New TV Season!

Another waffle-making Saturday morning. It's been a while. Last time they were sticking, so this time I used a little more oil and that is helping immensely. I've gotten so I don't measure very precisely. Lately, I'm having that one little part of the circle that doesn't fill up. That's probably because I've been a little sporadic. There's definitely the intangible thing of getting a feel for something if you don't measure. For candy-making, it's essential. I was on pralines kick a couple of years ago and ran the gamut from ones that were too soft to those that hardened in the pan before I could get them onto the wax paper. As with most things, 1) practice makes perfect (or closer to perfect), 2) it's harder than it looks, and 3) nothing is ever easy. This last one seems to crop up all the time, especially in attempting new things on the computer.

I'm very excited that the new television season is starting up soon. Here are the premiere dates of my favorites, in order of how much I like them: Boston Legal - Sept. 22; Grey's Anatomy - Sept. 25; Desperate Housewives - Sept. 28; Survivor - Sept. 25; and Lipstick Jungle - Sept. 24. So not next week, but the next. This is according to AOL's website. I couldn't find the date for Grey's on the official ABC website. Seriously. See number 3 above - Nothin is Ever Easy.

Since I seem unable to multi-task this morning (too many burnt waffles), I think I'll close here and put my full attention on the rest of the waffles. I'm making a two batches - one to take to my parents. It's great to freeze them and just toast them. All for now.

Fruit is Good

I know...blueberries are a superfood, blah, blah, blah... or as those of us from the Seinfeld era like to say, yaddah, yaddah, yaddah...

These pictures, I swear, are taken on my kitchen counter. Mangos, kiwi, strawberries and blueberries. The blueberries, mango and kiwi are from Sam's and the strawberries were a great deal at Robilio's. The key is actually eating the stuff before it goes bad. The very hungry teenager actually remarked that the fruit was pretty (he didn't know I'd actually photographed it for this blog), so I'll take that as a compliment.

When I saw my doctor yesterday and hinted for diet pills, he weighed me and pulled out his calculator and told me 1) I looked ok, 2) his scale was forgiving - at least 5 pounds light, and 3) I should do Weight Watchers or Curves. Since there's a Curves a mile and a half from my house, I headed straight there. I hate the whole concept of a "program" and the commitment and all that goes with that, but I think I'm going to give it a try. They have a website (which costs an extra $20/mo.) which is really quite amazing. I'll add the link. If you need a coupon code for a free 30-day trial, let me know in your comments and I'll get one for you. I think that's long enough to see if it helps. If it helps, it'll be worth it, even though it seems like a lot.

So for now, I'll be posting pictures of healthy food. I promise I will not turn into a diet blog. Oh, included in the Curves website membership is a blog. It is so lame. They have two employees blogging very occasionally (every 2 or 3 weeks). Maybe I'll start a blog there!

For now, I'll do my best - I'll try to be the tortoise - slow and steady...

Waffle Talk - Double Batch

After another waffle-less Saturday, I'm back. Sadly, I spent last Saturday at the memorial service for my dear friend. We've been friends since high school and were very close. Just when I was recovering from the shock of her death, I spent three days at the hospital with my mother, who has emphysema. I won't go into all the physical (sleeping on the sofa in the hospital room) and emotional challenges (mother didn't want to stay in the hospital and had more than one meltdown, pretty much directed at me and the pulmonologist). My sister Debbie helped out immensely with getting my dad to and from the hospital and staying with him at night - all this on top of a full time job. She also provided comic relief. I spent yesterday grocery shopping and cooking for my parents (they don't eat enough) and helping my mother figure out her medical equipment. The pictures here show what happens when I'm AWOL from home for a few days. After a couple of nights of good sleep, I think I can tackle this.

I'm cooking today. A double batch of blueberry waffles. One for my parents to freeze and just pull out and toast for breakfast this week. I'm going to make chicken spaghetti - Pioneer Woman's version. Go to her link at left, and check out her cooking section. She has the most amazing and simple recipes!

My mother is a picky eater, but she likes this (without the bell peppers).

