Conversations with LMS

Friday night was our ward Christmas party.

Mr. M came home from work, we ate a quick dinner, then headed to the church.

Since we didn't have a chance to talk much during dinner Mr. M and I were talking about what had happened during the day. LMS kept asking us to turn up the radio and stop talking because she wanted to listen to the Christmas music playing.

As we pulled into the parking lot, she said "do what this song says mommy and daddy".

We stopped talking and heard "Silent Night" playing.

:)

at the ward activity

Forced down time

I had a nasty cold the last two weeks and it really knocked me out. I've had to force myself not to run around doing my usual activities. 10 years of feeling like crap got me in the habit of getting stuff done, even when I wasn't feeling good. A week of not feeling good and several more days of feeling horrible made me realize I have to stop and take it easy.

This is not easy for me to do: Christmas is rapidly approaching, I have church responsibilities (our RS Christmas activity was Tuesday night and the ward activity was Friday night), there is so much I "need" to be doing.

Late Tuesday morning I made the call to one of my counselors and told her I was too sick to go to our RS Christmas Get-To-Know-You activity (bringing together sisters from 3 wards means we had to plan an activity for December, even though we didn't have much time to do so).  I felt especially bad about calling in sick since my other counselor and my secretary were both out sick on Sunday (and I should have been too). But I felt so much better after making that call- just getting rid of the stress. I'm very grateful I have great counselors who took care of everything so I didn't have to worry about it (they're feeling better, at least).  It was also a good exercise in letting go and not being a control freak, like I tend to be.

I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday laying on the couch, catching up on some tv shows. I also got to organize all my bookmarked webpages and update my recipes in Plan to Eat, which I've been meaning to do for awhile now.

This morning I managed to go for a short run, which went really well. My knee didn't hurt (the physical therapy is helping!) and I didn't cough up a lung, despite the cold temps. I was really surprised that my throat and lungs reacted as well as they did. I'm encouraged at my prospects for the half marathon (3 weeks from this morning!).

Now that I'm finally feeling better, I'm actually being quite productive- I'll have some projects to share soon.

Messy squirrels

I've mentioned before that we have lots of oak trees on our property, and therefore we also have lots of squirrels. Several of the squirrels like sitting on the porch rail to eat the acorns.

The favored spot:

(notice the newly cleaned and stained wood)

The squirrels sure are messy though:

And I think they're fattening up for winter. The debris they leave is increasing every day.

Do you have messy critters around?

Decorated Front Door

Not too long ago I saw a super-cute front door here, and once I accepted that I was done working on the porch and door till spring, I created my own version.

Cheri used a bright red wreath from Target, but I was afraid it would clash too much with the blue door, so I bought the natural version (on sale!) and a star tree topper. After removing the spring thing from the bottom, I carefully wedged the star into the wreath, hung it on a wreath hanger, and hung that on the front door.

To finish off the look, I cut the phrase (from Matthew 2:2) with my Silhouette and stuck it to the door. I usually buy my vinyl from ExpressionsVinyl.com, but if they don't have what I'm looking for I'll buy from SilhouetteAmerica.com. When I did our Happy Camper shirts half the vinyl came from Expressions and half from Silhouette because of color availability and price.

I also installed our flag pole and hung Christmas lights.

I love it!

My upcoming half marathon

won't be quite what I hoped.

I had hoped for a decent time after training properly for it.

Unfortunately, I hurt my knee before I even got a chance to start my official training plan. I finally started physical therapy last week and my physical therapist is confident I can complete the race.

Last week I was able to do some running and walking without too many problems, but this week I've got a nasty cold and can barely keep from hacking up a lung, let alone spend time on the treadmill.

With the race three and a half weeks away, I guess I'm going with the "better to under-train than over-train" school of thought. My goal is to not get picked up for going too slow- if you can't keep up a certain pace, they won't let you finish.

New life for a tired front door

  Here's our front door. The natural wood color just doesn't go with the rest of the house. It stands out, and not in a good way.

If you look closer you can see that not only does the door not match the rest of the house, but the varnish is worn off and the wood is not in great shape.

 Can you see the fuzzing of the exposed wood fibers? Wood is not supposed to do that. Apparently the previous owners were a little too enthusiastic with the powerwasher.

One of the projects on our list of things to do before it got too cold was to make the door look a lot nicer.

The first thing I did was sand all the fuzzies off. So much better! 

Then I primed all that exposed wood.

I had originally planned on painting the side window panels a dark blue/black to match the shutters. Once I primed it though, I really liked the white look and changed my plan. I also realized that board under the door needs to be primed and painted as well. Not sure how I missed that one...

