Kitchen Discontent: Some New Recipes
For whatever reason, I haven’t been content to make the same old things in the kitchen at night for dinner. I’ve been trying a number of new recipes and have enjoyed most of them. Here’s a few examples:
I picked up a cookbook with Campbell’s Soup recipes which included these:
Each Chicken & Cheese Enchiladas (We both thought it needed a little less of the creamy sauce)
Creamy Ranch Pork Chops and Rice (We fell in love with this one)
Another great source of recipes that I love is Kraft Foods. I subscribe to their Food & Family Magazine and look forward to each issue.
When I got my iphone last month, I downloaded “ifood” which is from Kraft Foods. Some of the recipes we’ve tried from there include:
Foil Pack Chicken Fajita Dinner
Gotta Empanadas Of course, I made this with homemade pie crust.
Southwest Chicken Salad Panini
We’ll probably grill tonight but I wonder what we’ll have tomorrow.
A Week in Our Life: This Week, Our Week
As I said, I’m really interested in documenting our everyday life. And this week, I’m going to concentrate on documenting our life. I’ve read about this project before on Ali’s Blog but this year seems like the perfect time.
It’s also a good week to do it. I really want to capture what life is like now before Cody starts his new job in two weeks. Things are sure to change- our morning, lunch, and after work routines will change at least some. He won’t be next door anymore but around the corner. But lots of things will change over time- our appliances, prices, etc and that part of this project really appeals to the historian in me.
I’ll work on capturing today all week. I’ve already noticed that I’m finding gratitude in the little things. I expect that this project will really help me appreciate our every day normal life. Today’s introit at church talked about meditating on God’s wondrous works. I think about Mr. Haas and how he talks about the marvel in each breath we take. I’m welcoming this opportunity take time to think of all the wonderful things in our lives- the little things we often overlook.
It’s fun to think about all the things I want to document and how to do it. I’ve already noticed though that I’m seeing things I hadn’t thought of that are just a part of everyday life- like being able to see Cody shave while I put on my make-up.
You can read so much more about this project here.
Telling My Story
I haven’t blogged much lately but I have been working to tell my story. I’ve been scrapbooking quite a bit and thinking about scrapbooking even more.
Story. Vision. It’s something I’ve been reflecting on a lot this year. I suppose it really started last year when I read “Within the Frame: The Journey of Photographic Vision” by David DeChumin. I highly recommend this book to photographer and scrapbookers alike. It really made me think about what I want to capture in my own life- through words, photography, and scrapbooking. What is your vision? how can you communicate what you see? Not so much vision as in some grand thing- but your vision of the moment, what is it you want to capture, what is it that evokes emotion in you. . . How can you convey that to others? In the book, he talks alot about how a powerful image needs to evoke emotion and that it takes more to evoke emotion with other people than just when you see your image- you have the reference of having been there. He also talks about capturing the broad and the detail. As I started scrapbooking again this year, I can’t help but think about how much of that carries over to the scrapbook page.
Part of sharing a vision or any story is “why”. After I started Library of Memories, I wrote about “Why” on the forums of my Design Your Life Class (both classes are at Big Picture Scrapbooking). It was in response to a question about journaling the who, what, when, where on scrapbook layouts and was inspired by an assigment in LOM where we idientified the 5 W’s in our layouts. Here’s what I wrote about “Why”:
There are 5 W’s and you left out the really meaningful one- WHY!
What about the connections you see if the photos or the events? To the one you are scrapbooking or perhaps a different time. Why was it a good time? Why did you go there? Why is the one W that really doesn’t fit in a title or on an embellishment. It’s the one that really talks about your mark in this world and your history. It’s the one that truly gives insightful info about the people or the event in the picture. And that’s just skimming the surfaces with why’s.
My project 365 has been another huge inspiration this year. I find it really makes you look at life as if you are the reporter. . . and for me now it’s about sharing my vision of our life.
Then, when I got my new Iphone (Oh I haven’t even told you all that Cody and I both now have Iphones), I started listening to the Paperclipping Roundtable Podcasts and have found several of them to be true gems. One of which was Episode 3, “Ali Edwards on Story”. After listening to that podcast, I picked up the book StoryTellers which I’ve started reading in little bits.
Here’s a few of the layouts I’ve created lately- capturing our story. my story.
PS after I recover from computer issues, I hope to get more of my scrapbook layouts uploaded along with updating my 365 pictures.
Turkey Lurkey Do and Turkey Lurkey Die
Ok, I’m going to ruin this story. . . so that I can warn anyone who may not want to see a dead turkey, you might want to skip the last image in this post. It’s the fourth picture- just the quintessential over the shoulder picture)
Since, you can tell where this story is going, Turkey Season began on April 1st and ended, for us, on April 3rd. Even though it was super short, it has been one of the best! We’ve turkey hunted now for at least five years without much of a clue what we’re doing and no “success”. But, are totally hooked!
Cody hooked up with a Turkey Expert named David. A week before the season started, they went out to the deer lease and scouted. Cody came back more excited than ever for Turkey Season to begin and shared with me all sorts of things he learned. He made arrangements to meet David at the deer lease Thursday and Friday to call turkeys, show us the ropes, etc.
Wednesday evening as we headed to the deer lease, David called to see if we were going to go out the deer lease to “Put a Turkey to Bed”. . . Once he explained what he meant, we did. I snapped this picture of Cody and I hanging out on the tailgate listening for roosting turkeys with my iphone.
My iphone was the only thing I took with me hunting the next couple of days though I didn’t take any shots of us hunting because I didn’t want to move and mess anyone up. We walked a lot, we learned a lot. We started at six in the morning and didn’t stop until early afternoon.
Thursday, we had the amazing experience of watching a hen walk less than 12 feet in front of us down the road while we weren’t in any sort of cover. The hen just walked right on by as David talked to her. She walke dby David, myself, and Cody, then into the woods about 10 feet away from Cody. Too Super Cool!
We met another new Turkey hunter as we caught up with Scottie just after the hen experience. (I grabbed my good camera which was in the truck to capture this image while sitting in the truck).
Despite being super tired and hot, the two experiences together along with all that we were learning, made us so thankful we get to do things like Turkey Hunting. Thursday night, we went back out to “Put a Bird to Bed” though it was really to windy. It was a beautiful night and as the sun went down the stars came out in all their beauty.
Friday was windy and we didn’t hear a turkey all day! But, that didn’t mean the learning stopped. Just an amazing couple of days. You know, folks learn to deer hunt from other folks and I think the same is true of Turkey Hunting which, at least around here, is much more difficult. (Cody and I both recognize the value of leanring more about our hobbies)
Saturday, we went out with Chris and set out to use the knowledge we’d gained. After locating some turkeys with our new owl call, we set up. Chris began calling and sure enough, here came a turkey- the turkey would become Cody’s first.
So, now, officially Cody’s turkey season is over- he can only get one in our one month season. I think we’ll probably go back out there later just to keep learning and gaining experience though. Today on the way home I had to laugh when Cody said that all the talk of his turkey season being over made him start putting May on things instead of April.