Fixed

It's FIXED!

So here are the pictures I wanted to share yesterday.

This is my pretty cake.

It smelled so totally awesome while it was baking.

And then a couple of hours later I made frosting.

This is a salted caramel cake with 

salted caramel frosting.

You are supposed to also make some caramel topping

and drizzle it on.

Yeah, right.

I can't taste it for another hour.

But I'm excited to give it a try,

I used garbonzo bean flour for the first time.

Which is awesome,

because I would love to teach Nancy how

to bake things Reid can eat,

but most recipes have almond flour and that

leaves Nancy out!

Fingers crossed...

And here's a terrible picture of my fish.

It was so delicious!

These were tiny frozen tilapia fillets

so I made three of them.

I could have stopped at 2.

This morning I washed all my makeup brushes

and little egg shaped sponges.

The Roomba did her thing.

The dishwasher is running.

I was going to do laundry, but Kyle is home and

doing some more welding and he uses my outlet

that my dryer plugs into...

so no dryer for me today.

Instead I'm going to run to Aldi and see if

they have any sprouted bread today.

Sometimes they do,

sometimes they don't.

If they don't, I'm going to give baking it a try.

I have a recipe that uses the bread machine.

I have an old one I bought used a million

years ago. I rescued it from my

"going to Goodwill" pile a couple

of weeks ago, but if this doesn't work out,

then back into the pile it goes.

And I might actually make it to Goodwill!

(Don't hold your breath...)

***************************************************

Update:

Yum.

Thursday...

Kyle came home last night.

He has a bunch of stuff to do for

the cattle facility that he needs to be

here to do. (Welding and stuff...)

I ate oatmeal for breakfast yesterday

and I felt GREAT all day.

I worked out.

I did lots of prep cooking stuff.

It was a good day.

And I felt like oatmeal again today.

So I had some.

But I ate my only banana yesterday.

So today I had cranberries and apple.

I totally should have cooked the apples

in my air fryer first,

because it was weird.

But filling.

And I feel good.

But I was MISSING my okra!

So for lunch today I had breakfast.

Just ate a big bowl of okra and eggs.

It was AWESOME!

(I might have enjoyed it more for lunch

than I do for breakfast!)

Yesterday I had FISH!

I don't like fish.

But my podcast (Trim Healthy)

talks a lot about "What if you could..."

and "I'm that girl who ..."

Well.
I took a picture.
But Blogger is broken.
Bummer!

502. That’s an error.

The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.

Please try again in 30 seconds. 

That’s all we know.

Well, that was useful.

Anyhow.
I made "Flaky Parmesan Tilapia" and put it
over a giant bowl of sauted zucchini.
It was a LOT of food and it was YUMMY!

And I just made a BEAUTIFUL caramel cake.
And I took a picture!
And you'll just have to use your imagination.

(Yup, I closed Blogger and reopened it...
still broken...)

Anyhow.
Again.
I also made a yummy pot of chili for dinner.
Using my awesome black beans.
And yummy ground beef from the new cows.
It was really good and kind of perfect on a chilly evening.

Maybe I'll come back later and try to do pictures.
Or not.

Hot Sox

Mom made me some SOX!

They are so beautiful!

And I got them in the mail just in time!

Today it is Cold.

(Sorry Aunt Karen, cold is relative...)

It was 85 here on Monday.

Right now, at noon, it is 57.

That's as good as its likely to get.

But I don't care, because my feet are warm!

Check out the detail!

Aren't they gorgeous?

They worked great in my boots.

And kept my feet nice and comfy

while I went out to feed.

Thanks Mom!!!!!

Yesterday it was a little chilly...

But I was disorganized and forgot my sox.

I also forgot food.

I ate my okra and eggs, and then 3 hours later,

I was ready to EAT!

But I was out "doing nothing".

Enter quick emergency rations.

It was about 1/4 of a green apple, 

6 or 7 cashew halves,

a couple of dried cranberries

and a couple of tiny cubes of cheese.

The cranberries had sugar in them, but literally

so little that I wasn't going to skip them.

