I love this photo of my parents. They were camping at La Pine state park. We were all together a big clan of campers.
I still cannot conceive how my mother could be prepared to make bake goods, huge meals, glorious snacks, mouth watering breakfasts out of their small trailer. No wonder my father quipped it was so hard to tow as it weighed a ton.
I remember one time so vividly. My mother, daughter and myself went blackberry picking while camping on the Umqua river. I assumed we were just going to eat them in their natural state. But no when we returned to the campground my mother took the bucket of berries and preceded to make a deep dish berry pie. Absolutely amazing! Crust from the scracth the whole works and it was so delish out there camping in the woods. We always had a grand time camping with them both. Dad would have his drinks around the campfire and his stories would keep us entertained for hours. I miss those times but I am so thankful I have the memories.
Well as I mentioned we are having salmon in a lemon cream sauce for dinner tonight. I will start my daughters yeast rolls about four or so.That should give the dough adequate time to raise, then I will form the rolls and let them raise again.
I am really going to try hard not to overindulge on the rolls. I have managed to rid my body of the extra pounds I picked up over the holidays. I do not want them returning. It was not hard to lose the weight really. I have just been eating quite skimpy portions and staying away from deserts and high calorie foods.I have also cut back on wine consumption. Alcohol is fattening!
I still cannot send photo's directly from Picasa to this blog. So that means if that problem cannot be rectified I will have some strange food photo's on here as they will not be cropped etc. I so want to fix the problem it is always on my mind and I am spending way to much time on this computer trying to get it sorted out.
We are so wanting to get away for a few days but work in just spotty enough that it does not allow a few days in a row. We need the work so I am not complaining but it is time for a trip. It is always spur of moment it seems as sometimes we will get a delay or a cancellation or some other reason. Then we have to act fast, pack and leave! I lot of folks would not like that but I do. It is rather exciting.
My hubby is in the process of buying a step for the high 4x4 truck we tow the trailer with. Then I will not have to struggle getting in. The tires are big and the truck sits high off the ground and I am shrinking daily it seems in stature. So the little step will surely make it easier to get into the cab.
So we want to make three trips in the near future. To my brothers(no trailer involved) we will spend two nights. We want to make a trip to the coast, either Newport or Lincoln city and then also up to Belknap Springs which is an hour and half from our home. But we do not want to deal with snow towing the trailer so we will have to watch the road reports as the springs is up on the McKenzie. When we had our A class motor coach we spent Christmas there with my son. We all got snowed in. What was going to be a three night trip turned into a six night trip. It snowed continually for three days and then did not melt. So we had to wait for snow plows to clear the highway.
I need to attend to some phone calls for the business. I will be happy when the advertising is set for the year.
Have a nice Friday the weekend is upon us.
So I am still struggling to get my photo's from Picasa to upload on this blog. If I pull the blog up first and then add the photo which I can do, the photo's come up as they were in their original form before cropping and enhancements. So I like to upload them from Picasa directly so they load with their improvements which is very important with the old photos. So I cannot understand why it is now impossible to do what I have been doing since I started this blog four years ago. It is enough to make me pull my hair out which I will not do as I do not have enough the way it is!
I know one thing I sat at this computer for so long yesterday trying to rectify this problem that it has made my neck and shoulders sore.
Our pizza last night was very tasty. However I still need to tweak the pizza dough. Everything is good but I should roll the dough a little thinner as it raised some in the oven even though I had it in the fridge for several hours. So it was a little thicker than we enjoy as we like very thin crust.
We have another drizzly day here in Eugene. I do not mind. I know in my mind that in less than two months we will start seeing the first sprouts of spring. The crocus and the daffodils will be pushing up out the soil. I look so forward to spring every year. So I can hold on. It was a different story living on the east side of the Cascades. You had to have much patience as spring did not come until summer was almost upon you. If you were lucky there would be some glimpse of spring in May but sometimes not. It has been known to snow on the 4th of July which we experienced more than a few times. Seems the winters last forever there. No thanks!
