler and then nuke tortillas with cheese:

Roll sausage dogs into the cheesy tortillas and VOILA!

Have to start slicing and freezing my GF breads so I can get them to last thru the week. If I am having sandwiches every day it isn't a problem, the loaves are just big enough for about 4 days and a bit.

Out the car window this morning

2011-02-15T10:30:00.000-08:00

We were expecting just a skiff!

I WANT SPRING DAMMIT!!!!!!!!!!!

AHHHHHhhhhhhh!

2011-02-14T14:16:00.001-08:00

HAPPY DANCE!!!!

NASCAR season has started!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Shootout was very exciting and I can't wait for the race this Sunday :D

AACCKKKK!!

2011-02-08T17:04:00.000-08:00

Rolled over in bed last night and spasmed half my back and it is still twingy this morning. Been trying to do light stretches while sitting and they are helping some.

Woke up to a skiff and a quarter of snow and cold. I am so ready for spring to get here. I am seriously anxious to get my garden spaces into shape to start planting. I've got a number of seeds I am wanting to get into the ground so I can have some spring greens.

Baked another loaf of GF bread this weekend. This was a box mix from King Arthur Flour. Came out very nicely:

Toasted up well and while still a little more moist then I like in a bread, quite tasty. I wouldn't mind getting more, but it isn't available locally. Have to see if I can find it up in Spokane, if not, will have to wait until we can mail order some, but that will be a ways down the road. In the meantime I have the from scratch recipe to play with and a couple other recipes I want to try. I also have the recipe for a GF Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes I want to also try out.

Dinner last night was diced chicken sauteed in olive oil and seasoned with garlic seasoning and some blue cheese tossed in. Served it over corn spaghetti. Came out nicely, tho the corn spaghetti needed to be watched like a hawk to avoid over cooking and the noodles broke in half on their own. For a spaghetti application, they won't do, but for a plain noodle application they are fine:

Starting to get the hang of gluten free. Managed to glutinate myself this weekend tho. Knew better, but hubby was wanting Super China on Sunday and since I didn't feel like cooking, took the chance. Not sure what it was I ate, but I got that lovely (NOT) hurty feeling in my tummy. I'm thinking it may have been the chicken leg. I haven't seen it there before, don't know what they seasoned it with, but if I go back again, will avoid it and stick with what else I had and see what happens. Of course it could have been some cross contamination, it is a buffet after all and not a specific gluten free restaurant. Ah well, live and learn and try and avoid it in the future.

Been doing the Nielson TV thing since last Thursday. They are going to have lots of fun interpreting our watching habits. Luckily they are set up for keeping track of shows we DVR and then watch later (a couple shows we'd recorded in December! Okay, it was the Simpsons and KAYU runs the M-F and we had a lot stacked up). Now if they aded in Netflix instant play we can REALLY screw up their data LOL!!!!!

BRRR!!!!!!!!!

2011-02-01T14:31:00.000-08:00

Beginning to wish I wore my thermies under my clothes and brought in some gloves.

Seriously low energy weekend. The weather didn't help at all. Just wanted to stay curled up in bed under the covers, but did manage to get a few things done.

Hit the Co-op on Saturday and picked up more Dr Bronner's soaps and some white rice flour and brown rice flour. I blended the two flours when I got home. Then it was off to the mall. Hit Ross and picked up some cotton dish towels and a set of the dough presses that will let us make pierogis, pot stickers, etc. I've a couple sites bookmarked with GF pierogi dough I can't wait to try.

Then it was off to Winco for other groceries and then home. Wanted to take a nap, but had to get ready for Imbolc rit. Had a very nice evening as we also incorporated the Chocolate Rit MMMM!!!!! One person made lamb curry, so another brought GF garlic naan. She sent out the recipe on Sunday, so I know what I am making this next weekend (MMMMMM naan!!!!!).

Sunday I managed to whip up biscuits and gravy for a very late breakfast (okay, it was lunch LOL) and set to making bread. I used the recipe from Bette Hagman's "Gluten Free Gourmet". Came out pretty decently, tho not very tall and very, very dense:

Tastes yummy tho and made toasted cheese sammies for lunch today.

