Today Lori and I are meeting at the hut to finish trimming out our room at the GS Hut.  The girls picked a bright, cheerful shade of green.  Lori and Maria, my co-leader, chose fun curtains a few weeks back.  We are also going to prime the cabinets today so they can be painted later.  The girls want to put their hand prints on them.  I think it will look so nice when it is done.  The building has a cold, industrial feel and the perk up is needed.

Yesterday I cancelled our account at Booksfree.com.  I was originally a Paperspine customer, for about two years.  After they decided to stop the service, I switched to Booksfree.  I miss Paperspine.  We were 12 at a time customers.  Booksfree took forever, up to 3 weeks to get books to us and the same time to receive them.  We just weren't able to justify the cost of the service with such a long travel time.  Paperspine was never more than a week, usually 4 days.  I'm sad to lose this resource, since books are so limited here.  I guess we can invest the money we were spending at the Coas used book store in Cruces.

I have been eating veggie enchiladas for the last 3 days and needed a change.  So yesterday I made a lasagna with fresh noodles.   It turned out wonderful.  I was a little nervous about the noodles, since I do not have a pasta maker, but they turned out fine.  My main concern was that they would be too thick.  We are still without meat, so it was vegetarian.  The meat wasn't missed.

Our freezer was unplugged last weekend.  We lost everything.  It wasn't full, but the loss was still significant.  I had traded some flour for a chicken and had put the chicken in our regular freezer.  Suddenly it was the only meat in the house.  I roasted it using the method Alice Waters has in her book "The Art of Simple Food".  It was amazing.  I put lots of Herbs de Provence under the skin.  After that, I made a soup and the meat was gone.

I am a huge fan of Michael Pollan.  I have to say his writing has had a great impact on my daily life.  I read the Young Readers version to my kids and am now facing my own Omnivore's Dilemma.  Callie is now very involved in the foods coming into the house.  As far as she is concerned, there is no good meat in town.  I agree with her, but I just wasn't prepared.  So we are suddenly vegetarian, at least until we can find a nice piece of humanly raised, pastured meat.  Dairy is an issue as well.  Luckily we have our own eggs.

We have been vegan before, a whole year, so it's not like we don't know what to make.  We are now buying Silk for our coffee, Horizon is the only organic milk in town and it is too much like a regular factory farm for it to be an alternative.  I am making a Chile Rellenos casserole today, yum.  I already had some organic, pastured, raw cheese in the fridge; doesn't everybody?   I've located a ham for Easter, so no worries there.  My husband is fine with the lack of meat, but draws the line at his Easter ham.

I miss St Lukes.  It seems nothing is easy and when you think you have found something that works there is a bump in the road.  I don't like to talk much about religion.  People have such strong and varied beliefs.  As I try and educate my children I have found the choice of church a truly important one.  Things my husband and I could overlook seem to mean more when they are being taught to your children.

My sister's birthday was on Saturday.  She's thirty now.  Almost all my siblings are in there thirty's now.  Jimmy is still in his twenty's, but it still seems weird.

Homeschool has completely taken over my life.  I should get a full time job so I can take a break.  I only wish I was kidding.

There isn't much going on outside of that.  I have put off finishing knitting my blanket, maybe this week.  I am reading Wicked.  It is pretty good.  We no longer have Paperspine, since they went out of business, and are getting our books from Booksfree.  I have never been sadder to see a company close than this one; not even my own.  I much prefered Paperspine, but oh well.

I'm not feeling like my usual self this year.  It's Dec 3rd and all my decorations are up and the storage boxes are back in the garage.  Usually the storage bins would sit around waiting to be slowly emptied, then waiting to be taken out.  The whole job wouldn't be completed until 1 to 2 weeks before the big day, and even then there might be storage boxes still in my room.  The whole thing would leave me feeling a little drained because of all the chaos.

I have my son to thank for the change, daughter helped too.  Brent wanted to bring the boxes in on Thanksgiving.  He convinced us to let him set up one of the trees and put the lights on.  The next day we unloaded all the boxes.  It took us the rest of the weekend to put everything it it's place, but we ended the weekend out of holiday leftovers and fully decorated.  A success as far as I was concerned.  Despite my feelings, Brent would have liked it done a little faster.

My son loves pie, especially pumpkin pie.  I have been attempting to perfect a pumpkin pie cake and succeeded this weekend.  It was almost gone before I remembered to take a picture of it.  The taste and texture is surprisingly similar to pumpkin pie.  There is no frosting, just homemade, lightly sweetened whipped cream, though store bought could be substituted.  Cream cheese frosting would be delicious, making it a much richer cake.  I've just added the recipe to Nibbledish.

The other morning I was wasting time farming on Facebook while my hubby was watching ESPN, when I heard something one of the many announcers said.  "The secret to happiness is forgetfulness".  I laughed.  The odd thing; that has been stuck in my head over a week now.  When I catch myself fretting over things I can't control or change, there it is.  Then I thought, what if I just forgot?  Easier said than done, I know.  But it is a helpful reminder to put the things out of your head that cause unsightly frown lines when there is nothing you can do about them.  Happiness, maybe not, but I know less worry would make a better life.  I guess ESPN isn't completely useless after all.  Who knew?

This Wednesday was our first meeting on the new night.  There were a lot of firsts.  It was one of the best meetings we have had.  The girls were getting along well and were really excited about the things we were planning.  Maria, my new co-leader, fits the group really well.  She had a lot of exciting ideas about upcoming activities and we worked really well together.  We are working on a troop Interest Project, one on plays,  and there are some small groups and individuals doing Interest Projects too (jewelry, dance & reading).  We have our plan for Halloween down and are heading into our fall fundraiser.  I have high hopes for this year.

Well, this morning I did my part. Brent looked at the sad, brown bananas and informed me it was bread time. I have a sneaky suspicion that they purposely stop eating them leaving enough for a recipe. Today there were enough for two recipe's, yeah double batch.

A week ago last Sunday, I broke one of my wisdom teeth. Yes, it hurts. Tomorrow I am scheduled to get them removed. After being on pain killers for a week, I am actually looking forward to it, which I think was their plan all along. I have felt tired, dizzy and generally a little stupid. I can't imagine taking pain medication regularly.