menu plan monday / august 18, 2008

August 18, 2008 – 10:15 am

Before making the menu this morning, I asked DH and DD what they would like to eat this week. Mashed potatoes (DD), tilapia (DH), salmon (DH and DD), and fried chicken (DD), in that order. I don’t do fried chicken very often anymore, so will make oven “fried” chicken instead.

Monday
leftovers
salad
corn on the cob

Tuesday
tilapia
rice w/ summer squash
sweet and sour cucumbers
green salad
corn

Tilapia:
Place the fish in a single layer on a baking pan lined with no-stick foil sprayed with cooking spray.

Drizzle the fish with lemon juice if you like, or add some to the Parmesan/mayo mixture.

Mix 1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese and 3 T. light mayonnaise and spread on fish.
Mix 1/2 c. Italian bread crumbs, 1 T. basil, 1 T. oregano, 1 tsp. dry onion flakes, salt/pepper and sprinkle it over the fish.

Bake at 400*F for 10-15 minutes, depending on how many fillets you are using and how thick they are.

Wednesday
oven fried chicken
mashed potatoes
corn on the cob
spinach salad with strawberries
green beans

Thursday
baked salmon with honey/Dijon sauce
steamed red potatoes and green beans
green salad
corn

Friday
hamburgers / buns
veggies / chips / dip

Saturday
turkey / cheese sandwiches
fruit
veggies with dip

Sunday
eating dinner at my sister’s house

Lots of menu ideas here.

DD enjoyed a week-long 4H cooking class a few weeks ago. She enjoys cooking, especially baking. Last evening we were to take snacks to church for refreshments after the Atlanta mission team’s report. DD made cookie bars. All I had to do was empty the dough onto the cookie sheet, as the bowl was too heavy for her to wrangle. She cleaned up afterwards (a good thing). 🙂 Her first day of school is a half day, so I think we will make focaccia this afternoon. We haven’t tried this recipe before. Should be fun. And it is SO delicious dipped in olive oil that has been sprinkled with freshly grated peppper! Yum!

~~Rhonda 🙂

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in menu | Tagged | Comments (1)

first day of school

August 18, 2008 – 9:38 am

DD enters fifth grade this year, with a new teacher she has yet to meet. She was eager but a bit apprehensive this morning. DH fixed the usual pancakes with mini chocolate chips. He’s quite the pancake artist. I should have taken a picture…he made a squid today.

The book bag must have been packed, emptied, repacked, etc., at least twenty times in the past few weeks.

With each neatly packed book and carefully chosen pencil, I know she’s ready—nervous excitement and all—for another year of discovery.

ready for school

As last year, while we waited for her ride to school, Oreo was right there, wanting pets.

Oreo wants to say good-bye

It was cool this morning…about 60* as we sat on the porch. The sunshine felt good.

one last good-bye

DD was ready for school. I am certainly ready for some time to myself. It’s a good day. 🙂

~~Rhonda

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in family | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

a little weeding, a little pondering

August 15, 2008 – 10:41 pm

We’ve been having some cool weather (cool for August in this part of the world anyway). I spent some time outside pulling weeds on the north side of the fenced garden.

from the north side

There is a small path of stones that leads between the fence and the snowball bush. It gets a bit weedy sometimes… 🙂

My usual tools: a chair, my gloves, a big cup of ice water, a garden fork and a bucket for the pulled weeds.

weeding

Along the way, I found a couple of friends…a wooly worm…

wooly worm

…and a shield bug.

shield bug

Looks better now, right? I took a wagon load of weeds out of here.

got 'er done

Did you know that snowball bushes (and hydrangeas and Russian sage to name a couple more) will make baby bushes if a branch stays in contact with the ground long enough? I found a little snowball bush today. We’ll pot this up and find someone to give it to.

baby snowball bush

And where does the pondering come in? Weeding is a great time to think. Sort of like quilting. 🙂

I’ll leave you with a picture of my constant gardening companion…Pippin, the kitty with the crooked smile.