It is odd when I do think about Bend. I have friends there, friendships formed many years ago. I do long sometimes to see my dear friends. But I have no regret in leaving Bend. Of course we left it once and came to the valley but returned after five years to try it again. We stayed two years and returned to the west side of the mountains once more. They say you cannot go back and for us we could not. It did not work for many reasons not just one.
So I find myself content with rain or showers or mist or drizzle. It is all wet weather no matter what the weather folks call it.
Tonight in Zo's Kitchen I am making boneless pork loin chops. I will do my three way dredge finishing with panko and a bread crumb mixture. I drizzle olive over them before putting them in the oven and turn them halfway through and drizzle again. They turn a golden brown with a crisp crust. I will make a horseradish sauce to serve them with. I am going to make rice pilaf and steamed cauliflower with a touch of Ms. Dash and cracked black pepper.
Then tomorrow we having sockeye salmon with fettucinni in a lemon cream sauce with fresh grated parmesan. It is an elegant dish and so tasty and for a side we will have broccoli and I am going to make my daughters recipe for homemade yeast rolls. A very yummy meal it will be.
I want to make a pan of yeast rolls as I picked up some very good smoked ham at my fave deli and I like to make sammies on yeast buns with a horseradish sauce and my sweet dills. A good combination.
Hubby and I are off to buy a new keyboard for the computer next week. The letters have worn off half of the keys. It is not a problem for me but it is for my husband as he struggles with typing. I could type blindfolded, no matter. Also now our keys are starting to stick which is a big aggravation.
We bought this computer about three years ago and it is the best one we have ever owned but the keyboard was junk from the get-go. I do not why we have put up with it this long.
The dryer is beeping at me now so I must go fold a load of clothes. It is laundry day today. I do not mind that. I do laundry twice a week usually so it does not overwhelm me.
As I look out the office window I notice the breeze has picked up the same as yesterday. It is not walking weather that is certain. I am just a fair weather gal when it comes to my walk. I have walked the hardwood floors the past few days.
So I will continue to work on the photo issue but really I do not know what else to do at this point. I may have my husband try a go of it this weekend.
Bye for now.
I am having problems uploading from my Picasa photo program to this blog.
As I am in a tither now until I get this sorted out so I am going to leave you and see what else I can mess up!
The photo was taken at our farm I am standing with my brother Jack and my mom in the driveway. I was five.
I am back and have not accomplished anything to rectify the problem except give myself a headache! So enough chatter about it for a while.
It is cloudy, gray with a bit of a breeze and a very light rain occasionally. Not enough to even be seen but the streets are wet so the clouds have been weeping unnoticed.
I just finished making pizza dough with the mixer. It is raising now and then I will pat it into a sphere and put it in the fridge and then roll it out and make the pizza this evening. For some reason chilling the dough makes it very pliable to either flip about and stretch or roll. I will make my roasted tomato sauce into pizza sauce, then add, diced onion, pineapple tidbits, diced peppers(hubbies side) black sliced olives and real canadian bacon slices. We love the combination of onion and pineapple. You get the tart bite of the onion and the sweet of pineapple. Try it if you have not.
My husband will be home at a decent time today and for that I am a happy woman, regardless of computer problems.
I did not sleep last night for hubby's snoring. He was so tired and usually he does not snore with that much intensity. But wow last night the bed was almost vibrating! I did not want to disturb him by waking him up so I went to the guest bed. Well it took me quite a lengthily time to doze off again. Then later I had a foot cramp I had to walk out, so not a good nights rest. So today I am lagging and I do not like to be. But my energy level is low so I am quite lazy today.
I am just going to say bye for now and go make a cup of tea, plop in my cozy chair and read. I am like the weather today, dreary.
Later.
Yes we are having a little rain today, very light and off and on, but oh how great the fresh air smells. It is like I can breathe again. The oppressive fog is gone and we show showers, drizzle or rain for the entire week and both hubby and I are happy. It has also warmed by about ten degree's. No cold floors in the morning and our heat pump will not be running as much. So all is good.
I wanted to post a photo today but for some reason I cannot. My server is not letting me download onto the blog. So they must be working on something. I will give it another day before I start trying to figure out what to do on this end. I am not a technical person and what I usually do when I interfere with something is mess it up.
