Joys In My Life

This salad is a modified version of what is in one of my favorite cookbooks - "Clean Start" .  They lightly cook some of these veggies in the salad and serve it warm, but I really liked it like this raw and I had daikon radishes available and not regular radishes. Dressing 1 Tablespoon olive oil 1 Tablespoon rice wine vinegar 2 Tablespoons orange juice 1 Tablespoon lime juice 1 Tablespoon fresh chopped dill 1/16 teaspoon Xanthan gum Salad 2 cups pea shoots - chop in a few big pieces to make it easier to eat 1/2 red onion, diced 1/2 cup diced daikon radish 1 carrot, diced 1/2 cup sliced snow peas 2 avocados, diced 1 cup cooked chick peas Mix the dressing first and let it sit while you assemble the rest of the salad.  Mix all the salad ingredients together and put in large salad bowls to serve.  I put the dressing on the salad in the serving bowls and any leftover salad can be stored in the fridge with the dressing on the side. For non-vegetaria...

I'm getting very excited about going back to school.  I'm working on all my pre-work activities:  financial aid forms, reading assignments and I have to write a personal biography with a picture.  I'm working hard to try to get more organized with my time and my priorities in order to prepare me for the increased pressure on my time between work, home and school.  Marcia's Time Mgmt Purpose Pack is really helping me and I might try to take one of her courses in the next month to ensure I know what I need to be doing. It also looks like DH may be keeping his job at the new company that is acquiring the one he currently works for.  The sale goes through on June 30 (this week!) and they will have an announcement on who is staying, what their new roles and responsibilites are, which ones are being let go and which ones will have temporary assignments at the new company.  He had a phone call on Thursday with someone at the new company, who led him t...

I'm going to do today's update based on the pictures I downloaded from my camera, so this will be very random. DH is an amazing cook.  I have no idea how he comes up with it.  Here's our dinner pics from last Thursday night. And here's how he put it all together on a salad.  The chicken is here somewhere.  And yes that is grilled pineapple, and a mix of grilled chick peas, onions, garlic and red peppers. Our daughter loves to take pictures and she took some around the house the other day and I thought they were really good.  Here are a few of them.  This one is in our sun room. So is this.  This is on the bookshelf in the sun room.  The middle jade piece Tom brought back from his trip to China a few years ago with the same EMBA program I'm about to do.  The others we bought in the States. This is in our hallway downstairs As we all know, naps with the boys has become hard to get to happen, so sometimes they just f...

This week was Phoebe's first week off school for the summer.  Hopefully this week won't be an omen of what's to come for the rest of summer vacation.  It was a very interesting and eventful week: The boys had their first dentist visit.  Phoebe and I had our regular cleanings that day too.  The boys did well and I think they are on their way to understanding we go to the dentist every 6 months and it's easy and fun. Tommy broke a window in the living room the one evening.  He through a sippy cup at the window and broke the first pane of a double-paned window.  We have it taped up until I can find out the best solution to get it fixed.  My neighbor across the street had one of her boys break a window a few months ago.  I'm going to ask her who she had fix it, but she's out of town for a few days. Phoebe fractured her baby toe on her right foot that same evening.  She fell when she was playing.  She had X-rays that confirmed a fracture...

I got a great picture of the boys Friday morning before we went to the pediatrician for their 3 year checkup.  I will admit to bribing them with M&Ms to get a good photo.  Who would have thought that day they drove me insane with how crazy they were because of lack of sleep!  They have been going to bed early now.  They used to go to bed at 7PM.  Now they are ready for bed by 5:30 - 6PM.  It's crazy, but the past two nights, they have fallen asleep right away, thanks to the blackout curtains we bought at Walmart.  They might not be napping; however, bedtime is happening and they are getting back to being pleasant again during the day. Update from the appointment is that Tommy is 3' 2 1/2" and almost 35 lbs.  Liam is 3' 1/2" and almost 28 lbs.  All is healthy and their development is on target.  Now as long as they keep sleeping, they will continue to be happy too.

Something I've been struggling with since the boys were born is whether or not I should go back to work.  After Phoebe was born, I didn't wrestle with that decision.  It was pretty much assumed I'd go back to work and I did with no questions in my head.  Having the boys and now that Phoebe is older and seems to need me more to talk about tween issues, I've questioned if I should stop working to be more available for the kids. Recently, I've come to terms with being back at work, and I'm glad to know that I am working for right now.  I still have the struggle of the balance of work vs. family life, but some things have happened recently that have made me OK with it.  My DH might not have a job sometime after June 30th.  The company he works for is being sold on this day.  Our health benefits are all currently with his job and it's nice to know that I could call up my HR department at a moment's notice and sign up for health benefits at my work.  ...

So the boys have been out of cribs and the sleeping is not going so well.  Naps are pretty much non-existent and they fall asleep pretty late, although they do stay in their room, just playing until they drop.  When one of them wakes up in the morning, they wake up the other one whether they were ready or not. This would never happen in crib days, as they couldn't poke each other, just yell at each other which would take awhile before the one asleep would notice.  It was time though.  They are three years old already and Tom's one sister needed one of the cribs as she's due any day now.  Here they are falling asleep at night finally. And a rare day that they napped in the afternoon I am working on picking out a bunk bed set that comes apart to make two twin beds, but now this is good, as you can see Liam can't even stay in a bed.  I frequently find him on the floor.  The beds I'm looking at also have bed rails built in.  I also want to g...

My mother's necklace we ordered for my Mother's Day present came in this past week.  It was from Posh Mommy .  Their birthdays are on the back.  I love the script font used and everything.  I've always wanted something like this, so I'm very happy and will wear it with pride!!!

I've fallen in love with the show "The Big Bang Theory".  Amy's character and relationship with Sheldon is one of the reasons why.  It may seem hard to believe, but my mother can attest, growing up, I was Amy's character.  Socially inept, very bright and bad taste in clothes, LOL.  I wasn't in neuroscience, but I was in electrical engineering, so what's the difference?  I do love Star Trek too, which is more Sheldon-like.  I find a lot of nostalgia for my youth in watching this show, but the other characters are still a lot like the statisticians I work with every day.  We're all pretty geeky around here.  I got the boys and Phoebe to watch Star Trek the Next Generation the other day with me.  I was trying to get them to say Jean-Luc Picard.  Didn't happen, but they liked the show.  There is hope for them yet.  The boys did see a small red planet in a book the other day and said, "That's Mars!"  Oh yes, my lit...