Next time I will skip the 2nd trip thru the Kitchen Aid as it really rose on the first rise and not so much on the 2nd rise. Will also look at reducing the amount of sugar, the bread was pretty sweet. I like sweet, but this was a little too sweet for toasted cheese sammies.

Dinner Sunday night was diced chicken thighs I sauteed in olive oil, seasoned with garlic seasoning and added a couple diced Roma tomatoes and some blue cheese. I served it over veggie curly pasta from Ancient Harvest. It was yummy as lunch yesterday:

Have to work on making some GF snickerdoodles this week. Been craving snickerdoodles and I think I have everything I need now to make them.

Learned a new phrase today

2011-01-31T14:45:00.000-08:00

Was talking with a co-worker who has gone gluten free. I was whinging about all the things I can't have anymore (in specific the fried chicken from Winco) and she mentioned a phrase a GF friend of hers has come up with in regards to the favorite foods she used to eat, but not any more. She says it "tastes like pain".

And after the experience of this weekend of giving in and snarfing the skin off the Winco fried chicken that we'd gotten hubby, oh yeah. Goddess it was delicious, but not worth the pain anymore. SNIFF!!!

The latest from Purple Ducky Designs

2011-01-26T14:21:00.000-08:00

Biscuits & gravy by JeanC_PurpleDucky
Browse Sausage Mousepads

Pork tostada by JeanC_PurpleDucky
Browse Pork Cards

Where'd our sun go?!?!?!?!?!

2011-01-24T14:54:00.000-08:00

It was so nice this weekend, even opened up the front door yesterday and turned off the heat. Today is just to blech!

Didn't get a lot done this weekend. Visited friends, took a nice long nap on Saturday, yesterday I made biscuits and gravy using a GF baking mix and making the sausage gravy from scratch using rice flour (rice flour is so great for making gravies!):

Oh it was seriously yummy. The drop biscuits were quite tasty. Have to see if I can come up with a rolled biscuit from scratch for the next time.

Friends over for dinner and movies last night. Made pork tostadas with the last of the pulled pork I'd made in the crock pot. Came out very yummy, even tho I seemed to have lost the can of chipotle chilies in adobo sauce I'd bought yesterday morning. Really irks me to buy something then have it disappear when I need it. Ah well, a few dashes of the green Tabasco seasoned it nicely.

Fried up corn tortillas to not quite cripsy so we actually had tacos as opposed to tostadas LOL! Either way, topped with cheese, diced tomatoes, avocado, sour cream and lettuce they were quite delish. Had enough to bring some for lunch:

I wish the weather would stop teasing, I am SOOOOOO ready for spring and garden time!

Fun and joy of gluten free

2011-01-21T15:00:00.000-08:00

or actually a royal pain in the tuckus! It is amazing where they hide gluten in foods, so being able to read labels is a must so grocery shopping takes longer at the moment. Having to learn all the ways they will list gluten can be overwhelming. I'm still getting up to speed on that.

Been collecting a lot of online resources, recipes and tips and such. One is Gluten-Free Girl, who I've linked to for quite a while under my foodie bloggers list. Had the library order her and her hubby The Chef's book for the collection. Got some pretty tasty looking recipes I am planning on trying. I'll be putting some fo the websites on my food links list when I get a chance.

Speaking of books, checked Bette Hagman's Gluten-free Gourment: living well without wheat. A friend sent me a whole bunch of GF products and I had just about everything I needed to make the yeast pizza dough from the book. Just had to buy a carton of egg whites (okay, I could have separated some eggs, but I didn't feel like having to deal with yolks right away) and I got to mixing.

The recipe was pretty simple, just had to make sure I did everything in order. The dough was pretty sticky and once spread out on the baking sheets could be topped right away. Most GF pizza crusts require pre-baking them. I let them rise in a warm oven for about 20 minutes, then topped them. Made two identical pizzas, tho one I made thicker then the other to see if there was a difference in the crusts. The thinner crust was pretty good, but hubby and I both preferred the thicker crust. Next time I will see about weighing the crusts to get thicknesses of each one the same.

