Hot weather cooking

Last night was SO humid and we had frisbee practice/pick-up. So, needless to say it was not a night for a hot dinner. So, I made this great Avocado Gazpacho. Try it out!

3 avocados---diced
2 cups peeled, seeded, and diced cucumbers
3/4 cup diced tomato
1/2 cup chopped
14.5 ounce vegetable or chicken broth
1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
1.5 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Throw 1/2 ingredients into blender and blend. Place in bowl. Blend rest of ingredients and serve! It is good with some crusty bread or chips!

Local Events

Saw an article in the S. Bend tribune today about a new cafe that is going to open up in town soon. It's called "Sit and Knit". Just like it sounds, it's a knitting cafe...with knitting supplies for sale and knitting classes all in a cafe atmosphere. Sounds like I should sign up for a class!

Also there is an open house at JFNew Native Plant nursery on Friday that I'm going to go check out. This company and nursery seem like an awesome place. Had I known that the husband and I were going to end up back in the midwest/prairie country and that this place was so close I may not have ditched my ecology career. Hmmmm....perhaps there is a compromise in here somewhere. Half the week as an NP and half the week as an ecologist/native plant person??????

Well, my mother tells me that there are two types of people she likes. Gardeners and knitters. So looks like I'm headed in the right direction to finding some compatible people?

You might be wondering how I'm doing on the job front....not so good....I have a few leads and am waiting to hear back. Trying to find other leads. I'm trying to study for the boards, but summertime is proving to be quite a distraction!

Off to take the Maggs for a long walk.....she looks far to comfortable sleeping on her doggie bed under the desk.

My own yoga studio...

Feels like my own yoga studio. It's been much more fun doing yoga here than in the old place. Maybe we should reconsider getting furniture in this room???? 

Roast beef sandwiches and Bacon

Drove the 5 hours back and forth to KY this weekend to see my father-in-law (step-father-in-law?). He was in the hospital after undergoing a CABG on Friday. CABG=coronary artery bypass graft surgery. Apparently he had ordered a roast beef sandwich for lunch at the office where they were doing his cardiac cath that morning (pre-op cardiac clearance for a GI surgery). The nurse said: "Uh oh..." They said: "What?" She then told them about her unscientific survey...all of the patients who ordered the roast beef sandwich before their cardiac cath ended up needing intervention. Because of the location of the blockage they couldn't just do a balloon and stent, they had to do the CABG. Yes, this surgery involves "cracking open the chest" and leaves quite an impressive scar. In the ambulance ride over to the hospital for intervention the nurse said: "I told you so". Makes you want to skip over the roast beef sandwich next time you're ordering lunch!

Bought the husband some potato salad on the drive back (he stayed in the car with the pup while I ran into the grocery store for lunch fixins). He made a strange face after the first bite..."it's different". I could see that it had shredded orange cheese in it...so I took a bite. I knew I recognized the taste, but it took me awhile to identify it. "Hmmm.....it must be smoked chedder in there". The husband took another bite and thought awhile...."No, that's bacon"! Yikes! You can't expect a vegetarian to be able to identify bacon taste after all these years!!!

The cat would like to thank Pergo flooring....

The cat has become very brave. I guess she REALLY wants to be around us (we left her for two days). She's been venturing into the kitchen (under the gate) to sit up on the kitchen table. Normally I do not let her sit up on tables and counters, but since there are few places for her to get up away from Maggs right now I let her. Today when she jumped off the table she startled Maggie, who was sleeping in the family room. Maggs tore off into the kitchen before I knew what was happening. Mao would like to now thank Pergo flooring because the only thing saving her from whatever it is Maggie wants to do to her is that Pergo kitchen floor. As soon as Maggs hits that floor running she starts slipping and sliding...even crashing into the garbage can on a few occassions...and she can't quite make the 90 degree turn past the fridge to catch the cat before she squeezes under the gate back to the dining room. It reminded me of crash I saw on the Tour de France today...Did I mention the clicking and clacking noise Maggs makes when she's trying to catch her footing in the kitchen? Needless to say, it is quite a loud scene.

Biege Blues

Recently, I've been feeling that my life has become very beige. Shades of beige....beige walls, beige dog, and now a new beige car. In order to remedy that blandness I convinced my dear friend Prof. H that we needed to paint her family room. She has a lovely pumpkin peachy orange living room and a bright sunny yellow dining room. The drab white family room just didn't fit and I took it on as my mission to change that! Prof H was a little hesitant as she had painted her bedroom alone and the 10 ft ceilings meant that there was a lot of surface area and the wide molding around the windows and along the floor created lots of fun edging challenges. The day before we went down to her place she said to me on the phone: "I'm not sure I'm fully committed to this". I said that I WAS and that was that. Well, it WAS a lot of work, but as you see in the following before and after pictures I think you'll agree that it was worth it! All the fine food and drink provided by Prof. H. was much appreciated and made the job much easier to tackle! Thanks Prof!

BEFORE 

AFTER 

Quote of the week

"If you find yourself headed in the wrong direction, God allows U-turns" -somewhere between Logansport and S. Bend along Hwy 31

I found this one particularly appealing as I'm really starting to miss the California liberal stoplight and 4-way stop U-turn lanes.