Pippin's crooked smile

~~Rhonda 🙂

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in our garden | Tagged | Comments (0)

playing with light

August 11, 2008 – 11:10 pm

This morning I was taking pictures of a framed mirror for Macro Mondays, a group I am a member of on flickr. DD brought in the hand mirror from the bathroom and discovered how much fun it was to play with mirrors and the sunshine coming through the east window.

playing with mirrors and light

By shining the light through the chandelier prisms, DD made rainbows and shimmering light on the ceiling.

playing with light

She even used the big mirror I was photographing.

play of light

Then she discovered the “well” in the mirror…that upside-down space that makes you feel as though you might fall in. And with our 12′ ceilings, that was a deep well!

Alice in Wonderland

After she played with the mirror for a while, she sat back to chat. I was able to catch some relaxed shots of her with the great play of light from the window.

double the DD

two mirrors

Found a hair…

found a hair

Three in one…

three times over

It was a spontaneous opportunity and I was glad for the chance to get some unusual pictures.

~~Rhonda

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in family | Tagged , | Comments (3)

menu plan monday ~ august 11, 2008

August 11, 2008 – 1:17 pm

I’ve had a quiet morning, but the afternoon will be busier. Several things on my agenda. Here’s the menu for the week.

Monday
sloppy joes / buns
tomatoes / sweet and sour cucumber slices
chips / dip

Tuesday
chicken fajitas

Wednesday
leftovers

Thursday
country pork chops in crock pot
rice with summer squash
green salad
corn / peas

Friday
four cheese spinach pizza

Saturday
leftovers


Sunday
turkey
mashed potatoes
corn
green beans
tomatoes
spinach salad

There are more menu ideas at Menu Plan Monday on Laura’s site.

~~Rhonda

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in menu | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

going away party

August 6, 2008 – 10:28 pm

Our church is blessed to have many members who are seriously interested in missions and missionary work. One of our young ladies is preparing to go to the Philippines to attend the Newlife International School of Midwifery. On Sunday, we hosted a church dinner at our home to show our love and support of her and her plans.

DD made the cookie bars and I decorated them. “Bethany, the Lord bless and keep you. ~all our love and prayers”

going away party

Bethany didn’t know the dinner was for her. She had been with the mission team in West Virginia all week and had arrived home Saturday evening. We have a blackboard by the front sidewalk of our yard to advertise plant sales and DD wrote, “We’ll miss you, Bethany!” on the sign. She saw that and thought it was nice, but didn’t give it much more thought than that.

When she came in, she found her pictures from her Haiti trip on a slide show in the living room, which she said did surprise her. But the light bulb moment was when she walked into the kitchen and saw her name on the cookie bars. (I edited out her name before posting the picture on flickr.) Then there were tears, but they were good ones. {{{{Bethany}}}}

We also had pictures in a slide show in the office of the mission team’s trip to Atlanta in July.

Atlanta mission trip pictures

Adam had just arrived home last Wednesday from his mission internship in Nairobi, Kenya, and he also had pictures to show.

Nairobi mission trip pictures

In the past, we’ve set the food on the kitchen table. This time we tried two tables in the front hall and it worked very well. I think this is going to be SOP for future church dinners. We had more room and I think the flow of traffic was better, too.

dinner line

The temps were supposed to be in the high 90s, but turned out to be about 20 degrees cooler than expected. While most of our guests ate indoors, we all gathered outside for Pastor Bob’s devotional.

gathering for devotions

After the party, there was lots of help cleaning up, taking chairs and tables back to church, picking up, and washing dishes, etc. A big thank you goes to Paul who washed all the dirty dishes and gathered and took out all the trash. And thanks, too, to Susan who took all the tablecloths home and washed them for me. What a great gift. Thank you!

We had a wonderful time, and will miss Bethany a great deal while she’s gone. But we are thankful for her shining testimony of her love for Christ and her willingness to follow Him in service to others. Bethany, we will be praying for you!

~~Rhonda

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in Bethel | Tagged | Comments (4)

menu monday on tuesday :) / week of august 4

August 5, 2008 – 1:53 pm

Last week was very busy. On top of party prep (had 74 people here for dinner after church Sunday), my mower quit, my frig quit, I lost a diamond earring in the lawn, cut my finger and DH had to put four stitches in it, MIL was in the hospital for a few days, DD had softball tournament games, and my housekeeping help and my garden help were on the mission trip. What a week. Here’s a shout out to my friend Margaret and her niece who came over on Friday and cleaned my house for me. What a blessing! Thank you, Margaret!

This week seems a bit slower, thankfully. The mower is in the shop, the frig is working, and I am rested from getting ready for Bethany’s going away party.

going away party

More about that in another post soon.