I've been checking out various GF products, some of which I have mentioned in other posts. Some I've really liked, others were good, but not to my tastes.

Tinkyaga pasta - LOVE it. The hubby loves it to, so I can make spaghetti a lot more often (hubby doesn't care for regular pasta, so he would have something different for dinner when I HAD to have my spaghetti fix). The really nice thing about this pasta is it is made to handle being over cooked a little bit, but I have yet to do that.

Pamela's Products Baking & Pancake Mix - Makes pretty decent pancakes, but just not quite what we liked. Both the hubby and I prefer the Kinnikinnick pancake mix. The Pamela's will do in a pinch tho. Haven't tried the other recipes on the bag. Planning on getting some sausage this weekend and making biscuits and gravy. I've also tried their pizza crust mix. Only problem I had was my oven cooked hotter then it should have (note to self, get an oven thermometer and check it) and burnt the crusts a bit. Luckily not to bad and they were quite tasty.

Ancient Harvest Quinoa pasta - OH YUM!!!!!! Made stove top mac and cheese the other day and I couldn't tell the difference. This pasta does need more minding then the Tinkyada pasta since it is easy to overcook if you aren't paying attention. But the results are worth it.

Bob's Red Mill - seriously can't wait to get out to Portland the next time and make a pilgrimage to their store. I've been very happy with all their products I've tried so far. Their pizza crust mix is very good, I liked the flavor of their bread mix (even if it didn't hold up well as stuffing for turkey) and I've been happy with the quality of their GF flours I have tried so far. Their baking mix is pretty good also.

Kinnikinnick - As mentioned before, LOVE their pancake mix. Have to try some of their other products. I just hope I can find it at the Co-op, a quick check of their website only shows one store down in Lewiston that sells it.

Still have to clear out my pantry of all the products I can't eat that hubby doesn't like. I'll still keep things on hand he likes (hamburger helper stuff, etc for quick meals and snacks for him) so he won't feel too deprived of some things. This will give me a chance to see about getting my pantries organized again.

YAY!!!!!!!!

2011-01-19T12:30:00.000-08:00

Finally donated blood yesterday with NO DRAMA!!!!!!!!!!!

The tech had no problems finding a vein, got it on the first try and I filled the pint in 4 minutes 33 seconds. I've only a little bit of bruising today on that arm.

Been reading more on gluten intolerance and it seems dehydration is a problem. When we tried the last time to get blood out of me, the tech seemed to think part of the problem was I was dehydrated, which I said I couldn't be, I was drinking plenty of water. Well, I may have been drinking plenty of water, it looks like I just wasn't absorbing it like I should. Since then I've gone gluten free and while I can't be positive that is why I didn't have any problems this time around, it is a pretty good bet it helped.

Serious kudos to the Inland Northwest Blood Center for having gluten free ginger snaps to nosh on afterwards.

We hit Winco on the way home, hubby has been craving tuna fish sandwiches, so we picked up tuna and some 8 grain bread for him. Since I still don't have bread (tho Winco is now selling the Udi's gluten free bread, didn't pick any up), I fixed myself a fall back comfort meal. Cooked up some Quinoa and corn shell macaroni and topped that with butter and a can of tuna. Serious yummage!

Still haven't gotten around to making my tamales, I really need to get those going soon before I run out of ingredients using them in other dishes LOL! Made tacos for dinner the other night using the refritos in them and made extras for lunch yesterday. Very yummy.

This weekend was pretty nice, a taste of spring, at least temperature wise, tho the wind on Sunday was miserable. Managed to get a bit done around the house, both inside and out. Fixed the leaky hot water faucet for the washing machine, made the Tig a kitty house using a Rubber Maid bin so he can eat and sleep out of the wind and rain.

Winter is back tho, it was nice running around in shorts and a t-shirt outside for a little while.

