The last day of the year

Today I flew to Salt Lake City and back. The purpose of the trip was to get James and Melissa's little kitty, Snuggs, home. They managed to get on a Delta flight standby - on Elaina's "buddy passes". Why do Delta's passes cost less than AA's?? Anyhow it would have cost them 70 or 80 dollars for a ticket for the kitty and it only cost me about $22.50 for me to fly with the kitty - it would have cost only $5 round trip but I HAD to fly first class one way. Life is hard. So it was the time/money choice and I chose money and used the time to fly and read a book. So James, Melissa and Snuggs will be back home in Idaho for the New Year, Emma is babysitting, Sarah is working and Stephen, Bill and I are hanging out at home. This evening I cleaned up the mess in the kitchen that my kids made this morning and left all day - I didn't want to wake up to a mess on New Year's morning. At least the kitchen is controllable. The rest of the house gets me down.

Goals for the new year: Get my weight down to 135 or less; clear out some of our clutter; exercise; stop eating junk; find my life... subject to revision.

Other options: move bill and I to the upstairs bedroom, convert the master bedroom to the office/computer room, reclaim the front room, get a hearth.

The last spring that I worked for Sabre, I stopped at a place along 114 in Grapevine or Southlake to look at stone for a new hearth. That would have been spring of 2003. I even dragged Bill out there and he said he would schedule them to come to our house for an estimate. It never happened. Even back in 2003 I was tired of the wallboard material where the hearth should be. I don't know how many years it was like that prior to my failed attempt to make something happen. I hate my house.

Something Seasonal

Someone from Bill's office sent him a link to this video. I loved it and wanted to share. The group is called Straight No Chaser and the performance is their comedic version of The Twelve Days of Christmas:

Indian Cooking

The first Indian recipe I made was Aloo Gobi from the special features of the Bend It Like Beckham DVD. At that point no one had published it, so I had to keep starting and stopping the DVD while attempting to write it down and guessing at the measurements, since she was not exact. And it took some research to figure out that fresh coriander is the same thing as cilantro. But it is good! Then I took an Indian cooking class at Kalachandji's, a local Indian restaurant. It's a lot of fun. Manjuali Devi, the teacher, demonstrates 3 or 4 recipes for each class, and then we all get to eat it! I couldn't make it one night and persuaded Bill to go in my place. He enjoyed it so much that he signed up for the remainder of the course and we went together. How's that for a fun date! Anyhow, I have a favorite recipe from the last seris of classes that I would like to share. I plan to try it with a small amount of oil instead of butter, but it's so good as is that I haven't done it yet. You will probably have to go up to an Indian food store in Richardson to get the mung (or moong) dal and masoor dal. Mung dal is dried mung beans that have been skinned and split; hence they are yellow, not green. Masoor dal is small red lentils. The other things can be bought at most grocery stores. So here goes:

Yellow Dal Fry

3/4 C mung dal                    1/4 t chili powder
1/4 C masoor dal                  1/2 t garam masala
1/2 T ginger, minced              1/2 jalapeno, finely chopped
2 Roma tomatoes, finely chopped   3 T ghee (or butter or oil)
1 t cumin seeds                   1/2 C cilantro, finely chopped
1/4 t tumeric                     salt to taste

First boil the dals in about 3 cups water and set aside. If you soak them first, for 3-4 hours, you should be able to mash them a little - or I put a cup of the cooked dal in my mini food processor and pulverized it, then added it back. Heat the ghee and add cumin seeds, ginger,chili powder, jalapeno, garam masala and tomatoes. When tomatoes are well cooked, add to dal and cook to soup consistency. Adjust water as needed. Garnish with cilantro and serve with rice.

I am not a gormet cook. This is easy and good and good for you! Try it.

Broken Arms

One of my schools has had a rash of broken. The first was the Major Trauma I spoke of below. Later that same evening, a child fell at a school assembly and broke an arm. Neither nurse was there - whatever did they do??? Last week a Pre-K child just tripped and fell and broke his arm - he had to have surgery! And there was another one last week when I was not there. And other interesting incidents - One boy peed on the leg of another in the restroom. It was determined to be an accident, but it was still a big deal. We found him some clean pants, but he still had to go home and have a bath because, after all, it is someone else's body fluids. And I listened to an interesting irregular heartbeat. It seemed to be a sinus arrhythmia where the heart speeds up on inspiration, but I've never heard it speed up as much as this kid's did. He is under care - his doctor had asked us to check his BP and HR every day this week - so I'm sure he is in good hands.

I'm still here - sort of....

I have felt totally uninspired about blogging of late. So in an effort to pull myself out of my slump, I will at least make 2 referrals today. My daughter, Sarah, has recently started a blog - Adventures in Good Medicine, and my favorite daughter-in-law, Melissa, has also joined the ranks at I'm Probably Exaggerating . So go check them out today.