I painted the door blue. I LOVE the color, but I'm not convinced it works with the slightly pinkish siding. I'm leaving it for now, though.  

Then I painted the side panels white, and since I had the paint out I went ahead and painted the columns and the rest of the wood trim on the porch.  The rails are vinyl, but the columns are wood. I'm thinking the previous owners did a quick and dirty fix on the porch railings before putting the house on the market. I was only able to do one coat of paint before the cold weather moved in for good. I kept hoping the weather would warm up enough for me to get a second coat on, but it never did, so I just peeled off my frog tape and put out my Christmas decorations.

In the process of painting the columns, I pulled off the navy trim pieces. For some odd reason, woodpeckers LOVE the navy wood trim and pecked holes in two of the columns, one of them repeatedly. I bought some PVC trim (maybe the woodpeckers won't like it?) and will try out some plastic fusion spray paint on it before attaching the trim to the columns in the spring.

I also stained the decking after Mr M powerwashed it.

And sometime this winter, if I have nothing else to do (hah!), I'll bring in the porch swing and paint it.

Before:

After:

What do you think of the door color?

Conversations with LMS

Little Miss Sunshine was doing her usual "delay fish" routine tonight. After another trip downstairs to pee (which she has to do downstairs, not upstairs), she slowly headed back upstairs.

After a minute, I said, "get in bed".

We heard her say "uuuhhh" from her spot on the stairs.

As she finished climbing the stairs she asked, "Mommy, how do you know these things?"

"Because mommies just know these things".

Hee hee. Little does she know that I did the very same thing when I was young. Amazing how we think our parents don't notice anything....

Dining room to Library progress photos

When we were looking at houses to buy, one of the things we wanted was a formal dining room. We didn't want  it for a dining room- we wanted a library :)

We got what we wanted, and here's what it looked like before we bought it. Apparently I didn't take any other pics after we moved in, which is too bad, since the stacks of books were quite impressive.

Another view of the library from before we bought the house.

I finally got around to painting the library not too long ago. I went with a sand color, which is a bit grayer than the hideous builders beige that STILL (12 years after being built) covers almost all the walls (and the ceilings) in this house. My mission this winter is  to paint every surface in this house :)

These pics show the top half of the room painted, with the bottom still the original color. The new paint highlighted how grungy the old paint has gotten.

The ceiling is now white, the wall sand, and all the trim got a white touch up as well.

I still need to hang the picture on the wall and recover the brown chair (and finish the blue chair) and fix the top of the sewing table since I'm not loving the lacy tablecloth look. I also need to figure out what to do about curtains. I haven't yet found any fabric I love, so the windows are still unadorned.

See that empty wall? That's where the built in shelves will be for all our books. The piano is a recent craigslist acquisition- we got a great deal on it! We also need to move a cupboard into the room to put the musical instruments in so they aren't sitting in one of the chairs.

I will hopefully get the bookshelves built by Christmas, but in the meantime I wanted to show the progress I've made so far.

Farmhouse dining table

We have a perfectly serviceable dining table that we bought 8 or 9 years ago at a scratch and dent sale for $125. It came with 5 chairs, not the usual 4 or 6, but we weren't complaining. We had a real dining table instead of the glorified cardtable (a square, tile-topped wood table) that we had bought when we first got married. That table was actually a bit big for our first apartment, which tells you how small that was, but when we went to language school and lived in a real house that had an actual dining room, the table looked rather pathetic.

However, I've never really liked the finish of the table- a bit orangey for my taste, and the carving looks sloppy IMO. Ana White posted some plans for a farmhouse table awhile ago and I realized I could make us a new dining table. I'd already figured out what I wanted to do with the old one when it was replaced, but I couldn't do that till we had a new dining table.

Can I tell you how much I like Ana White's site and the myriad plans that are available? And it's so easy to alter them to fit your needs. The original farmhouse table plans are for an 8 foot table. We don't have room in our eat-in kitchen for an 8 foot table, so I cut the plans down to 6 feet long and started building.

Here's the frame:

After sanding the wood puttied screw holes, I primered the frame and then painted it a dark gray. I then pained a couple coats of white on top of that in preparation for some distressing.

I attached the table top, then did lots of sanding. LOTS of sanding. There was enough difference in the height of each board that the palm sander couldn't handle it all. We ended up getting a belt sander (which we needed anyway), which made fairly quick work of leveling the surface. After sanding with a rough sanding belt I switched it for a smoother sanding belt and sanded the whole thing again. After that, I used the palm sander again, and by then it was nice and smooth.

