Arizona Sewing Guild Meeting

My dress was finished in time. I love a good goal!

Burnt the chicken soup typing out the recipe

arg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With humility and grace only a seasoned wife could muster I poured the 2 gallons of soup down the disposal I'm glad at least it seem to enjoy it!

(Chicken Soup My Way)

Clear off your counters
Fix a pot of Tea (my favorite is Green tea loose leaf, I am worth it and sugar in the raw)
Music on (Today I listened to :The sound track from "fig fish")I like sound tracks from my favorite movies because it keeps my mind imagining and not "stinkin thinkin"
Get your fixings out. Set out your food processor and or knife and cutting board.
this is what I did today........ Large batch.
Wash up as you go.

Bay leaf, Basil, thyme and Sea Salt
4 cans 12.5 oz chicken breasts (open and set aside, do not drain)
3- 32 oz chicken broth (I use Pacific brand it is a organic free range no MSG product)
Parsnips raw 2-3 lbs. (they look like a white carrot)
4 lbs mini carrots (Costco has them cheaper and organic)
Celery on whole stalk (Choose a stalk with little to no leaves: do not separate: Cut first, Discard first cut the dried ends,: Now on the horizon parallel to you, toward the end of stalk hold vertical and cut down all but through several times lay horizontal again slice until and inch or so before the but of the stalk NOW WASH, and run your hands through to separated and remove strings.
one yellow onion (diced, cut in half, lay a half flat slice parallel to you thinly, now slice vertically to you)
Garlic cloves 1/4 cup twice a year I buy a braid of garlic at Costco and i remove all the hulls an stuff a canning jar full then I fill the jar with olive oil. It keeps in the refer and is easily available to me when I need it. Now you too can buy it already done but you ll pay big bucks for it or have mediocre oil in it.
Flour 1cup I use spelt my family is not to well of with wheat, I buy the spelt ground or I buy the whole grain and grind it myself. My mother in law gave me the old family electric grist mill.
4 cups apx. Egg noodles fine looks like straw
Butter 1/4 lb.

Pour a cup of tea

Use food processor chop all root veggies except garlic and onion. Set aside

Chop onion and press garlic onto your chopped onions. Set aside

Open all cans and broth cryo packs. Set aside.


Heat pan first
then: Melt butter them remove the whey with a spoon tilting the pot helps.
Add onion and garlic till translucent.
add in root veggies and cover and"sweat them out" see the moisture accumulate at the bottom of the pot. That is liquid gold.
When tender add the flour sprinkle it on a little at a time to cover coat the veggies.
This all happens quickly as it gets gummy you add the broth and the chicken with its broth. Break up the chicken.
Stir and cook
Sea Salt now about a table spoon Iodine is good stuff!
Seasoning of herbs is added now
boil add
noodles and cook about 30 min.


Watch your pot I burned mine doing this blog ARG!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mommas Apron

I have my Mommas apron an today.
When I was four I sat in the back of Her cafe on an old day bed and played. Momma would always cook with a smile on her face and sweat on her brow. I think it must of pleased her to see all the folks enjoy her fixings. She grew to weary over time and her talents failed her in her later years. She was just all used up. So little made her smile or should I say she could smile at such little things like my daughters glowing eyes or the sight of her own grown children gathered around her on those few rare occasions.

My memories of her are few that are sweet and so today making my soup I cry thinking if only she could of had another life one that might of been rich to her with kindness in her own childhood.

I think she would smile at me making her old chicken soup, just like she did to serve to so many. Some day I will write those stories so full of the terrors and woe but today I think Ill just smile and wipe the sweat off my brow, enjoy the smell of this chicken soup.

friendships season life

May I say a great big thank you to my friend Jaye for helping me with this blog set up!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome Michelle, I look forward to the hard copy of you novel.

It takes full circle of friends to see the difference each life makes. On an Island the isolation leaves the void as a scar to the soul. How many villagers have effected me even in this short morning offering of thanks.

Chicken soup (homemade) on the menu today. I use parsnips to give it that old time flavor.
My sister had shoulder surgery, another friend has an arm in a cast and a surgery ahead. I heard still another has a house that is recovering a weekend of vomiting and illness. Wouldn't it be grand to have a soup pot like the old fable of "stone soup". When I make chicken soup I always feel like I wish I sould make 5 gallens. If I fell into a cracker factory and found favor with the owners I could pass out saltines too, and Ritz by the rolls. Don't ya just hate how hard they are to open now.

The Serengeti needs to be raked and the mounds removed now that the sun has dried the mowing remains from last week. My chariot needs a good wash and the pollen from my big old tree needs to be blown out of the drive. In all of this I too must rest and get the sewing machine a humming on the dress I am making for myself. It seems to be crying out in distress to me "dont forget me"! Summer school registration tonight with Steve doing a late class for work, a trip to Scottsdale to deliver soup and pick up those all too important and expensive hormones.
My day is full and so I am off.

I think I have it worked out now

This is the back ground my husband made for my business.

