Food Friday!

Today is food Friday. I wanted to talk about two things.
#1 Pintrest. Love it for finding new things to take me out of the boring and into something new. So many of the things posted are healthy. Thank heavens, because it takes a lot of will power to not add the ingredients needed for home made fudge, toffe, twix bars, and samoas, to my grocery list. Pintrest is a great tool for a good home cook.
#2 Mrs. Renfro's Green Salsa. Wow! By chance I picked this up. Normally I just get Pace. It works it's not great or bad. But I am always looking for something new. This is a keeper. I love it. The ingredients are jalapeno's onions vinegar and garlic. And some spices too. I love it, and have been having it on anything I can think of. It was good on grilled cheese, and on a plain tortilla. But it is not kidding when it says hot. It is hot. But if you eat it in moderation and not smother your food in it you should not set your mouth on fire like I did earlier today. ( I was feeling greedy) At most it will be a nice tingling sensation with a little bit of forehead sweat. The salsa is made in Texas and It is only 10 calories per serving! Which is also awesome.
#3 Ok I lied,
 I tried elderberry jelly this week. Fantastic! Also a keeper. The Jelly I tried was from Windmill Farms in Perry Utah. Tasty stuff. Awesome on PB and J.  Just a little bit tart and sweet and it is somewhere in between grapes and cherries as far as flavor is concerned. I  now look forward to my kids unfinished sandwiches these days. It was fantastic on whole wheat toast with fresh goats cheese. Made for an amazing lunch.
I now want an elderberry bush or 7 so I can make my own jelly.

food is awesome!

Best foot forward

Well now that school is over I have decided to kick my workouts up a notch. I have been daily doing weights at home and walking with the boys. I've started by trying to run three or two miles a day. But last Saturday I decided to run the 3 miles straight and walk the rest back. Well I made it three and was like I feel great so I ran the rest of the way home. I am very slow. But my goal is to run six miles three times a week. I am worn out by the end of the day but I am loving how I feel.

photo 1 portfolio

Here is portfolio from my photo 1 class.

Garden Blues

At the beginning of Spring our garden had great potential. But since planting We have come up against several problems.
The Goats and Horse:
                 They will eat anything they can get at. So I did my best to keep plants away from the goats.
               
Children Feeding the goats and or Horse:
                 I swear I have kicked out every child in the surrounding area.
                 The small kids are between the ages 1 and 5 so you can't be to mad most don't know better.
                 The bigger kids just pull out plants. And don't care.
                 Also their parents don't care.
                 And even a few adults have been by, but they mostly pick the fruit.

Rabbits: Seriously this morning I found them munching on the garden.

Heat: It has just been really hot!

So far we have lost:
2 watermelon
3 squash
1 summer squash
4 red cabbage
a row of green onions
handful of carrots


And all the picking of the leaves had slowed the production of fruit from the plants.  I have not even gotten any zucchini yet! It's not like my neighbors haven't been kicking out kids either. Thinking about replacing it all with thorny Berries! Or electrifying a fence. Or creating a series of booby traps...

Anyways, next year the garden will be different. We may only do a porch garden.

Some pictures of the kids cause it is fun to post them

Felix on his bike at the park.

Calvin dressed himself

hanging out with dad.

looking at fish at the waterfall

Playing at the splash park

Calvin and his new bike.

What I have been up to

So I have not had a lot of time to post,

well really I just haven't taken the time to do it. 

We have been very busy around here. 

The boys are growing and being boys

making mud messes and basically getting into everything. 

Justin is working and working and working out.

School is going well. Intro to film is ok. Interesting stuff and I feel like I am learning more about why things are done that way and what they mean etc... but I don't especially love the movies and clips. I really wish we could pick movies to write about. I also feel like there are better examples out there. But I also understand that many of the students taking the class do not watch R movies and or don't really care. So to apease them we watch a lot of ok movies that are really easy to interpret. She also really likes the George Lucas Steven Spielberg generation of movie makers. Which is fine I just think there are many better ones out there and that students should at least be exposed to them at least via movie clips throughout the course. ( we are offered a section after every lesson for feedback I hope the teacher doesn't hate me because I leave lots of it.)

I like my photography class a lot and am learning how to use lightroom. Which is pretty cool. 

This week is the first time we got to play with most of the fun tools. 

It was a black and white assignment. 

I don't think I will use iphoto to manipulate photographs anymore this is awesome!

Oh and I got glasses. So far I love them. And my mom will be happy to know that I am actually wearing them to read and do computer work. 

School and kids

Blah this semester is over. 

I am glad to be done with it. 

I Believe I will have two A's, but my math class... well if I pass I will be REALLY surprised. 

I didn't get above a 70 on any test. But I am totally ok with taking it again. I mean if I had a hard time getting through the material and remembering it all there is no way I would pass the next math course. I always knew I would never work in a math based carrer :) 

I am looking forward to starting Biology, Photography, Typography and Film next week!!! 

We started a new routine yesterday. We are all waking up with Justin. The boys are fine with it so far. a few tears were shed last night because of sleepiness. But now I can have a car when I need durring the day. I am also hoping that  I will have more time to do class work in the evening. We shall see if it works.