After an extremely challenging week, I'm feeling relieved, optimistic about my mother's health (now that she's finally commited to quitting smoking) and more confident about my ability to handle extremely stressful situations.

On to the laundry and the kitchen counters and sink...

Back from Cincinnati

Pictured are Gold Star Coney Islands. They are very small hot dogs topped with chili and mounds of cheddar cheese - plus I get onions. So yummy. Cincinnati chili is different. It has cinnamon - definitely more pronounced in Gold Star than Sky Line. I bought a few cans of each and wish I'd gotten more. I also brought back a recipe for the Sky Line version, compliments of my cousin. I made it early this week and we had a blind taste test. Mine was too thick and I couldn't get my ground beek as crumbly as they do, but I was pretty happy with it. I think next time I'll use less chili powder and more cinnamon. My uncle was impressed and told me I should open my own chili parlour. I don't see that happening, but I think my chili will find a regular rotation in our meal times. You can serve it on hot dogs, or on spaghetti, with crumbled oyster crackers to soak up the thinner sauce.

We brought my mother 5 pounds of Opera Creams between my uncle and me. I ate the better part of one pound and gave the rest away because the sugar was wreaking havoc on me - I don't do well with sugar (a little hypoglycemic).

I've had a busy week since getting back Sunday. School starts next week so we should settle into a more regular routine. I think I've finished all my travels until we do the college tour thing over fall break. I need to get busy planning that. I think we'll drive up to North Carolina and Virginia and try to hit as many colleges as we can squeeze in between here and there.

For today, I think I'm headed to Archiver's - they have a special Make & Take weekend. I always love those. I should take my many vacation pictures and try to do a little scrapbooking while I'm there!

One More Trip

After searching and searching for a reasonable airfare, I finally found a ticket to Cincinnati to see my Uncle Lee. He lives across the river in Covington, Kentucky, where he and my mother grew up. I haven't been there in 16 years, and then, just to see my beloved Aunt Babe shortly before she died. We used to go almost every summer.

This time, I hope to really explore the city. And of course, to eat chili three way - with beans, cheese and onions (I think). They serve their chili on spaghetti noodles. Steak & Shake has the closest thing you'll find around here. Another special thing is Opera Creams. They are kind of like a vanilla butter cream, covered in dark chocolate (best version and my mother's favorite), but not the same. It is my mother's very favorite thing. We buy them by mail-order for Christmas and Birthday and Mother's Day. Well, maybe not Mother's Day because you can only order them when the weather's cool. So when I bring back 10 pounds of Opera Creams in early August, it'll be a special treat!

Cincinnati's also home to the Reds, one of the oldest Major League Baseball teams. Unfortunately, they don't have any home games during my visit. Pete Rose is Cincinnati's equivalent of our Elvis. Seriously, they are fanatics about the guy. Even with his being banned from baseball from the betting on baseball scandal, way back when. He's from Cincinnati and played there his whole career - a very rare thing. He also holds the all-time record for most career hits. There's still a good bit of controversy about whether he should be allowed to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I figure if they let any of these steriod-fueled stars in, good old Charlie Hustle ought to get in, too. I'm just sayin'.

I'll have a full report, complete with pictures, when I get back. That's a couple of weeks away, and in the meantime, we have lots to do, including celebrate lots of July birthdays. Oh, and it just so happens that I'll celebrate my birthday while I'm there - a good thing. Can't wait!

Happy Fourth!

This has nothing at all to do with Independence Day, except it's a picture of St. Thomas, one of the US Virgin Islands. I was there, just about a week ago, and it's nice to visit such a beautiful place in the Caribbean where they speak English and take US dollars. There are probably lots of islands where that's the case, St. Maarten for one (a Dutch island). Only thing unsettling about St. Thomas is that they drive on the wrong side of the road - very unsettling, and dangerous for me, when crossing the street. I'd never attempt to drive there, or England for that matter. I'm somewhat dyslexic, so I think it'd be a huge mistake.

More about the great vacay in another post. Gotta get busy now. Tomorrow is waffle day - first one in about three weeks, so maybe I'll have a more inspired post then!

Samuel Gompers, My Hero (or I'm on Strike!)

