Are you Hungry? In the mood for some Asian Cuisine?

Last night for dinner I made Gingered Pepper Steak and some Korean Pancakes. Both turned out REALLY good.

If you're interested in the recipes, they're on my food blog.

GINGERED PEPPER STEAK

KOREAN PANCAKES

Slow Cooking Thursday!

All my slow cooking recipes are now online and starting today, I will add all the recipes shared weekly to my online del.icio.us site too. So if you're wanting to find ALL the slow cooked recipes that have been shared since the first SLOW COOKING THURSDAY, here is the link for you.

Don't forget to add your name to Mr Linky and a link back to your SCT post so others can come by and see your recipe too.

Mixed Berry Crumble

Ingredients
2 12 oz. bags frozen mixed berries
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup cranberry juice cocktail
1/4 cup quick cooking tapioca
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup sugar
For Crumble Topping:
1 cup baking mix
3/4 cup Kashi cereal
1 cup almond biscotti (about 5 biscotti cookies), crushed
2 Tbsp. butter, melted

Directions
1. In a 4- or 5-quart slow cooker stir together mixed berries, dried cranberries, cranberry juice, tapioca, cinnamon, and sugar.

2. Cover and cook on high setting 2 to 4 hours or until fruit is tender.

3. FOR CRUMBLE TOPPING: Preheat oven to 350F. Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil and set aside.

4. In a medium bowl, combine all crumble top ingredients. Spread out on prepared baking sheet and bake for 12 to 18 minutes or until crisp and golden.

5. To serve, sprinkle crumble topping over warm berry mixture. Makes 8 servings.

Bed please!!!

Image credit: Sheryl's Originals

I'm literally forcing my eyes open today. I started my muscle relaxants last night and woke up this morning with my neck feeling MUCH better but the drowsiness is still here, I am one of those people where if medication says "MAY cause drowsiness", to me it means it "WILL cause MAJOR drowsiness and you WILL be using toothpicks on your eyelids to keep them open". I'm already wishing it was bed time and keep imagining laying down, pulling the covers over my weary body and drifting off into a nice cozy slumber. *sigh* Thank you all for the prayers, I can feel them at work and I truly appreciate every single one of you.


It's been a while since I've shared sky photos so I have 2 for you today.....I was outside with the kids admiring the Lemon Tree again when I took them.


Now did you know that the Lemon Tree has thorns and they are SHARP???? I had no clue until I accidentally brushed up against it with my arm and YIKES that hurt.

Are those not huge thorns? I thought only rose bushes had them but I was clearly mistaken, I can't tell you how much this little tree has educated me.

The lemons are all gone, I've made the lemon bars and some lemonade, the next ones that fall off the tree will be used in a Lemon Meringue Pie - Curt's favorite. Thank you all for the tip on the issue of Taste of Home Magazine with all the lemon recipes, I went out and bought it yesterday so I have plenty to choose from.

I've slacked off on my reading, this neck pain was not helping either because it hurt to look down at the book or to even keep it in one position for longer than a few minutes, but I miss my books.

I'm hoping to get back into them this week, we'll see how this goes, I don't want to push things just because I feel a little better.

The next book on my list to read is Katherine the Virgin Widow by Jean Plaidy, can't wait.

Well I wish I could stay and chat more but I'm drowsy and sore still so I'm going to fix lunch for Nicholas and I and see about taking a short nap.

Have a wonderful wednesday and please don't forget about the Slow Cooking Thursday tomorrow.

Blessings,

I'm off to the doctors!

That neck/shoulder muscle pain is just not going away so I'm off to the doctors this morning.

Please say a prayer that it's in fact just a pulled muscle and not something more that would require surgery or anything....last thing I need is that before my trip to Africa in a few weeks.

Will let you all know how it goes when I return.

Blessings,


UPDATE: I just got back from the doctors, it is indeed a muscle sprain so he prescribed muscle relaxants and pain medication for it. He also told me to go out and buy a heating pad and use it too. The problem is that I pulled the muscle while sleeping but then aggravated it by doing the move, then the rides at the carnival and then the wii LOL So, now it's time to heal up, he said it should take another week or so for this to completely heal up.

Thank you all for the prayers, I'm thankful that even though it's painful, it's not something that will require surgery. Now I just have to pray for a quick recovery from it so that I can enjoy my trip to Africa :)

Home of the Brave!

I can't tell you enough how this movie touched me and affected me in ways that I never thought possible.