Monday
I had planned to make Crispy Baked Chicken for supper, but I was sick in the afternoon and didn’t want to cook. DH took DD to the DQ to pick up supper and I stayed home with some chicken soup.

Tuesday
hamburgers / buns
steamed green beans and red potatoes
corn

Wednesday
eat out

Thursday
beans and ham
cornbread
coleslaw

Friday
chicken and noodles
peas / corn
green salad

Saturday
leftovers

Sunday
Crockpot Chicken Cordon Bleu
spinach salad
corn
green beans almondine

There are more menu ideas at Laura’s site.

The surprise lilies came up last week. I have some from my grandmother’s garden which I planted in my fenced garden. And we have some that were here when we bought the house. We’ve moved them all over the yard.

along the fence

I made a bouquet for church with the lilies, Althea, physostegia, and garden phlox. The lilies last so long when cut. I have several bud vases around the house with surprise lilies in them. Cheery and they smell good, too. 🙂

pretty in pink

It’s been too hot to work in the yard, but the next few days it is supposed to cool down and be in the low 80s for a week or so. That would be nice! I would love to work in the yard, but don’t go out much when it’s so hot and humid.

~~Rhonda

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in menu | Tagged , | Comments (3)

caterpillar club

August 4, 2008 – 5:40 pm

DD found a caterpillar on the Virginia Creeper vine on the front porch. We’ve raised caterpillars in the past, so decided to give this one a home and watch it develop.

To make a home for the caterpillar, we collected a plastic jar, a small container with a lid, dirt and water for the container, a rubber band and a bit of screen. We punched holes in the lid of the small container, put the dirt in the container, and filled it with water to hold the food.

raising a caterpillar

This particular caterpillar was found on Virginia Creeper, so that is what we stocked the larder with, putting stems through the holes into the watery dirt. Putting dirt in the container, as well as water, helps to hold the stems upright.

stocking up on groceries

Here you can see the caterpillar in question.

our guest

Species Alypia octomaculata – Eight-spotted Forester

Eight-spotted Forester caterpillar

After putting the small container into the jar (I used a large pair of tongs to put it in place), DD covered the jar with screen and fastened it with a large rubber band. In the past we’ve used fish bowls covered with screen and held in place with elastic. Those are much easier in which to place the food container than a narrow mouthed jar. Keep that in mind if you want to try something similar.

covering his house

Home Sweet Home…now we wait while he eats and grows. I need to find out if this particular caterpillar will want some dirt to burrow in when it is time to cocoon.

finished product

~~Rhonda

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in summer | Tagged | Comments (0)

it’s Christmas Notebook day!

August 1, 2008 – 3:32 pm

Today is the beginning of the Christmas Notebook season!

I teach the Christmas Notebook plan for holiday preparation on the yahoo group Christmas Notebook. It helps members organize preparation for the holidays so they have more time in December to celebrate the season with friends and family. It walks them through each stage of holiday preparation: from evaluating what they want their own Christmas to be, to showing them how to make it happen.

The first introductory article has been posted to the CNB list, with many more to come as the weeks roll by. Membership will be open for a few more weeks. If you are interested, send a membership request via email soon. To do so, send a blank email to

christmasnotebook-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

After a few weeks, the membership will close for the season. Don’t delay!

~~Rhonda 🙂

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in CNB | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

celebrating 25 years

July 30, 2008 – 3:01 pm

On July 25, DH celebrated 25 years of practicing medicine (family practice). His office gave him a surprise party, which really did surprise him. 🙂

my dh

The table was covered with pictures taken over the years of practice…not only the practice of medicine, but the practice of practical jokes, funny costumes, fun, and frivolity. Dennis commented, "It’s kind of scary to think we’re trusting our lives to these people!" 😉 Carl, seated at the table on the left, practiced with DH before retiring.

scary

DH actually delivered this young woman while he was still practicing obstetrics. Now she works for the hospital.

I remember when you were born...

Once they had a piece of cake, the girls were bored. Out came the DS.

bored

Twenty-five years, and no real plans for retirement. He enjoys the practice of medicine and can’t imagine not working. Maybe he really will make 25 more. 🙂

yup, got a few presents

~~Rhonda

By ~~Rhonda | Posted in family | Tagged , , , | Comments (2)