"Think something of beauty..."
3 years ago
Waterfront Romance
Friday, our church youth sponsored a Parent’s Night Out, which basically involves the youth and their leaders watching children for the evening. Tom and I took advantage of this opportunity and went downtown for the evening. We dined outside on the waterfront while the sun set over the Cape Fear River, and followed up with ice cream at Kilwin’s.
Harper was asleep by the time we got back, so we got to extend our evening by cuddling on the couch watching a movie. I love my Harper, but I cherish these date nights with my husband.
Sunday Studs
Here are my boys, reading the Sunday paper. Or, if you want to get technical, one is reading the Sunday paper and the other is tearing pages and tossing them on the floor. But I can dream, can’t I?
All Grown Up…
My little boy is all grown up. We got his haircut, because it was getting so long. He’s gotten his haircut before, but just enough to take off the mullet. This time, we requested the hairstylist bring on the clippers!
Our little boy looks so grown up now!
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Kind of Useful…
So, if you are reading this at my actual blog site (www.hillidaa.blogspot.com) you may have noticed a little ad space down beneath the flickr pics. I thought I should explain myself. There is a site called www.swagbucks.com which rewards you in "Swag Bucks" for using their website as a search engine, instead of say, Google.com. What is nice is that you can redeem these internet dollars for real, tangible objects. Many of these prizes are useless (at least in my humble opinion – I no longer have an interest in stickers and movie posters) but they also offer gift cards to places like Amazon.com and will put money into your PayPal account. It can take up to a month to earn enough internet dollars for these things, but I figure it's money I didn't have before. (Family & friends – you may be receiving gifts from Amazon.com this year.)
The only catch that I've found so far is that when you do a search, the "Sponsored Results" that show up at the top in Yahoo and Google searches are scattered in with the real results on Swagbucks. This is okay when you are searching for something like "Best Buy" but annoying when you are looking for "leak in power steering line." There's a bunch of other stuff you can do for more internet monies, but the search is the easiest.
Anyways, all this to say that if you check it out and are considering signing up, use the link on the blog. I get extra internet monies for that and then I can buy you nicer things. If you aren't interested, well, um… I guess just don't click on the link. That seems pretty easy J
Sixth Grade Flashback
Tom is taking an Intro Biology course. The assignments, readings, and coursework could be taken from a 6th grade science class! His current assignment is to experiment with growing kidney beans in Styrofoam cups, half of which are fed Coke instead of water. He gets to photo document this process since the course is online.
While I am appalled that we are having to pay for him to take this course (oh, if only he could have tested out of it!) at least it’ll be an easy A!
I’ve Given Up…
I've given up on politics. The general hypocrisy, idiocy and ignorance that abound in politics today is more than I can stand.
I've seen new articles online about tragic murders and commentators, instead of lamenting the murders, find a way to blame republicans or democrats, Bush or Obama. There are enormous numbers of people who confuse "freedom of religion" with "freedom of MY religion," and then spout intolerance and hate. People who truly believe God hates people, not just sin and use that to further their political agenda.
Political pundits? While I know that intelligent, calm debates do not attract the media, why must the least intelligent and angry persons rule the air? The nonsense you hear from anyone in front of a camera or microphone makes me cringe. The worst is people who use these pundits as a source of their understanding of a topic. When I watch Jon Stewart, I have a good laugh, and if I feel so compelled by any topic, I find a RELIABLE SOURCE to examine the information further. Pundits are NOT a reliable source!
A recent Newsweek poll (and this is a marketing research poll, not a convenience sample from their website) shows that roughly 24% of people believe that Obama is a Muslim. A subsequent article suggests that we are more willing to believe false information if it is regarding a person who we perceive to be different from ourselves. It's too bad the media can't focus on how politicians are not that different from ourselves, like that celebrity magazine with the feature "They're just like us!" Maybe then we would be more willing to seek out the truth and use that to form our opinions. Wishful thinking, I know.
Protesters are more interested in hollering at the top of their lungs (physically and metaphorically) that examining the outcomes of the protest. Does your "peaceful protest" cause more harm than good? Then STOP.
Okay, enough whining for today. But if you ask me what my thoughts are on the political topic du jour, now you know why I'll look at you blankly.
Long Lost Friends
The weekend before Labor Day, I celebrate some long lost friends. I hadn’t seen Betty since before Harper was born, and had never met her boyfriend, Hansel. I’ve seen Erin much more recently (last month) but even a month without seeing a close friend feel long lost indeed.
But hurrah, we finally all got together in Wilmington, to enjoy the beaches, downtown, and most of all each other’s company. And like it often is with close friends, it felt like hardly a day had passed. We slipped into jokes and routines with ease, which, I must admit, made it all the more difficult to see everyone leave.
I can’t wait to see everyone again!
Okra, version 1.0
So, never having had okra before, I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that I didn’t want to fry it. Browsing through comments on allrecipes.com frightened me somewhat – though praising a recipe, people would say something along the lines of “… and it doesn’t have that “slime” normally associated with okra!” Quite the backhanded compliment, it seemed.
However, I was dedicated to using the okra. I used all of it in one recipe, just in case I didn’t care for it, I didn’t have to find more ways to use it that I wouldn’t eat.
What you see here is simply called “okra & tomatoes” and in addition to the obvious ingredients, has green pepper, onions, and a few slices of bacon. I served it over brown rice, over the suggestion of several of the recipes commenter's.
The recipe was good, but I’m not sure that I would go out of my way to buy okra just yet. But if I get it in another veggie basket, I think I’ll know what to do with it.
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