Can I Make a Difference?

I wish I could add one more child to my list of those I have made a difference in their life. I fear that "one more" will never really quite make me feel my job is complete. I wish for the day when my life allowed for me to not work as many hours and give me time to be a foster parent to children who are in need. I know I have not parented perfectly, we have certainly made many mistakes along the way, but we love our boys beyond what words can say. I only wish that we could continue to add to the "quiver". Jim is my reality checker and reminds me that we have done something to make a difference. My reply, "If I could save but one more child..." I don't think this is a self inflicted burden. I honestly feel that God has placed this desire in my heart so that I can help. I need more time and resources to be able to accomplish this desire. So, if you are reading this, pray for me to be able to have that desire satisfied.

The Green Smoothie

I started hearing about people making green smoothies and wondered what all the fuss was about. Someone connected me to the web site greensmoothiegirl.com. I went there to see what she had to say. One thing that I heard was that a good blender is a huge benefit to making a good green smoothie. I have a good blender, but I did not have the BEST blender. My sister had bought a Blendtec blender last year and when I was in Texas on vacation last month, I used it to make a smoothie and knew I really "needed" one of those.

One morning I was on line and decided to price out the Blendtec and Kathy happened to be on line too. I told her I was going to buy one and she said she would sell me hers. So, we made a deal and I got her blender. Now, I can make the green smoothie in about half the time and virtually 30 seconds of clean up.

INGREDIENTS:
I start with water and then add whatever I like.
Blueberries-frozen ones that I bought from Michigan last summer:

Banana that I freeze when they get too ripe to eat:

Strawberries that I picked last summer and froze. Now with the Blendtec I won't even need to cut the hulls out of the strawberries:

...and the rest, anything green I happen to have--this is kale, spinach, and collard greens along with carrots and an apple.

Blend by pressing the "smoothie" button.

Oh, and you can see, I used some chia seeds too...they don't mix so well, so I may just toss them in just before I drink it.

The finished product...in Ryan's fancy glass. (I drink mine out of a normal glass)

Cooking...yes, you read it right

I started this whole process with my food processor. I had not gotten my new blender when I started this, so I used my food processor for this recipe. I had a red and green pepper to start, then added a bunch of other vegetables that I had in my refrigerator. Broccoli, spinach, onion, zucchini, and tomatoes. Not sure if I had added more or not. I used a can of tomato paste and two cans of spaghetti sauce, but I will stop adding that when I can get the recipe perfected. I think the sugar in the canned sauces is the addiction that I have. I added about 2 pounds of ground beef and a pound of Italian sausage which I had browned. This mixture spent all day in my new 7 quart crock pot.

When I realized how much sauce this made, I knew I would have to figure out a way to preserve it because the three of us would not eat that much sauce in two days. I have a Food Saver, but it doesn't work well with liquid because the vacuum pulls the liquid and then the bag won't seal. My thoughts were, I need to freeze the sauce first, then store it. So, I started by putting the sauce in a silicone loaf pan that I usually use for breads and put the sauce in the freezer.

Jim thought I was making bricks. I took these "bricks" out of the pan. The silicone pans are so slick, the frozen block just pops right out. I then put them in a Food Saver bag and sealed them up nice and tidy.

It is important to label the finished product. I am sure that if I don't, I would pull out one of these blocks thinking it was a yummy loaf of banana bread and be surprised to find it to be a yummy block of spaghetti sauce.

Interupted Blog Time

I was so looking forward to getting on here and talking about some things. I can't even really remember all that I wanted to say...oh yeah, had to do with cooking. Yes, cooking...the thing I rarely do. I wanted to share the steps I went through to make some awesome spaghetti sauce and how I preserved it, etc. Jim thought I was a bit out of my mind the other day when I was taking pictures of all the steps I was going through. Life is not dull at my house!! I can always find something to do to make Jim wonder if I have totally lost it.

So, ends up, I get the pictures uploaded to my home computer...that's all, couldn't get any farther in the process since other things came up. Ryan came in my room (I was still in bed when he got home from school) and told me that Jim said I could sleep until 6 o'clock and then we were going out for fish. It was nearly 4 o'clock and I thought it was odd that we were going out that late. So, I got up and checked with Jim, we had reservations for 6 o'clock, so I really couldn't stay in bed that long. So, I showered and got ready, the uploaded the pictures and got my new profile picture for Facebook. Out the door we went. By the time we got home, I was ready to go back to bed. I know it sounds like a lot of sleep, but a lot of the time in bed I was reading and not sleeping. I am addicted to reading so I do it a lot when I really should be sleeping. (I had just finished my run of nights, so I needed sleep)

So, the blog will have to wait even longer, because I got a call at 6 AM asking me to work at St. Mary's because 2 of the three nurses scheduled to work were sick. Of course, I could not say "no". So, here I am, not at home posting pictures to my blog, just talking about it. I hope to get some time to get the photos up and to finish one measly scrapbook page to also post on here. If I post stuff that I get done, it won't look like I do nothing but read and sleep!!

Happy Saturday...my niece celebrates her 34th birthday today. It seems like only yesterday when I was waiting to hear her news. Happy Birthday, LeAnn.

I Am Confused

I like to think that I am computer savvy enough to pretty much figure out anything. Well, either I am not, or things are just getting too complex for my overtaxed brain. I guess I can use the excuse that I am just coming off the night shift. Yeah, that's it, there is my excuse.