3-17-13

March 17, 2013

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

This past week was my spring break, and it was just as busy as if I was in school.  Tuesday I went with a friend to the temple.  It was nice, and I was so glad to be there!  Wednesday I subbed for a great 6^th grade math teacher.  The kids were so good!  The best part of the day was that it was an early release day (most Wednesdays in that district, the students get out about an hour early so the teachers can have staff meetings and whatever else they do) and the teacher had lat period plan, so I got to leave early.  Thursday I went hiking with a friend.  We went to one of my favorite places to hike, but it was so hot, it almost wasn’t enjoyable.  

I was hoping that the wildflowers would be out, but there were only a few.  It was nice to get out and get some exercise.  (There is a small trickle of water coming down… look closely for it)  After hiking, I ran a few errands, including going to the commissary.  Friday, I subbed again, and it was a half-day.  Yay!  When I was done, I went to Nathan’s track meet and watched him run a mile, then made a couple other stops before coming home.  Yesterday, I planted a bougainvillea plant (the picture shows what the flowers look like), a peach tree, and a couple of herbs.  

It was nice to be outside for awhile.  I’m still trying to decide if I’m going to plant some vegetables in the horse trough garden that I made last year.  I want to, but something eats the plants before they can really start growing.   Last year, I bought a lot of plants before the something stopped eating the plants.  Then, we really didn’t get that much produce from the plants, so I’m not sure that garden was worth the money and time.  I guess that I need to decide very soon.

Nathan had a 2-day track meet on Thursday and Friday.  It was a big invitational held at the University of Arizona track stadium.  Thursday, he ran the 800 m; he hasn’t run that since he was a sophomore.  He had a personal best.  Friday, he ran the 1600 m and 3200m and he had personal bests in both those races.  That’s Nathan jumping, warming up before the 1600m.  Nathan now has spring break for the next 2 weeks.  He’ll be busy; he has a lot to get done in the next 2 weeks, and he still has track practice everyday.

Jim was able to find new information about his Toombs ancestors this week.  His 3^rd great grandfather, Jesse Toombs was born just 35 miles from where Jim is currently working in upstate New York.  This week Jim went to the Oswego County Courthouse to see if he could find any vital records for the Toombs family.  He learned that the state of New York didn’t begin recording births, deaths and marriages until 1883.  Since Jesse Toombs was born in 1818 and was married in 1840, records for him would only be found in churches and not at the courthouse.  It seems that the state has since collected those earlier records from the churches and may be available through a state archive.  Jim plans to pursue that this coming week.  However, he was able to find out the maiden name of Jesse Toombs’ wife Ruth.  She was a member of the Burke family that moved from Vermont to New York in the early 1800’s.  Also, Jim found the grave sites for Ruth’s mother and father, Anson Frary and Irena (Burke) Frary. Like the Toombs’, the Frary family moved from Massachusetts to upstate New York in the early 1800’s.

Have a great week!

Meriden

Cousins

Since our family is a bit spread out across the country, we don't get to see all the nieces and nephews as much as we would like.  Two cousins were reunited after only seeing each other twice (if even that) in their lives.  Here is Aaron and Jenny at their first meeting (July 1993, Aaron was 6 weeks and Jenny was 3 weeks), then 18 years later at BYU-Idaho (Sept 2011).

Wisdom Teeth, Falling and Mashed Potatoes!

Aaron and Nathan both had their wisdom teeth removed 2 days ago.  I am so glad that we did both at the same time.  It was fun listening to them tell and compare wisdom teeth stories.  Both are doing really well.  Aaron hopes to be able to work tomorrow.  Neither swelled up much (so I don't have good chipmunk cheek pictures); Aaron swelled up more than Nathan, but Nathan only had 3 wisdom teeth out.  Lucky!!  They've enjoyed eating Eegees (a type of a fruit slushy), smoothies, milk shakes, real macaroni and cheese, jello, "real" mashed potatoes, and ice cream (I actually bought 2 containers of ice cream...I haven't bought ice cream in over a year...except for Nathan's 16th birthday party.  I do stop at Dairy Queen occasionally!)

Yesterday morning while running, I tripped on a rock and fell hard on my left knee.  It looks pretty nasty and feels even worse.  I'm surprised at how much this has really wiped me out!!  I haven't done a whole lot in the last couple days.  I'm not thrilled about not running for another week or so while my knee heals.  It seems that if I miss a few days of running, that I'm almost back to where I was 6 months ago when I started to run (not quite that bad, but tell my legs that).  :-/

I promised Aaron and Nathan that I would make them "real" mashed potatoes after they had their wisdom teeth out; I decided to make those today.  Then, I wondered if I could cook the potatoes in my Sun Oven and figured that I would try it out.  I peeled the potatoes, cut them into thirds, and put them in the pan with less than 1/2" of water.  I checked them about every 20-30 minutes and after about 1 hour and 10 minutes, they were done!!  Then I mashed them like I usually make mashed potatoes.  They turned out great!!  One hour and 10 minutes sounds like quite a bit of time (next time I'm going to cut the potatoes into smaller pieces), but I didn't heat up the kitchen by cooking the potatoes on the stove!  The Sun Oven is pretty cool!!

Yay!!  Cooked potatoes!  You can't read the temperature, but the inside temperature was about 340 degrees.

Final Result!  They were really yummy!

These are muffins that I cooked in the Sun Oven this morning. 


