Courageous Joy

I know it’s been busy when I’ve not blogged for two whole days. {G} Stacia is in bed, it’s 10:00 p.m. and Mike is still at work - this is his day off :::snort::J Josiah is at work, we watched *The Kid* and now the older boys are finishing up with some *Hogan’s Heroes*. I’ll quickly update the blog.

THURSDAY – We found ourselves at a local park at 9 a.m. THIS is a better time to go to the parks than our typical after lunch time. It has been really hot here…over 100* all week. I think it was 105* one week – at least someone said it was. The kids had the choice of going to the park or the pool on Thursday and they chose the park. I had only had 3 hours of sleep. After the park I went and bought some things that Mike needed for a staff party. Then we headed home and I took a nap. I made a double batch of granola (oh yeah Kristine – still mean to post those recipes). I threw it in the dehydrator – worked well. I do think some mesh screens would make it a bit less messy. {G}I rounded out the day by attending a Heart 2 Heart Mom’s Night Out at a local restaurant. It was a nice break to get out and get to know some new women. I’ve been meaning to attend since Feb and have never been able to break away. I noted I’d not heard from Ray, the mechanic, for 2 days and hoped that meant they were fixing the van.

The bottom part of my dehydrator was cracked during our move. It didn’t bother me to use it but now that I use it almost every day….and I was planning on buying more trays….well I got to thinking it may be time to replace it. It seemed fine for occasional use…but it can’t be safe to have the housing totally unscrewed and cracked. My friend Heather’s husband is a deputy fire chief. I have begun to think that it would be “wrong” for one of Heather’s friends to burn down her home with a defective dehydrator. I’ve begun researching a new one on the internet. The one I have “American Harvest snack master” has worked fine….but I’m using it all the time now and think maybe one with more wattage would be good. I’m not sure. If anyone’s done research I’d love to hear which brand/model you would buy if you could get ANYTHING and which one you’d buy if money were a consideration. {G}

FRIDAY - Got a nice bike ride in this a.m. If I can figure out how to get a ride in tomorrow I will make my goal of 250 miles. The problem will be that the Sr Prot has called a PAC meeting for 9 a.m. tomorrow. I can’t be to upset since my one and only is the culprit who called the meeting.

After working out and showering I drove Jamin over to Ian and Becky’s to water the lawn and flowers. Stacia goes. Zander and Nolan wanted to come. I agreed. I’ll rethink that in the future. Somehow Stacia lost her pacifier. It will be interesting to see where it turns up. The lawn took longer than expected. I read for the first 1 ½ hours….then I got bored and vacuumed (but not their bedroom – I wouldn’t invade their privacy). I read more from *Nourishing Traditions*. I had hoped our library would have a copy but they don’t. I may have to buy the book. The library did have Rodale’s book on natural cooking or some title close to that. They’re sending it to our local branch. I want to buy a good one with basic info on various oils, enzymes etc……Read about enzymes today. Had to laugh that one book said not to cook anything over 105* (a cookbook Becky had) and the other one said nothing over a dry heat of 150*. Both had some great looking recipes in them…..I’m having fun experimenting with new things.

When we returned from watering, I got a call from Ray the mechanic. Seemed the van was “as ready as we can get it”. That wasn’t a good sign. I really did NOT want to drive out to Robert Lee again…..because it sounded like the van was not fixed which means I’ll be going back out again with it as soon as it dies again. Ugh.

I made a quick trip to HEB. The produce manager there has let Adrienne and I buy a case of JAZZ apples for .80 a lb…..and they are on sale for $1.49. They are GREAT apples! Really yummy. We got a case last week or maybe it was earlier this week for $32 and I picked up another case today for $31…..but he said they were a special promotional deal and they won’t have them on a regular basis. I think apple season is waning. I got quite a hankering for artichokes today. I called Heather and asked about the chance of ordering some from the co-op. They come in bags of 4 and there are 10 bags in a case. I know I can’t use a full case but she will take a bag and Adrienne will take a couple of bags so maybe. They were only $1.30 for 4 and they are $1.99 EACH in the grocery store. Good grief I should not update a blog when I’m tired this is starting to sound like the Food Network. :::snort::::

I dehydrated some apples today. I also made a graham cracker crust that was fairly HEALTHY….organic graham crackers with no preservatives etc, maple syrup and a bit of olive oil. I’ll use coconut oil when I get some. Then I made a strawberry pie with it….I had two choices and Jamin told me to choose the easiest. LOL.

Mike and I drove out to Robert Lee. Just as we expected, they did not fix the van. They can’t figure out what is wrong with it. They are fixated on the idea that there is some radio signal or microwave signal from McDonald’s that is scrambling the computer in the van…but then why does it restart???? AND where are these towers? We don’t see any. They installed a BIGGER black data box. This will hold 8 incidents on it. The van was only stopping every week – month…..it did die twice last weekend. We’re praying it dies a LOT this weekend so that we can record it and get the van back in. We really want this resolved while it is still under warranty and before our trip to the Girls’ graduation.

Mike came home for pizza night and then went on back to work. Hopefully all the details are coming together and we’ll have a very smooth and quick PAC planning meeting in the MORNING tomorrow and it won’t stretch to the AFTERNOON. LOL

Just heard from friends this week: it’s PCS season in the military. The time when new orders come down and we begin shuffling around. Melanie and family are going to Germany and Julie and family are going to England…..and we keep requesting overseas and going to TX. LOL BUT TX really IS “a whole other country”. LOL