Dear Media

2011-01-11T12:13:00.000-08:00

Can you please desist in giving that slimy group from Kansas ANY coverage? They thrive on all the attention you give them like a 3 year old having a tantrum knowing their parents will give them the treats they are demanding. By giving them media attention, you are rewarding their shameful behavior and words.

Let them protest all they want, just don't give them the rewards they crave. Eventually they will realize, like a 3 year old whose parent(s) won't give in to their tantrums, that they will have to learn to be a proper human being.

Who knows, they may even finally realize they do not speak for the Deity and learn to actually follow the actual teachings of Jesus, instead of making up their own versions.

thank you,
Jean C

Sigh!

2011-01-07T11:47:00.000-08:00

I finished taking the tree down last night. Still have to finish packing up all the decorations and get them back in the closet.

Living room looks really depressing right now. Need to get the new lights strung up to brighten the place up. Just have to decide if I am going to do them in a pattern or not.

Went to slide the coffee table back against the wall and reached down to grab what I thought was a bit of moss off the tree.

Nope.

Spent about 5 minutes doing the "OOOOO! ICK!!!!! ACK!!!!!!" dead mouse dance, minus the screaming. No wonder the kitties had been spending a lot of time back there. I just wish they had either brought the mouse out where I could have seen it and had warning, or at least have eaten the dratted thing. I scooped it up with a plastic bag and got it in the garbage outside, then spent 5 miuntes in the bathroom with hot water, alcohol and soap washing my hands. I can usually grab up dead critters with no problems, but I need to know ahead of time I am grabbing a dead critter.

With luck this was the mouse hubby saw in the kitchen the other day so I won't have any more surprises.

Ah well, you live with cats, you gotta be ready for anything.

Lazy, lazy week off

2011-01-04T12:04:00.000-08:00

Didn't get near as much done as I had planned on, but got some. Ended up getting snowed in one day, luckily I didn't have any reason to go out in the first place. Hubby was going to go out, but looked around when he got to the car and changed his mind. Lovely little blizzard, closed quite a few highways and roads in the area. Did a lot of sleeping in, but also did a lot of staying up way late.

Very cold now, very pretty, but cold. Yesterday morning was gorgeous. The moisture in the air was glittering. Pity my camera wasn't able to get some nice pics of the twinkling air, would have beautiful.

Made my tamales, definitely need to get parchment paper. Wax paper works in a pinch, but is a wee bit messy, parchment would be better. Hubby didn't care for them, the texture of the masa didn't appeal to him at all. Oh well, all the more for me hehehehehehehe. They are working well for lunch at work. Pull a couple from the freezer, pop them in my lunch box and then when lunch time rolls around, nuke them and nosh.

Going gluten free has been a pain. So much that I used to grab and take for granted has to be carefully thought about. I still need to go thru the pantry and weed out all the stuff I can't eat and hubby doesn't like. Picked up another gluten free cook book from the library, has a recipe for pizza crust I want to try. The author says it is freezable, if so, then I will be able to have pizza crusts stashed in the deep freeze for when I want. I did make pizza with the Bob's Red Mill pizza crust mix, was quite yummy and it is nice to know I have an option I can just grab at the store.

Huckleberries at Rosauers has a great selection of gluten free things, esp the Tinkyada GF pastas. I love their brown rice spaghetti and I made lasagna this weekend using their brown rice lasagna noodles. Could't tell the difference between then and regular wheat lasagna noodles. They parboiled nicely until pliable and finished cooking thru perfectly when I baked it.

The only problem is I wish GF foods didn't cost so much more then regular. But then again, I have noticed the prices are starting to come down a bit, so I guess as more and more people start developing problems with gluten, GF will eventually become a lot more affordable.

Baked the chocolate cake from Nameste. OH YUM!!! Took it to New Years. Split it between some friends and I came home with part of the cake, some GF chocolate chip cookies and some GF chocolate death cheese cake.

Need to see about picking up another pork roast to toss in the crock pot. Almost thru the one I did last week. Managed to stretch it out for quite a few meals. Have to see if I can find a really good deal on chicken thighs and see about doing the same thing. Will do the same with a big hunk o'beef, if I can find one cheap enough. I do need to get back into advanced menu planing and once a month cooking, esp now that I am going gluten free. It will make meals a lot easier.

