You might be a homeschooler if....

 

• I might read more books in a month than kids with an assigned reading list read in a year
• I remember Wishbone!
• Ha, my dad was the math and science one.
• Ha, I never even watched the Passion of the Christ.
• Haha, my friends asking me why I don't go to “real school” applies to more than home schooling!
• I read Left Behind!
• I remember Saxon!
• Libraries are the best!
• Ehh....Harry Potter....= /
• I remember Adventures in Odessey!!!
• Heck, I, MYSELF, am concerned about GMO products
• ….I don't remember the last time I ate fast food, thank God!
• Haha, I used to wear jean jumpers!
• Actually....we stopped watching Bill Nye the Science Guy because he was an evolutionist....as far as I remember
• Haha I finished the video!

Hungry for Change

Hungry for Change was such a good video for reminding me of many things I've learned and for motivating me to pick up where I'm slacking in health.  There are only 36 hours left to watch it for free!
Somewhere along the way, I forgot that sugar is what fattens us (because of the insulin release).  If fat isn't present in what we eat, the sugar fattens us more.  So drinking skim milk isn't the way to get skinny!  And drinking coffee with honey and skim milk isn't some great substitute for cookies (or other desserts)!  Are the ingredients more nutritious than the flour and sugar that have been stripped of their nutrients, plus whatever inexpensive fats and other poor ingredients they've chosen to use in the cookies?  I'd bet they are, but they both have a negative effect in different ways.

Two other key points I learned:

• Cilantro and parsley are cleansing foods. That's awesome! Now I want to find recipes that call for bunches of those! 
• MSG has about 50 other names and experiments have proven that it fattens mice. Check this article: MSG and Fat Rats and Us. [A phenomenal article!]              

I am now a whole milk drinker.  Cathy should be proud.

He Ain't the Leavin' Kind

*Gasp*

I never expected a song with that title to be about anything more than a mere human man.  Check out these phenomenal lyrics!  *I take no credit for these.

***

They tried their best to drag him out
Of a courthouse down in Montgomery
Now they want to kick him out of school
And take him off our money
They can take those words off of paper and stone
But he aint gone, no

He ain't the leavin' kind
He'd never walk away
Even from those who dont believe
And wanna leave him behind
He ain't the leavin' kind

She stayed mad at him for a lot of years
For taking her husband
Started losing her faith and thinking that
Her life meant nothin
But when she looks at those kids
She raised all by herself
She knows she had some help
Yeah she knows

He ain't the leavin' kind
He'd never walk away
Even from those who don't believe
And wanna leave him behind
He ain't the leavin' kind

No matter what you do
No matter where you go he's
Always right there
With you

Even from those who don't believe
And wanna leave him behind
He ain't the leavin' kind 

-Rascall Flatts

***

For my brother

Me: "Mom asked: 'how can we get some outside air into this truck?' I opened the window =P"

Brother: "hahahahha....I don't think she drives enough to remember that the door windows roll down. lol"

Only a sibling would find that funny, that's why I sent it to him. <3 <3

December 1995

'96 or '97?

'96?

I'll guess 2000?

August 2001

January 2008

August 11, 2008

January 14, 2009

July 4, 2009

August 14, 2009

August 17, 2009

August 16, 2010

August 16, 2010

2007 on the left and 2011 on the right

December 27, 2010

December 27, 2010

July 2011

August 2011

This made me think of abortion

This post is interesting: No More Starbucks For Me.  The author concludes that she will no longer drink Starbucks because of the pagan meaning behind their logo. I never even noticed their logo.  It's disappointing how pagan symbols or names creep their way into so many areas of life.
This reminds me of the correlation between abortion and witchcraft/paganism that I've been learning about.  Last weekend I learned about a clinic called Aradia Women's Health Center. They were in Washington state, but according to Google, they're now closed.  I'm sure they did more than abortion, but they did perform abortions.
Do you know the history behind Aradia? She's supposedly the daughter of Lucifer and the goddess Diana. Wikipedia confirms what I learned earlier this week: Aradia has become "arguably one of the central figures of the modern pagan witchcraft revival".
The paragraph on this site touches briefly on the connection between current Wicca and abortion.  I've learned that there's such a horrid history and depth to abortion, I've watched videos where doctor's admit that they know they are killing, and I've learned how it's mostly being done for the money (and that's why abortion clinics don't suggest giving the child up for adoption).

Here's a video I wound up at this morning:

Coconut Milk, One Fantastic Smoothie, Granola, and Stir-Fry

After a lovely 4 mile walk on warm spring day, I made this phenomenal smoothie:

Raspberry Mango Smoothie recipe

No, it didn't look anything like the picture. It looked like this ->

By the way, it's 4 servings.

The walk even gave me some color in my cheeks! Yey for the coming of summer!

Following that excitement, I became sorely disappointed...
I bought SO Delicious Unsweetened Coconut Milk and it tastes like nothing. I can't even find a coconut flavor in it. Quite sad. I thought it would taste better on home-made granola. Not really. I won't be drinking it for it's amazing taste....  I'm sure the sweetened variety would taste better, but I don't want sweetness. Bummer...   I've never drunk fatty water before.


You know that granola I mentioned? I made 3 batches of it today. One and one-half canisters (equalling probably 21 cups) of oats. Want the recipes?