Table top on:

I fixed the wood putty, sanded it again, then applied wood conditioner and stain.
I was a little apprehensive about using a black stain, but I think it turned out pretty good.

Table top stained:

But, I made the mistake of using the palm sander to lightly sand between coats of polycrylic:

When they say 'lightly sand', they mean lightly sand by hand. Somehow I missed that one...
The spot wouldn't take more stain, and it was pretty obvious, so it had to be fixed.

So, I stripped the table top:

And sanded it again before re-staining and applying polycrylic properly:

I built it downstairs in the basement and Mr M helped me carry it outside for the sanding, but this table weighs a TON. I knew there was no way we could get it upstairs by ourselves. Luckily our home teachers were willing to help us move it, so it was much more manageable.

The finished table:

The chairs do detract from it, but that's just because I haven't had time to refinish them yet. I'll be painting the wood and changing the fabric and finally getting rid of the vinyl that's been covering the seats since LMS started eating solid food. Not sure why I wanted to protect the upholstery, but there you go.

I'll also be building these benches to go on the sides. The three chairs on the sides will find homes in other parts of the house.

Next up:

Pictures of what I did with the old dining table.

Gluten free frog eye salad, part 3: recipe with egg free option

I've been meaning to post my gluten free frog eye salad for awhile, but with our added food restrictions I haven't seen the point in making it (we can't eat the marshmallows, cool whip, tapioca pearls, or eggs, and the oranges are on the iffy list) and I couldn't quite remember how I'd done it before- it's been a year and a half since I last made it. Mr M convinced me to fudge things a bit for Thanksgiving so I decided to go ahead and make some frog eye salad so I could finally post the recipe.

I've been able to eat small amounts of corn products without too many problems, so I was willing to fudge most of the ingredients, but I wasn't willing to eat eggs. I tried eating some last month and it was not pleasant. So I tried making the custard with a flax egg, and it actually turned out pretty good. While it's not as pretty as an egg custard, it tastes very similar to what I remember it tasting like, and Mr M agreed.

Gluten free, Egg free Frog Eye Salad

EF Custard

½ c sugar

1 tbl fine brown rice flour (I used Authentic Foods)

¼ tsp salt

1 cup pineapple juice drained from 20 oz can of pineapple that you use later

1 flax egg (1 tbl ground flax seed + 3 tbl boiling water, let sit for a few minutes to thicken) or use 1 egg if you're not egg free, beat the egg well

2 tsp lemon juice

Whisk together dry ingredients then whisk in pineapple juice and flax egg. Heat over medium heat , stirring occasionally. Bring to boil and continue to cook for a few more minutes till thickened. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Allow to cool, it will “gel” as it cools, so stir occasionally.

The custard as it cools and gels. The brown flecks are bits of ground flax. 

GF “acini de pepe”

1.5 c large tapioca pearls

Bring water to boil in a large saucepan/pot. Whisk in tapioca pearls.

Stir occasionally and cook till most of the pearls are translucent (about 17 min).

Turn off heat and let sit for another 5 minutes or so till the pearls have only small bits of white left in the centers. Carefully dump tapioca into a fine mesh sieve and gently rinse the gel from around the pearls (I had to do it in three batches because my sieve isn’t big enough to hold it all).

rinsing the tapioca pearls

Allow pearls to cool in bowl.

Bring it all together

1 20 oz can crushed pineapple (juice drained and used in custard)

2 11 oz cans mandarin oranges, drained (juice can be used in custard if needed to make 1 cup)

1.5 c mini marshmallows

8 oz tub cool whip

Once the custard and tapioca are cool, gently fold together.

Carefully add pineapple, oranges, marshmallows, coconut, and cool whip and mix together. Refrigerate overnight.

Enjoy!
My previous posts on gluten free frog eye salad are here and here.

If you make it, let me know how it turns out for you!

This recipe is gluten free, egg free, peanut free, nut free, coconut free, and is also free of tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, sorghum, and shellfish. Always check labels before using to make sure the ingredients and/or manufacturing conditions haven't been changed.

Conversations with LMS

The other day I was sorting through LMS' clothes, pulling out things that were too small or off-season.

I commented " you have waaay too many clothes LMS."  (she really does- she doesn't wear half of what's in her closet)

She asked "why do you keep buying me new clothes then?" (in my defense, I didn't buy all the clothes in her closet- a lot of them are hand-me-downs)

Me: "because I see cute outfits and think how cute you'll look in them." 