My Role as Wife, the silent business partner,

Today the awareness was re-awakened within me that I am a business partner here.
With the kids in school now and a sabbatical from all the kids therapy interventions it is as if I am coming out of the comma of doing to much. I succeeded at home school but with a very great price to our families financial success. God has certainly been generous to us and we have not done without, yet we are living to the top of our income. I remember the days when I had the accounts receivables and expenses in my cross hairs and could just by a whim re-allocate funds to meet additional principle or chose a major purchase debt free without hitting our savings. I used Quicken for years and then it fell into a ruin. I was consumed when Becca came home from Russia so ill. Then the 22 months of therapy all three disciplines for 22+months before I was able to breath. We sold our home of 16 years when the freeway stopped in our backyard (literally). Moved into this house drove 22 miles one way for three years for Becca's therapy 2-3 times a week. During that time so many surgeries for the endomitriosis. Steve took over the finances but not really not like I knew how to.
We decided to bring another child out of the orphanages. Dan was conceived in our hearts. then 911 stopped us from getting him out. Thanking God that we were not on one of those ill fated flights. We had a new son in December. All of his illnesses and surgeries.
Motorola closing the pant and a year of unemployment. Some of our adoption expences were covered through Motorola adoption reinbursement. That saved us. The car accident that put me out or several months. Knee surgery this year
It is amazing that we are afloat!
I feel a little panicked this morning thinking about what I might do as a business (of our family) to help our family, to lighten my husbands load.
We went from a few years till full vested retirement, to 1/3 of our income. My dear husband pulling in side work keeps the tally close. I have been in such a blur. I see now about the "crisis" see speaks and the pressure he must feel as the full time provider of funding for this fine estate.
I want to be more effective and so now that I have 5 more hours in the day to do so the urgency is before me. We are not a young couple now. Thankfully we have kept disciplin not to get into debt. Our cars are paid for and we keep up the maintaince ourselves.
Meal planning and prep, efficiency and maybe I can get rested up enough to do a little E=Bay selling. My jewelry I'm told is a gold mine. I may go to some local nail salons. That really intimidates me! The Gallery in pine is a far trip now and it barely paid for the gas. I did enjoy the trips up though.
I must spend all the less and keep doing the lunches and meals. Thank goodness I'm a good cook and homemaker these skills have and do make a lot of difference. I'll sew mor for the kids too. I have a lot of fabric. I remember the "little house on the prairie" of my childhood. How much I greatly respected that womon and her industry. She was so beautiful in her dignity.
I'm beautiful too. I'm strong like her in my character. Its like a challenge to battle my courage is welled up within me. I must use my own intelligence to partake in this career and succeed.
We women of the home are the warriors of our families. I stand beside Steve and fight through the many voices into the path that meets the needs at hand.
Now I wake up to see that by the grace of God our family finances were preserved during the drought that was my absence from the accounting. We are O.K.
I am needed in so many ways I am vital.

I like writing again.

It feals good to write again.
So strange to write out here in space. It takes a village to raise a child and here I feel like speaking to the night sky.
You are the stars that shine back and illuminate the darkness. I know the Master Creater of all of this vast expance is here with and for me, us. It is warming to find that the village is not deserted. Asleep lie most of the souls in homes, huts that have walls so thick that a nights cry could hardly be heard wheather there own or it be anothers. Out here though it is like the stars are not the only thing that hears or sees my heart, our hearts.
My mind is so full of the possibilities of all of the lives under the glow of the stars.
Each life is so great a light to all of those around them. Wheather a light to the right or the error, I hope that I might never hinder another.
I almost got the quilt tied. I had to miss the baby shower to keep safe all those around that might be suseptable to the croup. The kids had a birthday party to cancel today and the parents rescheduled it. They (my kids) were moved by the kindness of the child not to have his party without them.
I found an old blog that a dear friend helped me start in Oct. of 2005. I start slow. This extra 5 hours a day is amazing! I have so many things undone here at the house.
We got the net hung that I made for the stuffed animals, and the plate sheves put on the wall, they were misplaced due to new book sheves I found on Cregs list. I am still sorting through all the coriculum and stuff. It is so nice to get boxes unloaded and books sorted and sewing/art supplies sorted too.

A friend came and gifted my daughter with a homemade old fationed doll house. Sweet of her to do so. It was buil for her child by her and the childs grandfather. Her grown daughter wanted my child to have it. I find that so touching.

Twin beds are for children

Two nights bedside with Becca out on the couch. Twin beds a re great for little bodies. I slept close to Dan to keep abreast of his breathing. He is great during the day and last night water drinks calmed the cough. The steroid shot made a world of difference.
The ER was at the hospital at Dobson and the 60. The little fellow was gasping and listless I just stuck him in a wheel chair and pushed him in. He has a history of asthma and also a thought deformity that he is currently on a wait list to see a plastic surgeon for at saint Joseph hosp.
They are in a process of ruling out Ushers syndrome. It is a condition where children go progessivly deaf and blind and it concludes in their early teen. I spent a week in a deep whole and now I dont let myself go there. "well what if not" is the motto I think of while I continue with the hearing and vision check and speech evals. and etc.........
They took a quick history as I spoke calmly to him My heart was pumping hard. I missed the turn and took Alma school the road a mile before the one the hospital is on. I opened the Honda up full throttled. I love the punch I can get out of that car. I had to put it in park just prior to the freeway entrence and give him a squirt of albuteral. There was this man ahead of me stopped at the light who looked as concerned and panicked as I felt. I had the flasher on. The traffic just would not go fast enough for me.

Yesterday Dan came up to Steve (my husband) and asked him for some duct tape to fix a toy and I just started to cry. Steve was not sure if I was laughing or crying. I was so amazed at how beautiful a sweet a little boy could be. Times like this make you fall in love deeper and deeper with those around you.

Thanks for your comments and support.