Look, I'm a military wife, I live on a military base and I'm immersed in this way of life daily, I see the comings and goings, the deployments, the hard truths of what it does to the family left behind and the troops going overseas....but for some reason, when you actually SEE what the war in Iraq does to the soldiers when they return home.....it affects you and it opens your eyes to a lot.

Home of the Brave is the story of 4 army soldiers in Iraq and right off the bat you are thrown into the middle of an ambush on a convoy. I don't know, or actually I DO know that they're highly trained for things like this, but to sit there and watch it happen it broke my heart, it made me cry and it made me want to grab them all and bring them to me, to a safe place. I honestly don't know how I would ever react if I was in that moment.


So you watch the ambush and you watch the repercussions of it, deaths and injuries and then you watch them return home and try to go back to a normal life, to a life that is not constantly watching over your shoulders to make sure there's no sniper hiding in the shadows, or a young child with a weapon in his hand trying to kill you, or the noises and the screams.

This movie was so well done and it has HUGE names attached to it......Samuel L. Jackson being one, Jessica Biel, Brian Presley, Curtis Jackson, Chad Michael Murray and even Christina Ricci.

I can't begin to tell you how affected I am by this movie, I mean I've told you already but there just no words to describe it, I'm stuck between anger and repulsion for what goes on over there and heart wrenching pain for our soldiers.

One thing this movie showed me is that most of the American public does NOT know what it's like for the soldiers once they return home. Like I said, I'm a military wife and I know some of it but not to the extent of how bad it is, how hard it is for them, it's certainly educational and it's made me aware of what they may be thinking, feeling or wanting.

I urge you to please please watch Home of the Brave if you haven't already.

According to an Army report, one soldier out of three returning from Iraq suffers from mental problems. The proportion of personnel affected is the highest of all recent conflicts, from Bosnia to Afghanistan. "In Iraq, there's no front line," explains Colonel Charles Hoge in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Eighty to eight-five percent of personnel have been witnesses or participants in a traumatizing act: enemy combat, death of an adversary, IED attacks.

"In Vietnam, there were secure zones where people could recuperate," indicates Steve Robinson, director of an association that advocates for veterans in an interview with the Washington Post. "That doesn't happen in Iraq; every place is a war zone."

Do you want to see what I wake up to every morning?

I can count on there being at least one lemon on the ground, just sitting there waiting for the little hands in this house to run out barefoot, scoop it up and rush it back inside, yelling with excited voices "another one fell".

I don't think the kids EVER get tired of seeing the lemons on the ground, they still get so excited over it.

I guess we'll have a lot more of these happy days ahead, look at all those beauties still hanging on the branches? And then there's tons of tiny green ones growing already. Just love it.

This morning we have a bit of a cloudy sky, not that it matters, the temperatures have been in the upper 80's for the past two weeks. In this place we have seasons........Hot or Hot as Heck! Pick one LOL


Now I want to tell you about something really exciting. You know Karon Phillips Goodman right? I mean, if you don't you SHOULD by now, I talk about her books all the time, remember this one?

Well she's starting a new project on her blog and it's something she's really excited about and I think that a lot of us will be too. Go on over and take a look and tell her that I sent you....let me know what you think ok?

She's got a great post today on Grace to Laugh. Her description of her husband looking for the camera he couldn't find was hilarious and made me think of my own husband.

Perfect example....it was 11pm one night and I was already fast asleep. He was up late and comes walking into the room, asks where his PT uniform is because he had to be up at 4am for mandatory military exercise.

I lay there and think "seriously, why didn't you look for this before?". So I quietly answer that I have no clue where his shorts are, I did all the laundry and they were NOT in the hamper. He starts stomping around and throwing out the usual "what did YOU do with it, YOU lost them and I need them" (Yes, because I had nothing better to do so I went out in HIS shorts and did some exercise LOL). I stay in bed a little longer and finally get up to help him search for HIS shorts which I know for a fact I did not see or touch or misplace.
After about 30 minutes I give up and tell him that obviously he must have left them in his backpack....he quickly tells me that is not true, he wouldn't do that.

Would you believe that they were INDEED in there? LOL

Anyway, I urge you to go on over to Karon's blog and join in on her new project, she's such an amazing Christian writer and I would love for her blog to have as many visitors as some of ours do.

If you're looking for ideas for your weekly menus, check out Laura's blog "I'm an Organizing Junkie".

My menu is also on there and there's yummy new recipes I'm trying this week, like....Lemon Linguine Shrimp Salad, Deli Monte Cristos, Garlic Chicken and Gravy. I'm already hungry.


With that I'm out of here, I have laundry to do and floors to mop. Hope you're all having a wonderful Monday.

God Bless,