Golden Granola - I used olive oil instead of vegetable oil and increased the honey to 1/2 cup.
Golden Cinnamon Granola - I used olive oil instead of butter, increased it to 3/4 cup, and increased the honey to 3/4 cup.
&
Vanilla-Scented Granola - I left out the sugar, used 1/2 cup of honey instead, and used olive oil instead of vegetable oil.


Additionally, I made this "Flavorful [Chicken] Stir-Fry" recipe so I could have something to eat in my dorm before the dining halls open.

• honey instead of sugar
• chicken instead of beef (which I just simmered for a few hours and shredded)
• 6 cups of broccoli [there's no such thing as too much broccoli]
• plain old peas...no pods
• a whole onion
• an unmeasured amount of olive oil
• mushrooms instead of water chesnuts (I'm not a fan)
• quinoa instead of rice

After all that plus a lot of work on a paper, I am so tuckered out.

Things I liked and learned today:

This is an awesome idea, but I think it would work poorly for me because I am too willing to make my own!
Michael Pollen "says to 'eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.' If you had to peel, chop and deep fry potatoes every time you wanted French fries then you might not eat them very often. Only eating “junk food” such as cakes, sweets, and fried foods as often as you are willing to make them yourself will automatically reduce your consumption." - Lisa Leake


Lisa has great information on her blog. Her post from 2 days ago about food dyes is very interesting - I didn't know most of that.



Want to know what country your food comes from? Check the barcode.

A Week's Worth

3-7

This beautiful weather makes my heart happy. It's so nice to see how it wakes up the whole campus too.  I think it's contributing to my excessively chillax attitude about assignments right now.  Ya, I have a week off, but I have two papers due as soon as I get back!  Will spring fever be worse in college?


3-9

Trying to figure out outfits and shoes for 9 days isn't easy...  What if I want to wear something else? What if the weather is crazily up & down? 

3-11

Made some awesome recipes in the past couple of days! Check them out: Quinoa Casserole, Sweet Bread, Unsweetened Applesauce, Italian Popcorn  and  Potato Pesto Soup


3-12

I'm pretty thrilled that I just did a paper in less than 1 day, I didn't know that was possible. 

3-13

A warm breakfast of quinoa with milk and syrup!
Pretty similar to oatmeal, or to brown rice w/ milk & syrup. Mmm =)

Quinoa Casserole, Sweet Bread, Unsweetened Applesauce, and Italian Popcorn

Quinoa, Broccoli, and Cheese Casserole recipe

Pretty delicious! New quinoa recipes are exciting!

• I didn't use the full 1 1/2 cups of uncooked quinoa, even then the quinoa to broccoli ration was too high. Every recipe needs more broccoli! ; ) Oh, haha, I did add more broccoli - 1 extra cup. 

• Microwave the broccoli and onion? Pshh! I sautéed those and added minced garlic!

• I simmered some chicken for 70 minutes, shredded it, ended up with 2 cups, and added it.

Pumpkin Nut Butter Bread recipe

I don't think I would have known this bread was missing flour if someone just fed it to me.  I would have used smooth peanut butter if I had that...   It's surprisingly good, but it is, of course, different from bread with flour in it! I don't think pumpkin & peanut butter are a favorite mixture of mine, but this makes me want to experiment with different combinations!  Peanut butter banana?  Eh...I'm not a huge fan of that either.  We'll see =)

Sugar Free Cinnamon Applesauce recipe

Definitely edible, decent, good. I think I just liked Sarah's Applesauce better when I left out the sugar.

Italian Popcorn 

I had a recipe lined up to make when I realized that I could take an old cracker recipe of mine and sub in popcorn! (Triscuits and plain shredded wheat are other ideas that might be tasty.) The amounts are approximate because I hurriedly threw in extras when I realized I didn't have enough for my popcorn amount.

• ~1/2 cup + olive oil
• ~2 tsp garlic powder
• ~2 tsp onion powder
• ~1 tsp black pepper
• ~1/2 cup parmesan cheese
• 1 1/2 TBS crushed basil
• 1/2 cup unpopped popcorn

1. Put the first 6 ingredients in the bottom of a large plastic bowl  - one with an attachable lid.
2. Pop the popcorn into a different large bowl (so the bottom popcorn isn't soaking up all the goodness).
3. Put popcorn in with other ingredients. SHAKE!

Oh...I realized that day old popcorn is a soggy idea... =/


Enjoy!

Potato Pesto Soup

I took the idea of this complicated recipe (St. Patrick's Day Potato Soup with Pesto), mixed it with the simplicity of this Real Potato Leek Soup recipe and got this:

 Potato Pesto Soup

• 9 red potatoes - unpeeled
• 6 cups water
• 2 TBS Better-Than-Bouillon (chicken)
• ~1 c. chicken stock
• 1 onion, chopped
• big spoonful of minced garlic
• 1 c. milk
• 2 TBS basil pesto
• 1 c. shredded mozzerella cheese

1. Stir better-than-bouillon into 1-2 cups of water and pour into a big pot. Add additional water to the pot, plus any random stock you need to use up (...like I did). Wash & cut potatoes. Add to pot along with onion and garlic. Bring to a boil and turn down to a simmer until the potatoes are soft (20-30 minutes).
2. Mash potato mixture with a hand masher in the pot.
3. Add milk & pesto. Stir as much as needed. Add cheese, stir only a little.
4. Eat.

Note: Why waste the peels when the appearance of the meal doesn't have to impress anyway. Less waste...more nutrients? Better-than-bouillon isn't my healthy choice, it's what I had. I would have used cheddar cheese if I had that.