Yeah, not a great excuse to buy clothes.

My new mantra: LMS does NOT need new clothes.  

Except for Christmas pjs and a Christmas dress...  :)

2011 Turkey Trot

Thursday Mr M, LMS and I ran the Turkey Trot that LMS and I did last year.

Awhile ago I bought LMS some running clothes to try to encourage her to run and be excited about it. You can find exercise clothes for girls at Target for fairly reasonable prices. I found a cute pink non-cotton shirt, a running skirt, and running tights. Isn't she adorable?

This year LMS was old enough to participate in the half mile kids' run. Here she is, already to go.

Lined up at the start line.

 Heading back after the turnaround.

 I'm tired, mommy.

I don't blame her. The kids' run is a quarter mile out and a quarter mile back. The problem is that going out is down hill and coming back is uphill. Needless to say, LMS didn't enjoy the return trip, but she finished! This is the second race she's done. The first one was almost three years ago and was only 25 yards :)

Mr M hasn't been doing much running lately so he walked and pushed LMS in the jogger in the 5k, finishing in 47:24. I ran the race and then walked back and finished again with them.

I finished in 32:44, which is faster than I thought I did. I thought I finished in the 33 or 34 minute range. I was only 16 seconds slower than the Halloween race last month, which is really good, since I had to stop and walk more on this race because my knee was bothering me.

About a month and a half ago I tripped going up the stairs and whacked my kneecap on the edge of one of the stairs (which really, really hurt) so I've been taking it easy since then. Sometimes it hurts when I walk, but this was the first time it hurt when I ran. And it didn't hurt in an I-can-ignore-this way, it was definitely in an I'm-going-to-have-to-go-to-the-doctor-and-get-this-checked-out way. I was hoping to avoid this, especially since I've got a half marathon to run in a month and a half. Hopefully it won't be too bad.

I'm proud of Mr M for finishing his first 5k (and doing it while pushing the stroller!) and of LMS for finishing her half mile run.

Hope we can keep up this tradition :)

What we ate for Thanksgiving dinner

Mr M convinced me to relax some of our food restrictions for Thanksgiving. Not sure that's going to happen again- my intestines aren't too happy. We were gluten, egg, and soy free, but we still ate potatoes, tapioca, corn and corn products, and sorghum.

I bought the ham from the Honey Baked Ham store and the gravy was Imagine brand. Both are gluten free. Mr M really wanted a HB Ham so we went that route instead of the traditional turkey this year. While pricey, there was zero stress when it came to preparing it. You let it sit on the counter for a half hour or so before you eat, and then you eat it. Sooo simple! I did purchase a turkey from the grocery store because it was a great price, but it's sitting in the freezer- we'll probably have it for Christmas.

The mashed potatoes had coconut milk and Earth Balance soy free "butter" in them.

I made the cranberry pear sauce using this recipe, and there was no questionable ingredients in it.

I made the frog eye salad using my MIL's recipe that I adapted to be more within our limits- tapioca pearls instead of acini de pepe pasta and a flax egg instead of a real egg in the custard- I'll post the recipe soon now that I have it (finally) figured out.

The oranges in the jello are still on the iffy list, but I sure do like them :)

I made the cornbread and sausage stuffing mix using this recipe. I had planned on making my own corn bread from scratch, but I couldn't find gluten free cornmeal so I used Bob's Redmill gluten free cornbread mix. I've used it before and it's super easy to make, but the mix also contains sorghum flour, which makes my intestines really unhappy. Better the sorghum than gluten contamination, though.

I was going to do some green veggies- salad or something, but we eat lots of vegetables and we decided to take a break for the day :) Do olives count as veggies? Mr M insisted that Thanksgiving wouldn't be complete without some olives.

We also had blueberry pie and vanilla ice cream and  a pumpkin bread trifle. Yummy! I found the blueberry pie recipe here and the vanilla ice cream recipe was adapted from this recipe.

I used this recipe for the pumpkin bread trifle, which isn't super attractive-looking, but did taste good.

Everything tasted yummy, and while my intestines weren't super happy, my stomach and throat didn't bother me (if I'd eaten eggs or gluten they would have), so I'm not complaining too much. If it was just my intestines, I might fudge things more often. Unfortunately, the mental fog comes back if I eat foods that don't agree with me. So it's probably a good thing I don't fudge on a regular basis. I'll have to decide if it's worth it do this again come Christmas. It does make meal planning easier, and as long as we don't go anywhere LMS and I can be close to the bathroom. Hmmmm....