I had errands this morning but was back home by eleven so I still have the whole day ahead of me. I am catching up on things in the house and it feels so good. What a difference it makes having hubby gone from the house. My days moves smoothly along without interruption.
Our meal last night of roasted chicken thighs with garlic and lemon and yukon gold potatoes was so good. Those potatoes are so soft and silky inside and roasting them makes them even creamier. The whole house was permeated with garlic as I was also braising kale with garlic. Like i said on FB at least the vampires will not coming to this house.
Tonight for dinner we are going veggie all the way. I purchased huge and I mean huge bakers I will cut mine in half after it is baked and save it for my hubbies breakfast as I always do. We will load those potatoes tonight with the usual potato stuffing fare and I am making a salad to the side with fresh made croutons and that is it.
Tomorrow night it is homemade pizza. I purchased all I need for that meal a few days ago and I am so ready for our own good crispy crust pizza.
We surely would like to go somewhere when my husband is through with this round of jobs but really we should not be away so he can take bids when need be. We will still go to my brothers at some point and are also anxious to use the little trailer and go to the beach. It seems a long time since we have done a thing other than stay home and have company which is nice but it is fun to go.
I am going to scan a few more photo's now. It gives me pleasure every day to do a few. I sent an oldie but goodie off to my cousin, it was of the two of us and our families out at our farm when we were four. Too cute. He loved it as he already emailed me and thanked me.
I will be sharing some of those really old ones as soon as my server lets me post some.
Ciao.
For those of you that did not visit us in Bend I wanted to share a photo of our home there. Now this home was built when we moved back to Bend from Eugene in 1998.
We built this home to our specifications and my sweet talented husband built this home with no sub contractors except for hiring out the sheet rock, the roofing, the electrical, plumbing and cabinets it was his baby all the way. He did a great job doing the river rock, it was very time consuming and it was a new experience for him. This house from the front porch overlooked the Deschutes river and as far as the eye could see east. Our sunrises were delicious as well as a glowing red sky at night a gift from the sunset on the back side of our house.
Our plan was to stay in this house forever, but forever sometimes is hard to come by. After we built this house and moved in, we purchased another lot and built a spec house. At this time the boom was starting in Bend and land was getting very hard to come by. Large home construction companies from out the area bought up huge parcels of land and would not sell individual lots to local builders. We were stressed out as the lots that were available were terribly over priced, you know the law of supply and demand. We just did not see how we were going to make a living in Bend. So we did not stay but a couple of years. I so hated giving up my house, but the folks that purchased it loved it so. They said it was like it was custom made for them. They are still the owners today. So that is the Bend house story. And yes I scanned the photo....laugh.
I have accomplished so much today I am proud of myself. My master bath is spotless and I just now put down the clean cozy throw rugs on the gleaming tile floor. I stripped my bed, washed the blanket put on flannel sheets then waxed the bedroom furniture.
I worked in the office for a short while this morning and I also did three loads of laundry and when I finish this I am going to make an apple. I try to spoil my hubby when he has a hard long day and this will be one of those days.
I am going to call and chat with my brother late afternoon after I settle with a glass of wine. My backache medicine you know.
Our senate bean soup was so good last night as were the corn muffins. Even though I really tried to make a small pot of soup there is enough soup left to feed the family next door. So the soup kitchen is on for tonight. The pie will be a nice treat for dessert.
So I am on my way to the kitchen to start making pie crust and peeling apples.
Have a nice Saturday. Why not bake something I know that always makes me so happy when the house fills with the aroma of bake goods, but I mostly need to stay out of them.
What fun to reflect on times past especially our years as boat owners.
Having the photo scanner has brought past memories back clear and vivid. And what a good past it was. This photo here was taken at the dock at Odell Lake. The young man on the boat is my grandson Tyson.
We took Tyson with us many times when we boated. There was room for us all to sleep in the roomy cuddy below deck as well as a nicely equipped galley and bathroom.
I loved this boat it was and still is the most favorite RV I have ever owned. Hubby and I both regret selling this beautiful boat but we found we did not have the time in summer to use it much. But we could have just kept it couldn't we? But instead we traded it in on a motor home.