I love cranberries!

(I had unsweetened dried cranberries in my

bowl of oatmeal this morning... YUM!)

A little fat from the nuts and cheese

and just enough carb from the tiny bit of apple

to be perfect.

I wouldn't eat it everyday,

but I was amazed how quickly it helped me

not "need" to stop for fast food.

Today, I'm staying home.

Right now I have a pound of dry black beans

in my pressure cooker with some onion,

garlic and chicken stock.

In 30 minutes I'll have 6 or 7 cups of cooked

black beans that I will put in freezer zippies.

I use a LOT of black beans and these are

a gazillion times yummier than canned.

Next I'm putting a couple of trays of bacon

in the oven for Bakin' Bacon.

Rod likes bacon with his eggs in the morning.

And then I'll whip up another batch of

Cowboy Cookie Dough Balls.

A delicious no bake with almonds and

chocolate chips that we both LOVE.

It's spring break down here, so there aren't any

students flying at the flight school this week,

so Rod has the week off from his 2nd job.

Which means he'll be home in 3 hours instead of 8.

So I'll probably also pull some beef out of the 

freezer and get working on some yummy chili.

All while wearing my snuggly sox.

Tuesday. Nothing to do today.

This morning starting out... weird.

I woke up around 5 to make sure Rod

had food to take to work with him.

And then I headed back to bed.

Usually I kind of doze off and on

and get up around 8 to workout.

This time I went back to SLEEP.

Like HARD sleep.

And a very specific, very detailed,

very annoying dream.

Teaching.

In a new site.

With no white board.

And electronics that wouldn't work.

And a 2 year old.

And a deaf woman.

And someone stole my car.

And, and, and, and, and.

It went on and on and on!

After all these terrible things happened,

I thought, you know, it's March in Florida

so home office sends out auditors

*cuz who doesn't want to come to Florida

in March...

I'll bet MONEY I had an auditor this morning.

And I'm probably fired.

And with that, my eyes flew open and I was awake.

And it was 9:18!!!!!!!!

My poor dogs!

(They had been in their crates for MANY hours...)

Which meant no workout this morning.

But I did get everybody fed.

Just as I was getting up, the sisters texted,

one of them left her book bag.

I offered to drop it off for them.

Fed the animals,

fed me,

got cleaned up,

dragged the garbage can out to the street,

realized I missed the trash guys,

dragged the garbage can back to the house,

drove to the wrong apartment,

(the elders live there now...)

drove to the right apartment,

drove in to town to Walmart to pick up

the dishwasher soap I forgot yesterday,

drove further into town to pick up 200# horse feed,

drove back to the house,

remembered I was supposed to stop at town hall

to sign off on the minutes I typed up

last week (they were approved last night at

the regular town council meeting...).

Drove to town hall, signed, visited,

and came home to unload the feed and 

head into the house to eat a bowl of leftovers.

Whew!

Good thing I didn't have anything to do today!

Hahahahaha.

Last Minute Decisions

We signed up to feed the sister missionaries tonight.

They are coming at 5:30.

That is an hour and 20 minutes from now.

I just am not feeling the whole cooking thing.

Did some grocery shopping after spending

a couple of hours at town hall.

I picked up a tray of chicken breasts.

Mostly because, although we have LOTS of

meat, it is all frozen solid.

When I got on facebook to see what I could

find, there was a post called

24 things to make with chicken.

Sweet!

The 2nd one down is Pineapple Ginger Chicken.

I remember seeing a can of pineapple 

chunks in juice in my pantry.

And I always keep ginger in the fridge

because I use it in my drink.

Score!

Now to put some brown and wild rice in the

pressure cooker and get that going...

Dinner is figured out!

(Except I forgot to buy a bag of ice.

The ice maker in our fancy new fridge...

doesn't work anymore.)

I need to call Samsung and get it fixed while

it is still under warranty.

But not today.

Today I'm making chicken.

And no bake peanut butter bars with a 

chocolate topping.

I made them last month for the elders

and they took them all home with them.

Guess I'd better get off the couch and

get into the kitchen.