Only kidding, kind of. Here's your thing to learn for the day, in case you don't already know who Samuel Gompers was. In short, he was the father of American labor unions. I'm oversimplifying, but look him up in Wikipedia if you want to know more. Suddenly my life is so much easier now that I'm washing only my own clothes, buying groceries and cooking only for myself (mostly double fiber toast, pretzels and chicken salad). I feel like I'm back in college. It's great.

I didn't just get up and automatically make the waffles this morning. When kiddo woke up, he asked me if I'd made them. After I reminded him of the strike (I don't think he'd thought of waffle implications until he missed the Saturday morning aroma), he asked me to make them. I asked him if he thought he could be polite and respectful to me. He answered "Yes, ma'am", so I gave in. I think my code word to stop the surliness will be "waffles." We'll see how it goes. Even if they don't change their ways, I'll feel less resentment about being taken for granted. Now, if I can tackle the guilt about walking past the milk section at the grocery store. But it helps that grocery shopping is so much easier when you're only buying bread, pretzels, chicken salad and Diet Cokes!

Weekend Project - Gardening

Here are some plants I bought at Lowe's this week. Of course, they always sit in my yard for at least a week (usually two or three) before I get around to planting them. Lowe's had NO begonias. How can that be? Begonias are my never fail annuals. I saw some at Ike's, but hate to make a special trip. I need avocados, so maybe will hit Ike's and Fresh Market in one trip today. Of course, Ike's may not have begonias anymore, especially if Lowe's is out.

My new favorite, full sun plant, is a mounding zinnia. It's covered with small white or pink blooms all summer long. It was a happy accident last year and I plan to use it in as many full sun beds as possible. My others are vinca (sun), impatiens (shade), and asparagus fern (part sun) - I plant that in the flower boxes with the begonias and a little engish ivy (forgot to get that). Hope my ferns come back from last year, particularly my precious maiden hair fern. I need to cut back all the dying daffodil foliage which is burying the ferns. That's my poison ivy bed, so will have to suit up for that job. If I ever irradicate the p.i., it will be a miracle. Afer extensive research, I learned that the urushiol oil in the leaves can stay active for up to two years (in the dead leaves). So even the copious quantities of Round Up I used last year may not protect me even if I killed every last bit of the evil plant.

I'm also going to try yet another Shasta daisy and plant another gardenia. Cannot believe the gardenia I planted last year survived the winter. I have a hydrangea to plant, too. Oh and a pepper plant and some basil for my suddenly jungle-like herb garden. The thyme, oregano and rosemary are going crazy, as well as the pesky mint. It's nice to have them for cooking, but they're not looking very attractive - they need major cutting back.

Waffles are done and laundry's going, so maybe will get a few things done today. Happy Memorial Day!

The Next Adventure!

Here it is, Saturday morning again. The first waffle is cooking and I'm here, in one of my favorite places to be. In front of my computer in the kitchen. Two solid weeks away from my kitchen, laundry room and family has made a big difference in my outlook. I don't know for sure that the teenager missed me, but he seems a little kinder since my return. Or less surly. And I know he missed my weekly waffles!

I am still not caught up on putting things away and all the other deferred housekeeping stuff. They did fine with laundry and groceries while I was gone, but two weeks made the dust worse, as well as the kitchen floor and counters, the bathrooms, and on and on.

I plunged into my business clients as soon as I got over the worst of my Montezuma's Revenge. I'm happy to report that I picked up a new client this week and the possibility of one more. I'm feeling very encouraged by the demand for my services. If that just pays for our vacations, I'll be very happy indeed. A new kitchen floor would be great, too. So far I'm in the hole when I compare my spending with my income, but it'll be fine.

Part of this money hole I'm in is due to the cruise I booked this week. We'll go to the eastern caribbean - St. Thomas and St. Maarten toward the end of June. I'm so excited because our son has wanted to do this for a long time. I think he was hooked from Titanic. Go figure. The Travel Channel cruise shows and of course, the cruise line commercials have reinforced this desire. Royal Caribbean has great programs for teens, including rock walls, basketball courts and a teens-only dance club! The girl who helped me at CruiseOne has a 10th grader, too, and she's done this very cruise. She said her girls had the best time and always make good friends they stay in touch with. Who knows, there could even be a shipboard romance! He's too young to remember The Love Boat (can you hear the theme song in your mind?) There are things like Johnny Rocket and a Seattle Coffee, so I have a feeling we might not see him except at night in the cabin.

