Quinoa dinner

Here's the finished product of the Jessica Seinfeld dish.  The only difference, if I didn't mention it in the last post about this, is that I add carrots, and extra clove of garlic, a 1/2 tsp. extra of salt, and I use Canola oil.  It's wonderful.  It works as a side dish as well as the main course.  Tonight I'm teaming it up with baked sweet potato and a lush lovely leaf lettuce salad.  How's that for alliteration?  We've been eating not all together healthily lately so I'm attempting ammends with our bodies. 

Later this evening we've got some Kirby guy coming out to do an hour and a half presentation - and free carpet shampoo - at our home.  Sigh.  On the upside, I really have been meaning to call to get our carpets shampooed, so at least one of the rooms will be done.  For FREE!

We're going to the state fair sometime this week too.  That'll be fun.  We went last year to see Weird Al Yankovic - excellent.  I enjoy seeing the knitted and quilted things.  When we were kids, my sibs and I would get so excited for Machinery Hill.  We'd climb up into the big huge tractors and feel like we were on top of the world.  I did anyway. 

On Saturday afternoon we brought a bunch of things down to A's new place.  Then we took her out for her birthday.  I love their apartment - even the white walls.  I put everything in its place, even though a lot of it was in bags.  It looked so cozy at night with the lamp next to the chair and Curt's old end table.  They don't have much furniture so the rattan chair with the very cushy thick cushion was nice to get. 

Speaking of homes, tomorrow will be our tenth anniversary of moving into this house.  I wish we wouldn't have taken down the rails on the stairway.  Sigh.  But now we have a fireplace, that's a nice addition.  And lights in the ceiling in the north (read: dark) facing living room.  And non-pink carpet...lol  And we updated the basement bigtime.  Our Oak tree Oakie is five this month, at least his anniversary with us is the 5th.  I adore that tree.  It looks like a glass of lemon lime Kool-Aid. 

Getting tired.  Better go rest before I move everything out of the living room for Mr. Shampoo.  Bye

More

So I knew I'd forget things while I was playing catch up with my posting yesterday.  I just didn't think I'd forget about things from yesterday!  That's gettin' bad.  >:-( 

Biggest cuke so far.

I was just out in my make-shift garden admiring my four cukes.  It's so dang exciting to see something growing.  Specially the thing you actually planted!  HA!  

Now down here to the left are some zinnias.  In 2009 I planted some multi colored -from seed- and they, all 20 of them, turned out pink.   Same thing this year.  Different seeds, brand, store that I bought them from.  Same color.  All of them.  Grrrr.  Could it actually be "something in the water"?  LOL  They're still fun to watch bloom, but I love them so much because there's normally a barrage of color with them.  Hmmm.  A mystery to solve.  



Zinnias - allegedly multi colored. 



My clearance priced flowers.  Luv that!  It goes perfectly there with all the wicker.



WOW! That was a long break!

Jese Louise.  Been a long time since I rock and rolled...blogwise anyway.  I've been putting it off because there are so many things going on, big things, that I didn't know where to start. 

Chronologically speaking, the day after my last post, D-day no less (chuckle), I became a grandma!  I have a little grandson, very beautiful, Jackson.  My hubby calls him Waldo and now that the baby's lost quite a bit of hair, the name has morphed into Baldo Waldo.  Alliteration at its finest, no?  ;-)  My daughter is doing well.  They did the waterbirth thing.  No drugs.  Yay A!  Good job. 

Two day old Jackson William.  On a grandma-knitted blankie.  :-)

He looks so deep in thought doesn't he?  lol  He's got a very lusty cry and isn't shy about using it.  He's sooo fun to kiss and gobble.  And he's too little to get away!  Ha HA!  (I've got a tween boy who isn't too fond of that anymore.)

Gramps and Waldo

Uncle E and Baby J

 

"Hmmm, what do I do with him now?" 
So anyway, that's been taking up a lot of our time.  In a good way.  E and I also went on a mini vacation out to Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, and the gorgeous Blackhills. SIGH. 

The king surveying his land.  Badlands Ntl. Park.

A boy and his world.

Minnesota pride. 

The McNasty Bros. at a saloon in 1880 Town.  The saloon was real, except that they rented out costumes.  Couldn't get E to go down that road. 

E and Cornelius outside of the Corn Palace. 

It felt so good headin' out on the highway.  Then I heard Runnin' On Empty by Jackson Brown while we were headin' west out on the plains.  GORGEOUS.  That song makes my heart ache even when I'm sitting at home doing dishes - but to have heard it while I was driving out west.  Oh my goodness.  It was a holy experience!  LOL 

E and a new friend, a barn kitty.

1880 Town again.  I don't know if he was supposed to get up in that thing, but it was too cool to pass up.

There were a bunch of props from Dances With Wolves at the 1880 Town too.  That was neat to see.  I grew up on Laura Ingalls Wilder books, so this was specially excellent.  It was like communing with her family in a way.  E's favorite part was the Badlands.  He climbed all over those things.  They were made of clay or something similar.  I'd been there a few times before, but didn't remember their consistency.  I'd never heard him so excited about anything before.  "This is GREAT!  I can't BELIEVE how AWESOME this is."  Etc.  It's a bit thrilling to hear your kids happy, know what I mean?  I remember an addage: Give your kids experiences, not things.  In that respect, I had a good mommy day.  :-)  Actually, the trip started out as an idea by hubby for a day trip to Duluth MN, then an overnight.  Then I thought, "Hey, I can just take him to Brookings and DeSmet where the Ingalls lived."  Then hubby jumped in and suggested just headin' all the way out to SD.  I'm so glad too.  This was E's first big trip anywhere.  He'd been across the border into North Dakota for a night and across the border into Wisconsin for a couple nights, but those two places are so much like where we live, it was no big deal.  All this by way of saying hubby had a good daddy day too, since it was his idea in the first place.  :-)  Man I can digress like nobody's business!

On the 2nd day we met someone out at a rest stop.  We had seen their red Corvette the day before at the Corn Palace, and being from Minnesota, we remembered it.  Anyway, I mentioned to them that we had seen their car the day before and it turns out that they live about a mile away from our house in the same town.  Funny--I meet more neighbors on a trip in a different state than I do here at home. 

When we got to Mount Rushmore E talked me into going on a Presidential Tour, a euphemism for a long hike with lots of stairs in extreme heat!  lol  My knees had been hurting for a couple weeks, much worse than usual, but I decided to go.  I'm so glad I did.  It was a beautiful tour.  And it wasn't as long as I'd imagined.  Though it was extremely hot. 

This is at Mount Rushmore on the Presidential Tour, but it reminds me so much of northern California.  Just stunning.  The scent of the pines made my heart leave my body for a few seconds. 

View from a small cavern on the Pres. Tour.

I always wanted to be a cowboy when I was young so needless to say, this was pure heaven.  I hope E enjoyed it as much as I did.  I think he did.  Plus it was just the two of us, so he got the front seat the whole time.  :-)

I still want to take him out to the Rockies.  Glacier, The Grand Tetons, Yellowstone and definitely to Sequoia Ntl. Park. Being out there changes a person.  I don't know how, but it does.  Particularly when they're young.  It's like how the books you read as a child alter you.  So do the places in which you spend time. 

This was the lobby in the Holiday Inn in Rapid City.  We both really liked it, as witnessed by the 11 pics we took of it!  LOL  We were up on the 8th of 9 floors.  Very fun.  Glass elevators to boot. The last time I was at this hotel, I was pregnant with E.