I'll start taking down the decorations tonight. I will keep some of the new LED lights out, I want to string them across the living room ceiling so we can have some cool light in the living room. Need to make a complete inventory of what I have. I do know I have a green rope light I got a few years back I haven't even taken out of the box. I am feeling the urge to do some serious re-decorating, but what I want to do is a little out of budget and winter time is not the best time (painting the living room for one), so will have to see what I can do with lights and decluttering a bit.

Mmmmmmmmmm!

2010-12-27T10:29:00.000-08:00

Have had a very nice weekend. Friday was a day off and I am off this week.

Woke up Saturday morning after sleeping in and stumbled out for coffee. Eventually made some gluten free blueberry muffins from a recipe I found on Suite 101. I left out the flax meal as I didn't get any. They were delish and hubby loved them. I'd fried up a mess o'bacon to go with them and pulled the Irish butter out of the freezer:

Watched A Christmas Carol and A Christmas Story and then opened prezzies and then off to a friends for dinner and the evening. A very nice time.

Sunday was another day to sleep in. I put a pork roast in the crock pot to cook and some pinto beans onto soak. Plans for those will be tamales later in the week once I pick up some parchment paper to steam them in (I'll be skipping the corn husks).

Today is a putter about the house day and enjoy my Christmas lights. We scored more LED lights at Shopko, so next year will be serious lightage. I even have a string of LED icicle lights to go outside next year.

A friend gave me some homemade GF bread on Saturday, so yesterday I had grilled cheese sandwiches.

OH HEAVEN!!!!!!!

It's been a couple months since I've had a sandwich and you never now how much you will miss something so simple as a sandwich until you have to give them up because they make you feel icky when you eat them. I need to get the bread recipe from the friend who made it so I can make my own. I am slowly stocking up on the things I need. Bought a package of xanthum gum to put into the muffins. Since the flours used for GF don't have gluten, you need to add other things to get a similar result.

Picked up a package of Namaste chocolate cake mix, might bake that today if I have time. I'll do the same kind of glaze frosting as I did for the vanilla cake.

Sun is shining, at least for a while. Have to figure out house to get some sunshine into the house.

Sparklie tree!

2010-12-25T13:44:00.000-08:00

Coolness!

2010-12-23T09:43:00.000-08:00

Was checking my mail this morning and had a note from Zazzle that I sold a couple sheets of these:

Ban Fat Phobia by JeanC_PurpleDucky
Create a sticker on zazzle.com

They are on their way to Australia! Purple Ducky Designs is truly world wide! The last few months I've had a number of sales to Britain and Europe. Sales have been steadily growing, so I am a very happy camper.

Been slowly adding in more items as Zazzle brings them out. The most recent has been ornaments and necklaces and the other day they introduced premium key chains as an option for the key chains they sell.

I'll be working on more photos and designs over the Christmas break, so I should have a lot more items going up on my shop just after the New Year.

Isn't she adorable!

2010-12-20T15:57:00.000-08:00

A friend gave me this totally cute fat fairy for Yule. I have her hanging on the book case next to my chair at home:

Ready for the holidays

2010-12-20T11:30:00.000-08:00

Ook is getting into the holiday spirit!

Finally broke out the decorations this weekend, had to excavate the office so I could get to the closet. I've some lights and garland up. Still need to do a little more (I've only 2 strands of lights up, still have at least 3 more to put up).

Got prezzies shipped off to my mom's on Saturday. Post Office should be delivering them tomorrow, so that is done for the year.

Celebrated Yule on Saturday and then later went to a friend's party to visit for a while and then home to crash. Just can't do the party rounds like we used to LOL!

Sunday was excavate the office and decorate. Had some friends over Sunday night to watch movies. Introduced them to William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick & Nora with the Thin Man movie. Very enjoyable. They want to see the rest of the series, so we'll be having more movie nights.