We lucked into a great balcony stateroom special! After my group trip to Brazil, the idea of time to myself with coffee on the balcony is heaven to me! They also have spa special on the port-of-call days, so I'm premeditating on the idea of heading back mid-day to take advantage of the spa. Also heaven. I need to start back with my walking so I can keep up with the guys on the sightseeing. We'll be gone a whole week, and my husband isn't thrilled about missing a whole week of work and I know it will kill him not to be able to check messages from the ship, but I know it will be good for him and I also know they'll manage without him. He hasn't given me any flack about it, so I know he's happy.

I have lots to do before then. If you're thinking of a Cruise and need help (I was totally overwhelmed by things like triple occupancy and all the choices), let me know and I will give you the wonderful CruiseOne girl's contact information. She made it SO easy and had lots of good tips. What are your vacation plans? I'd love to hear!

Waffles

For the first time in three weeks, I'm sitting down to make waffles. I left for Brazil on April 21st. In the picture, if you look closely at the topmost peak in the distance, you can see Christ the Redeemer statue, a famous landmark in Rio de Janeiro. This view is from Sugarloaf Mountain. I didn't make it to the foot of the statue earlier that day, with the rest of the group. I was, how shall I say it, indisposed. I'm still not quite 100%, but am feeling much better. As glorious as the trip was, I am happy to be sitting in my little kitchen, making waffles for my family and just appreciating all the wonderful things about home. Now, for those back episodes of Grey's Anatomy!

Back from Brazil

These are just a couple of the beautiful sights I beheld on my trip to Brazil. Iguaçu Falls is a wonder of the world - more magnificent than Niagara Falls, and I've seen them both now. The other photo is the view from my hotel room in Rio. It was an overcast day, the tide was high and the ocean current was strong, as you can see. I have lots of other beautiful photos but will have to dole them out slowly!

I'm just now feeling better after being home five days. I had some kind of flu virus or the Brazilian version of Montezuma's Revenge, or a combination of both. The good thing is I've lost a few pounds, but I lost a few days of enjoying my trip. The travel home was grueling, but I figure if I can make that trip, I can go anywhere! Lots of good stories and amazing differences in their culture and ours. The two things I miss the most are the fresh, plentiful pineapple and all the friendly kissing of cheeks!

Bon Voyage to Me!

This will be my last Saturday morning waffle-making/blogging sessions for a few weeks! Monday I'm leaving for Brazil for a couple of weeks. I'll have lots of good pictures to share when I return. I wonder if the kiddo will miss my waffles. He told me last week that he smells them all the way in his room when I make them. We'll do a non-sports family activity tonight - a very good thing. Maybe dinner and a movie, if I can find a movie that appeals to all three of us. The last movie we all three saw together was Mona Lisa Smile - that tells you how long it's been. Of course, now that kiddo's driving, he doesn't need us to take him. He loves movies and thank goodness the Paradiso finally got built - it's just about two miles from home! There was nothing remotely close to us before (except Ridgeway 4 and it mostly shows indy movies and one or two blockbusters).

I still have a million things to do, but am feeling better about leaving. Got lots of cash at the bank. We can use credit cards, but I think the exchange rate's not good that way. There's a jeweler we see and he takes checks! Could be dangerous. I think I'll bring lots of coffee back for souvenirs. And maybe a piece of jewelry for my friend Angela (she's brought me amazing silver things from Mexico). And a rock, just off the ground, for my sister the geologist. And a film canister (does anyone have those any more?) filled with sand from Ipanema for a friend of hers at work who collects sand from all over the world. Those geologists. They call themselves Rock Heads! I suppose if they can handle that nickname, I shouldn't rile at being called a Bean Counter!

The picture is one I found on MicroSoft's website - I think it's Rio. For now, I'm signing off. I'll have more pictures in May!

