No Animals Were Killed to Make This Chili

11/16/09 - Kind of in your face, but that's what I named my chili for the Lakewood Ward Chili cook-off. Here's what the label looked like:

No Animals Were Killed to Make This Chili
No Cholesterol
No Added Fat
Contains Wheat
Contains Jalapenos

There were 2 other vegetarian chilis; one was really good and the other was not really a chili. It was more of a vegetable medley with kidney beans.

Time to Start..... again

I got the book, The Engine 2 Diet , from the library yesterday and am reading it. It promotes a vegan diet and lifestlye and has some great sounding recipes. Today I bought the ingredients for "Raise-the-Roof Sweet Potato-Vegetable Lasagna". It sounds really good and I will make it for dinner tomorrow. I've been slipping. I've been eating too many fatty foods and dairy. Maybe that's why I'm stuck at 152 lbs, even when I exercise. I want to see the 130's again. I'll try some of the other recipes from this book over the next week.

Flu and Black Elderberry Extract

So 3 out of the 4 members of my household have had flu. Melissa is the only one who went to the doctor and she was told it is probably H1N1 since that is what is going around. They are not testing every case. This has been going on for 2 weeks or more and I am still healthy.

Back in June when I was in severe pain, my doctor could not come up with a firm diagnosis. It seemed it might be nerve pain. It followed the nerve line across the back of my left shoulder and down my left arm. It was unaffected by OTC pain meds and I was pretty miserable. I did some online research and self-diagnosed zoster sine herpete, or shingles without the rash. I investigated further and found that black elderberry extract is supposed to have anti-viral properties. I started taking it in June. The pain went away finally at the end of June. I'm not sure if the elderberry had anything to do with it, but I stopped taking it. After a pain-free July, the same kind of pain in the same place came back in August. So I started taking the elderberry extract again. The Pain lasted the whole month, but this time, when it finally went away, I kept taking the elderberry. I still take it once or twice a day. I am wondering whether the anti-viral properties have kept me from getting the flu.

Julie & Julia / Mary & Mary

I just finished reading Julie & Julia - you know, the book about the woman who cooked all 524 of Julia Child's recipes in a year. I am not much of a cook, but I need to expand my repetoire. The problem with Julia Child, aside from the fact that I do not own any of her cookbooks, is that I do not eat meat and try to stay away from dairy. After reading that book, I would guess that the vast majority of her recipes are either for meat or contain large quantities of butter. So I thought about cooking my way through some vegan cookbook, but I really don't think I have the motivation. What I might do is set a goal to try 30 new vegan recipes in 30 days... how about that? And since the vegan cookbooks I do own are by Mary McDougall, I can call it the Mary & Mary Project. Catchy, huh? I'll let you know if I decide to do it!

On being single in a family oriented church

I came across a dialogue on the somewhat skewed mission statement of a singles ward somewhere in the church. Check it out here . It inspired me to share the following story:

Thirty-some years ago my friend and I were “kicked out” of the singles ward in Cambridge because we lived outside of the Stake boundaries. Our Stake had no singles ward. The first Sunday we attended our family ward we were just a little bit late and I’m sure everyone noticed us - two obviously single young women. It happened to be the Sunday that the RS was speaking and they had chosen a young mother, a middle aged mom and an older woman to speak. When they saw us, they realized that they hadn’t covered all the bases and all three of them awkwardly inserted into their talks that RS has a place for the young SINGLE woman who ISN’T MARRIED YET. I’m glad I had a friend to laugh about it with. And bless them for wanting to include us!

Steve's Blog and Vlog

Stephen is preparing for a Japanese proficiency test and has both a Blog and a Vlog of new words he is learning there in Okinawa. Check them out:

Steve's Japanese Blog

Fw:

My friend sent me one of those positive, uplifting, reinforcing, cute, sappy forwards about how wonderful it is to grow old. I would usually just read, smile and delete. BUT today I am still recuperating from Saturday. Saturday I found myself at a nursing career fair competing with people much young than I. I would go as far as to say I was the oldest person in the room. I was waiting in a long line, watching other people as they interviewed. It was open; I could see what was happening. There were a lot of these open interviews going on in a very crowded conference room. So I watched and saw the interviewers laughing and chatting with the candidates, taking their time. The interviewers were doing most of the talking. I couldn't hear much, but it looked like they were recruiting, trying to sell their hospital, their department. When my turn finally came, I got the cold treatment. No positive chatter, no encouragement. I did not match the profile they were looking for and it was ever so obvious. It probably would have been a good idea to do more than one interview - there were 13 or 14 possibilities - but I was out of time as well as extremely discouraged. So no, I did not find the forward amusing and I will not send it on to seven friends. Today I don't feel so great about growing old.

They Froze to Death

My 5th great grandparents died on March 5, 1813 in Trenton, Maine. Back in the summer of 1969, I discovered their common tombstone in an overgrown cemetery. On it was engraved, “They froze to death returning from a visit”. He was 69; she was 72. I had a great time that summer doing research on my family, tracking tidbits of information and discovering forgotten graveyards. They can be a great source of information.

I love cemeteries. I visit my son’s grave here in Dallas and find it peaceful just to be there. When he died, my mom planted a rhododendron at our camp in NH in his memory. That was over 17 years ago. It is still there and very beautiful.

My dad was cremated, and his ashes were buried in the family plot in Carlisle, Massachusetts. I have ancestors in that cemetery going back to the 1700’s and I love to visit when I am in the area. I think there are 5 or 6 sets of grandparents of various degrees of greatness there as well as numerous uncles, aunts and cousins. Bill’s parents were cremated and are interred in the wall of a chapel in an Episcopal church. I would rather visit a graveyard.

Processed People

I have the DVD "Processed People". I had the trailer posted here but it took too long to load so the link is below. It is worth watching! If you are in the Dallas area and would like to borrow it, let me know.

Processed People