Share your solar cooking and win

Share your solar cooking and win

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Sun Oven Cooking

For my birthday, I got a Sun Oven. http://sunoven.com/ I've made quite a few meals in my sun oven, including chicken, beef roasts, pork roasts, brownies, muffins, etc., most with awesome success! Today I decided to try baking bread in the oven. It was amazing!! The only downside was the aroma of fresh baked bread was missing (since the bread was baked outside). Here are some pictures:

After putting the bread in the oven.

Getting brown and steamy!

YUM!

Perfect with butter and honey!

Nice loaf of bread!

Share your solar cooking and win

Sun Oven Cooking

For my birthday, I got a Sun Oven.  http://sunoven.com/  I've made quite a few meals in my sun oven, including chicken, beef roasts, pork roasts, brownies, muffins, etc., most with awesome success!   Today I decided to try baking bread in the oven.  It was amazing!!  The only downside was the aroma of fresh baked bread was missing (since the bread was baked outside).  Here are some pictures:

After putting the bread in the oven.

Getting brown and steamy!

YUM!

Perfect with butter and honey!

Nice loaf of bread!

Go Mama Go Mama Go Mama Go!

Vail Jingle Bell 5K Run

Today was the first time ever that I have run in a 5K run!  I am not a runner, and would prefer to walk for my exercise.  I would even prefer to walk at a steep incline on our treadmill rather than run!!  So, what got me into running in this 5K, was a couple months ago, I told Jim and the boys that they were going to get to run in this 5K at Cienega (the high school the boys go to).  Nathan is a cross country runner and knew it wouldn't be tough for him, Aaron can just run...when he wants, and Jim also is a runner.  But, not me!  Well, Nathan didn't think that was fair that they were all running in the race and not me.  So, I told Nathan that I would do it...but I would probably come in last place.  I started to try to train for it.  I figured out how many laps I needed to do around our property to equal 5K, and I also ran on our treadmill.  My first goal was to run/walk it in less than 45 minutes.  Then, after I figured out that I could run/walk it in less than 40 minutes, I was feeling pretty good.  Today, I actually had my best time, 35:06.  Now, to you runners, that's pathetically slow, but for me, it's an achievement.  I actually walked for less than 5 minutes of the entire 5K.  That's huge for me!  There is another 5K in 4 weeks.  Maybe I can get my time less than 33 minutes!!

Nathan easily "jogged" the entire way and got a time of about 23:40, much slower than his normal cross country time.  Jim isn't sure what his time was, somewhere around 26-27 minutes.  Aaron didn't run.  He had to give some blood yesterday and felt like he shouldn't run.  He was there to give us moral support, and hold keys, and take stuff to the car, and to take pictures, and whatever else we needed him to do!  :-)

Now, to explain the title of this post.  When Aaron was a baby, when he was excited about something, he would say things in a pattern such as "look Daddy look Daddy look Daddy look!" or "this Mama this Mama this Mama this!"  It was very cute! 

 And, they're off!

 Nathan, Brian, Shelbi, and Josh

 Nathan and Shelbi (they're hardly breaking a sweat!)

 Jim almost at the end.

 Go Jim Go!

 She actually made it and wasn't in last place!

Nathan with a couple of his cross country friends and Marilee Weston

Dutch Oven Cooking

For a Personal Progress goal, I need to learn a new skill or talent, I decided to learn how to better cook in a dutch oven.  I already made 2 cherry chocolate cakes!  YUM!

Nathan told me that he wants more squash and in my mind I think acorn squash.  (What Nathan really meant is summer squash.)  While looking at my dutch oven recipe books, I saw a recipe for acorn squash that sounded like it could be good and easy to make.  All it involved was peeling and cutting up the squash, then baking it in the dutch oven.  Sounds easy, right?

I decided to try it tonight; I just reseasoned my dutch oven last night so it was ready to go.  I started the coals and planned on cutting and peeling the squash while the coals were heating up.  As I attempted to try to cut the squash, I at once realized this was not going to be easy.  If you have ever tried cutting into an acorn squash, you know what I mean and it didn't happen without Jim's help (ok, he cut most of it).   The outside layer of the acorn squash is very tough! 

Later, I went online to find out more about peeling, cutting, and cooking acorn squash.  One website said,  "Using a strong chef's knife, and perhaps a rubber mallet to help cut the acorn squash in half, lengthwise, from stem to end."  Strong chef's knife is an understatement!!  I'm guessing a rubber mallet would have been helpful!  Another website:  "Acorn squash is often cooked within its shell as its ribbed shape makes peeling virtually impossible."  I needed to peel the squash; yes, it was almost virtually impossible to peel!  It seemed as though I took off half of the meat, and I still couldn't get all the peel!

We finally cut and peeled the squash (the best we could) and baked it in the dutch oven.  The final product really wasn't too bad, but we decided to give the rest to the dogs.  There were too many itty-bitty pieces of hard peel (the part right under the green peel that we didn't know that we needed to remove) to make the squash enjoyable to eat.

I told Jim about an acorn squash recipe that involves just cutting the squash in half, baking it in the oven with butter, brown sugar, and maple syrup.  Now, that sounds good!!  I'll most likely get another squash and try it out.  I'll be sure to bring in the rubber mallet for Jim since he'll be the lucky one to cut the squash in half.  As for the dutch oven adventure, maybe next week it will be a roast!