Brazil

In four short days, I will be in the air, on my way to Brazil. It's hard to believe. My church takes a group every year. Our pastor and his wife were missionaries there for 11 years. They are amazing. I would not consider doing this with anyone else. This is a leap of faith for me. The picture is of Iguassa Falls. We will take two days out of our 12 to stop in Rio and the Falls. I'm crazy about my roommate - Bebe - we seem to be of like minds. My only worry is the grueling flight, but thankfully, there's only an hour or two difference in time zones, so jet lag will be minimal if I can ONLY sleep on the flight between Miami and Sao Paulo. Well, I have one other concern - meeting the strict international size and weight guidelines for luggage - both checked and carry-on. I have lots of decisions to make between now and Sunday - it'll be like Sophie's Choice.

My Life is Better!

Ok, I hate to be a conspicuous consumer, but I'm finally joining the land of the texting. After a major break in the down market for day-traders like me, I splurged on a Palm Centro. Disclaimer: I bought PALM and it was way up today - go buy Palms - seriously, they are a great product! Also, I'm headed to Brazil with my church Monday, and was stressing a little over the lack of ability to stay in touch. After hearing things like "here are the emergency numbers, but the Brazilians might not check their voice mail for a week", or "you'll be too busy to talk to anyone at home" (someone without kids at home), I was worrying about feeling isolated.

The key is, you need a phone with "quadband" to be able to access internationally. So my five year old Nokia won't cut it. Oh, I did think to take my 10 year old Nokias to the AT&T store and they recycle and give our soldiers gift cards with free long distance. If you have any old phones sitting around, take them by. You must know that you can't throw them in the garbage. But some of my neat-freak friends have done this. For the pack-rats among us - here's a good thing.

Ok, I'm going to bed now, but can't wait to wake up and get started texting everyone I know!

My Beautiful Camellia

Here's a picture of a beautiful camellia straight from my friend Suzanne's back yard. I need to take a picture of her back yard - it's so beautiful, especially right now with the azaleas, dogwoods and of course, camellias in bloom.

The bowl it's floating in is my very special Tiffany bowl. It was a gift from a client and I really treasure it. It's just the right thing for floating a flower. I hope to have a picture of a gardenia in it soon. My poor, anemic gardenia may not produce but our neighbor has a huge gardenia that is covered with blooms every year and I'm never too proud to beg a bloom or two from her. I just remembered that I have a nice peony that always produces 10 or so great big, light pink blooms. The only problem with them is that the ants love them and it's impossible to get all the ants off the flower, so I usually enjoy the peonies in situ. There's your latin lesson for the day. It means in its original or natural place.

Well, I'd better close so I can go fertilize my gardenia.

My Other Blog

This is my first post on my new blog. I'm liking this name better. My other blog (which I've widely publicized among all my very patient friends) is www.MomsLeap.blogspot.com. I started it a few months ago when my good friend Lundy asked me about starting a website to be called MomsLeap.com. It seems there was not a single decent resource website geared to Memphis moms. Life got in the way and months went by and neither of us was able to devote the time we needed to get this thing up and going. Of course, there's no such thing as an original idea, on the internet at least. So here we are and at least two moms' resource website franchises have launched blogs geared toward local moms.

Since my blog has meandered around, away from the special interest blog we originally conceived, I've decided to start a new one and rename it with something more general - so here we are with Waffle Talk.

I'll leave the other blog up and will spend some time copying posts I think fit well here. I'm thinking I need to start a food blog, since that's a chunk of what I write about. The great thing about Blogger is that this is all free, so I might do separate blogs about food, day-trading, books, scrapbooking, my new consulting business, gardening or whatever else interests me.

I started my very first blog a couple of years ago, with family pictures (geared toward our relatives). I have another one for our extended family, one for my son's school baseball team, and of course MomsLeap and now Waffle Talk! Lots of blogs.

If you like what I've done, I promise you, you'll enjoy blogging. You'll get in the habit of taking pictures and actually uploading them to your computer. It's just a great creative outlet and fun to share with everyone you're close to. It's very easy to do, but give me a call if you need help getting started.