Happy Monday!

Nice Ride!

It was sunny this morning.

74 degrees with a light breeze.

Beautiful!

We decided to saddle up the horses and

head into the woods for a little ride.

We actually didn't stop here.

This picture is from our last ride.

Somehow, neither one of us took a picture today!

THAT's never happened before.

lol.

I'm wearing the exact same clothes though.

I always wear pink in the woods.

Makes me easier to see.

However, I HAVE trimmed down a little

in the month since this was taken.

So hopefully I look a little better

on my horse.

AND.....

I mounted with NO difficulty!

That's what a month of thigh workouts 

will do for you.

Ta da!

Of course, I only got on once.

Rod, ever the gentleman, opened and closed

our gate, both times, so I didn't have to keep

getting on and off.

And he has a nice set of mounting steps

to use, since HIS horse will stand still. (ish)

Stiller than mine, anyway.

Andy lines all up nice and neat and then

just as you swing over, he swings away.

And laughs.

For reals.

(Cue Lucy and the football...)

It was a nice, 45 minute ride.

We only met 3 bikes, our neighbors,

and they were just coming out as we

were getting ready to go in.

Murray and his wife and a friend.

Murray is the president of the BMBA

(Brevard Mountain Bike Association)

We use "Mountain Bike" pretty loosely around here.

He has been talking up "horse etiquette", so when

they saw us, they stopped, got off, and he took off

his helmet (the others didn't) so they were

recognizable as human.

We told them thank you, and we appreciated it,

but our particular horses were used to bikes and

they were fine.

It was a nice interaction.

Because we went out a little later,

nobody else was on the trails.

Which is always nice.

And now we have a bunch of "Saturday Stuff"

to do. But it was a GREAT START!

Thanks for suggesting it, my darling!

Love you!

Last Day! (Almost)

I've been working at the town hall for 3 weeks.

Well, not really, since 2 weeks ago I was

mostly out of town all week.

But I DID go in on Wed and Fri.

So there's that.

Anyhow.

Today is my last "official" day.

Except for Monday.

Debby is coming back tomorrow and

will absolutely be in the office on Sunday,

but I'll "swing by" on Monday to catch

her up on what I did, where I put it,

that sort of thing.

And, of course, she has to go back up

for another week a little later,

but I don't know when exactly.

I'm amazed at how tired this has made me!

I used to work TWO basically FULL TIME JOBS

for heaven's sake!

This is an average of 4.5 hours a day.

But it's taking a toll.

Maybe because 2 weeks ago I was kind out

out of town every day.

(It has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with

the fact that I'm OLD! Shut up those of you

who are older and work WAY harder than me...

ahem, Rod, Sondra and Nancy!)

Whatever.

Pansy.

Anyhow.

I'm excited to be done.

I have a little bit of stuff to do there today,

so I won't be there for HOURS and HOURS.

Just need to make the week's deposit.

And... something else I can't think of 

at this moment.

Probably nothing, because yesterday was

really productive.

Anyhow.

Again.

I'm happy.

And I'm not going in until 11.

So there's that.

(Yesterday I had to be there at 9 because

the receptionist had a dr appt...)

UGH!

I don't get up that early anymore.

Except when I'm teaching.

And then I'm in a hotel and NOBODY sleeps

late in a hotel.

As evidenced by the noise directly outside my door!

So.

Next week I'll catch everybody up on the 

goings on at the ranch.

We have another vet day on the 14th.

(Happy Birthday Nancy!)

Kyle has been re-vamping everything to make

it more user-friendly per the vet and the cowboy's

suggestions. (They were AWESOME and gave him

lots of excellent advice based on years of experience.)

He's home today.

Making 8 more heavy duty gate hinges.

WAY thicker steel.

Beefier (ha) in every way.

Also take longer.

Anyhow.

Again.

I've fed the animals,

done my morning workout,

fed myself,

and now I can see Andy in his stall 

waiting to be let out into the pasture again.

And then I'm going to hit the showers

and head off to work. (in an hour...)

Have a GREAT WEEKEND!