Quote of the week

"Stop in for a faith lift"

-This is the first in the series: "church quotes". Chosen from church signs around the Michiana area

Maggie wants to come outside too! 

Maggie with her favorite toy Alien 

Cars and neighbors

Yesterday we started the process of buying a new car. For those of you who know me well know that the husband and I have been sharing a Saturn (no power steering or power anything) for the last 6 years and I've never bought a car (except the $1 dad charged for the Honda Civic...what a great car!). We bit the bullet and are going to buy a Toyota Prius. We don't know what color yet, we just said anything but Black (they had two black ones on the lot yesterday). Will send pictures when we get it!

p.s. Went out for a walk last night with hubby and Maggs. Met Norma and heard about her cat Molly. Norma lives down the road..so we really aren't neighbors, but it was nice to have someone talk to us on a walk....don't get much of that in California.

You know you're back in the midwest (red state) when....

....there are restaurants with names like:
"Between the Buns"
"Macadoos: sausage, gravy, and biscuit outlet" (this place is about the size of our old condo)

....Many Jesus signs
...gun stores and tobacco discount stores every other block.

More keen observations to come....

The D. O. G.

If you go to the Pet Refuge website and scroll down to 'Maggie' you'll see what we did last night! We took Maggie back to her old 'home' and she got to visit with all the folks there. She definitely remembered everyone! It was cool. We also got a picture of her puppies...and heard that someone has a video of her giving birth to the puppies! I'm not sure whether or not I want to see that video! But, we made it official and have adopted Maggs (otherwise known as Mag-a-roo).

The Diane Rehm Show

Heard interesting discussions today on the Diane Rehm show while driving the pooch back and forth from the vet (all clear, by the way!) and thought that both Hobbled Runner and S might be interested in the 11:00 discussion with Richard Louv and his book "Last Child in the Woods" (You should be able to listen to it with Real Player or some such thing soon) They are doing their part by sending the niece to Girl Scout camp where, I hear, she is the only one smart enough to be sporting hiking boots for tromping through the woods. I believe there is some discussion about the Scouts in this book...many Scout groups have found that there is little to no interest in the outdoor camping and hiking activities anymore.

Perhaps the bro would be interested in the 10:00am discussion on Energy???

On a much lighter noter. I also saw this link to a festival in Idaho dedicated to last year's movie Napoleon Dynamite. A totally hilarious movie, by the way, which competes well with some of my favorite comedy classics like 'Airplane', 'Caddyshack', Blues Brothers, and any of the 'Vacation' movies with Chevy Chase.

OK---after all that...I better get off the computer and get outside and enjoy the summer!

It's raining cats and dogs

Have you ever tried to introduce a somewhat cranky aging cat to a puppy-like dog who is bigger and faster? The past two weeks have been consumed with keeping EL GATO safe from EL PERO (is my spanish even close?) We now have a baby gate up in the hallway raised up enough so the cat can squeeze through but the dog cant' We also have half the house closed off for the dog and the other for the cat. The dog is good 90% of the time when we put them in the same room, but did chase the cat once (we went a little too quickly in the introductions initially) and now whenever we try to introduce them again (all the while keeping the dog sitting and feeding her treats) the cats hair rises up off her back and she makes a horrible hissing sound. If only her previous owners had left her front claws in then she might have a fighting chance to tell Maggie who should be boss. I'm thinking that one good swipe across the nose with cat claws might make Mags think twice about chasing that speedy little grey thing. Do they sell 'false claws' or do claw inplants?????????????

70's food

Been caught up in the move for the last month so I haven't blogged much....getting settled into life here in Indiana. Thought of a good blog topic, though. I make fun of the husband for some of the types of foods he likes....for example he loves things like coleslaw and potato salad. I joke that these foods are 'so 70's'. So, I thought I would come up with a list of top 70's foods. Hope you send in your thoughts.

Here goes:
10)mandarin oranges
9)meatloaf
8)lemon meringue pie
7)jolly ranchers
6)cheese whiz
5)potato salad
4)cole slaw
3)jello
2)fruit cocktail
1)fruit cocktail jello salad!

Family Tradition?

Last night the husband announced that since no one signed up for Saturday frisbee, we could watch the NFL draft! He was quite guiddy about this. When I didn't show equal enthusiasm he said: "But we watched it last year, it's a family tradition". Help! For those interested I suppose you could go to NFL.com

Dogs and more dogs

I'm distracted these days with the upcoming move, finishing school, selling this condo, and trying to figure out what job I'll end up with or if I'll be able to get one at all! One of the things I'm psyched about, of course, is that we are going to be able to get a dog! I've been 'obsessed' with checking the local pet foster organizations. Check them out: Petsconnect and Pet Refuge. They both seem really good. I've already noted about a dozen dogs I want to meet. There is even one cat that I like...check out Lancer on petsconnect...look at his extra pictures and look at him with the pound puppies (Dewdrops puppies) in the extra photos. He seems pretty darn cool for a cat....like he really thinks he's a dog or something.