We had this boat for a number of years and before it we had a smaller version with tight quarters below for sleeping and a porta potty, no galley. So we were boaters for many years.
A little antidote here. We were off for a week to Shasta, seven days on the lake in this big boat which was new at the time. We traveled many hours to get to Shasta, launched the boat, and my husband said to me when we were out on the water "this is going to be the best vacation of our lives". Oh the sweet life. We motored out to the middle of the lake and hubby says "get me my swim trunks will you". It is so hot in Shasta and we were cooking from the time we got on the water. So I went below and starting digging through his boat bag, which I packed. I was getting very nervous as I did not see any swim trunks, so I went through my bag also, nope no trunks for my honey. Hubby asks what is taking so long?
I came up on top deck and said, "well it appears that I forgot to pack them."
His face drops and he says, "you have got be kidding right?" On the boat for a week and nothing to swim in? Not a good thing.
Well fortunately I had packed myself a pair of nylon elastic waist shorts. So I grabbed those for him, we laughed they were tight and looked obscene. But at least he could get in the water. The regular shorts I had brought for him were like cargo shorts that would have held so much water we would have flooded the boat if they were wet.
So we managed throughout the first day of swimming. The next day we went to the closest resort and can you believe they were sold out of swim trunks. So we went to the other end of the lake, not one pair in his size. So now we are out on the lake for six more days with my husband wearing my nylon shorts which left nothing to wonder about, if you get my drift. Whenever someone pulled up and anchored next to us, my husband kept his beach towel wrapped around him.
Now we laugh as we remember that time. Whenever we go to a beach or a lake now the first thing he says before leaving the house is, "you packed my swim trunks didn't you?"
I have had a very busy day so far.
I was out the door at nine, errands, grocery shopping, Walmart, car wash etc. I was back home by early afternoon. Stashed away a car load of paper staples groceries and fresh produce. I bought kale,broccoli,cauliflower and salad items, plus some fruit. See I am being better.
This evening I am making the Senate navy bean soup. I have not made it for a while. It is that yummy soup made with a mashed potato and milk and butter for thickening. This soup gets even yummier with sauteed celery, parsley,garlic and onions. Add a good helping of ham and it is a grand soup. This will be the last of our Christmas ham....finally.
Well I have not much time left to enjoy my part of the day. So I am going to plop in my chair for much needed back recuperation.
Off I go my book awaits.
For one I am happy to see the end of 2013.
Business again was not steady. There was an improvement from 2012 but still not what we expected. We are so looking forward to 2014 to be a good year. The building trade is making steady progress. The housing market is gaining and doing better than it has in a few years. Home prices are edging upward. All these things increase our work in the hardwood flooring business.
There are things that need to be attended to in our home, upgraded, maintained etc and we have felt inclined to not spend on these items. My husband is always needing new tools of the trade also and these machines and tools are very expensive. We need a good 2014 to do a little catching up.
So that is the business part of it.
Personally I have set some goals for myself.
I need to get back into a steady routine of walking every day. I have been so lackadaisical when it comes to my daily walk. I can tell the difference in my body and my energy. Walking is good for your heart, blood and muscles as well being good for you mentally. So back at it Zo.
Next is to really monitor what I eat. I have always been about portion control and that is needed too but I have been eating too many carbs and not enough vegetables. That is going to change as you are what you eat.
My daily routine is going to change also. I have noticed over the past couple of years that I am getting behind on my house chores. I need to structure my day better. So the plan I have come up with is this. Each day I will deep clean one room and rest on Sunday. I have never done house work on Sunday except to tidy. I got that from my Mother. Sunday was family day, a good meal day and a relaxing day to do what you enjoy. Even if my hubby is working I still do very little on Sunday except for baking or cooking.
So I think the one room a day approach is doable for me and I will not get behind.
So there are a few things I need to change. Watching what I eat and a hearty walk each day will take care of the few extra pounds I put on over the holiday season. So the new year awaits and I surely hope it brings to those I love and care for a magical year with many blessings for us all.
Happy New Year 2014!
