My Mother’s Day Flowers–h’ain’t they purty?

  Standard Birthday activities–on Mother’s Day

I wrote this on Saturday afternoon, while taking a break from an evaluation that shouldn’t have been as tedious to write as it turned out to be. My brain felt about to explode.

That’s how I felt Friday night too, after tentative birthday plans to get me an awesome PB and chocolate icy-cream dessert at Friendly’s wound up sidelined by unexpected trips to my local satellite emergency room.

Yep. I had spent most of my b-day afternoon doing some of the easier parts of the report that took up about seven hours this weekend. A coworker had dropped in. While we chatted I heard a thump that sounded like it came from upstairs. Long story short: hubby was soon calling me from the other room. He’d “blacked out” briefly after choking on coffee and hit the hardwood.

Luckily, he didn’t hit his head, but his elbow certainly didn’t look happy and he had a nice little cut just above his hip that was turning some nasty shades of purple real fast. My darling also has a cardiac history, so we trotted off to the ER. That was about 4:00 PM.

Two hours later we were told he’d be transported to the mother hospital for overnight observation. I went home to pick up a few items for the guy.

Younger son came home and headed out to garage, as per mom’s request, to check if lawnmower was inside. (Hubby had forgotten he’d already asked older son to put it away, so it seemed odd that it wasn’t in the yard when I got home.)

Yucky story short: Mom tunes in to younger son crying and shouting for help from outside the garage. (That horrid sound may never leave my ears.) He was sort of plastered to door, with the tips of the middle fingers of both his hands stuck in the hinged space between the garage panels. Thank God I’m not the panicky type and quickly lifted the door until the gap widened and he could slide his hands out. The boy hit the ground. He panicked, and as the pain set in he got a little hysterical. When his eyes started rolling back I was sure he was going to pass out. (Getting that big kid off the ground would have been a feat. ‘Nuff said.)

Calmed the kid down and headed back to same ER with him in tow. Since I’m the primary insurance holder, the registrar girls had already scanned my insurance card when hubby showed earlier. They looked at me and said, “Oh my gosh, it’s your birthday today?”

“Uh…yeah.”

Got the younger one home by nine. Older guy needed a ride to a practice for an upcoming affair he’s part of. Dropped him off and headed back to hospital to wait for hubby to be transported. Made it home a little after ten.

Here’s hoping next year’s commemoration of the day I was born is a little less dramatic. Boring works after that.

Never boring, however, is Nadal at a final on clay. We’ll take Rafa’s win in Madrid!

Have a great day and a great week,

Joanna

Since the “techie” blog I wanted to post is no where near done, I had to do something. (IDK, virtual cakes just don’t cut it for me. I’m thinking about something from Friendly’s though. Bet you can’t guess. )

Anyway, thought I’d do a quick share of some awesome music by an up and coming star! As life and a small world would have it, I went to school with his dad (who, I am VERY sad to say, passed about three years ago).

Tam’s dad was also very into his music. If memory serves me well, he loved his drums. What I remember most though, was a question he posed: if I had to lose one, would I give up my sight or my hearing?

Tam’s dad would rather not see than never be able to hear music again.

With that, I present to you Tam Justin Garcia. Take a few moments and listen to Liquid Universe. (You’ll be very glad you did!)  Then, if you would be so kind, visit his Facebook and Twitter pages and share about him some more? Thank you!

On a tennis note, Rafa Nadal topped David Ferrer in the quarterfinals at the Mutua Madrid Open! (Just cause it’s my b-day—of course! Last night my older son caught me watching another match and asked if it’s “tennis season” again. With the tennis channel, this is now a very welcome and fun year-round thing! Which also means, you may be constantly in-the-know about tennis whether you share the passion–or not! )

Have a great day all!

Joanna

Thanks to those of you who stopped in this past Monday! Here is a photo of the loverly flowers hunny surprised me with AFTER we promised each other no gifts, just a card. He NEVER listens and I should know better.

So go figure. Last night before going to bed I drafted a post. (It’s been relegated to the future.) As you’ve already figured I got sidetracked after I started working on removing the annoying Snap.Do toolbar and its default landing page. My older son must have inadvertently downloaded it while installing software for his friend’s iPhone. It looks like this and is ANNOYING AS ALL GET OUT. Not that it gave much return for taking up space, and I’ve learned it HIJACKS your browser. Kept redirecting me to its advertisers,  with some links to my queries at least halfway down the page. (I happen to like my Google, Bing! and Yahoo! search engines, thank you very much.)

Okay, no biggie, right? All I have to do is go into the Control Panel and uninstall the program.

NOT!!!!

I let the 16-y/o take over. He said something about custom, Advanced Settings and who knows what else under Control Panel then wielded some digital magic.

Or so he thought.

Now I’m irritated. Off to Google, where I typed in how to disable snap.do (or something similar). Yay! for auto-complete, at least in this instance, , and for REAL search engines, where anyone can find answers to any topic s/he can imagine.

I wound up Malwaretips.com.

I immediately found Stelian Pilici‘s rockin’, totally free and highly detailed how-to article. He made it easy for me to get right to work. (All steps to do so for each browser are listed with lots of screen shots to guide you. Takes a few minutes, plus time to run the adware cleaner.)

I had to try a few times b/c I neglected to follow ALL the steps. I’m thinking running the AdwCleaner was the magic, but only after I’d taken the time to tweak BOTH the browsers I have enabled. That would be Google Chrome and Internet Explorer.) BTW, Stelian made sure to include a direct link to the AdwCleaner in the article I sighted.

What are the morals of this story?

1. As tempting as it seems to click ACCEPT when installing software off the net, read the terms and conditions (or at least scroll through them) first! Often there are boxes to un/check that can save you the trouble of having to remove items you don’t want later on. (On the bright side, I am now empowered with a tool to handle this sort of nonsense in the future.)

2. Don’t be afraid to look for an answer to your problem on the internet, especially if you’ve learned one or two things along the way. Be prudent before you click away, but at least read a how-to article. You might be surprised at how much you can handle on your own. (Techie stuff often appears more overwhelming and complicated than it is. BUT: Most of what I’ve learned has built on itself and/or can often be generalized to solve many problems.)

3. Save Malwaretips.com in your favorites! And don’t forget  to thank the guys, SHARE and/or even donate to help keep their VERY VALUABLE efforts going.

4. PC users in particular, run your malware and antispyware programs. Regularly! (Okay, I’m as guilty as the next person.) Dump cookies and run Disk Cleanup  And keep your anti-virus software up to date. (I’m seeing a short Part 2 to this article evolve here. Hope to have it written and up by next week.) I might actually be done!

Thanks, folks, and have a wonderful weekend!

Joanna

Back to today: married eighteen years to my hunny and beginning to get the whole ‘depth’ thing that goes along with a long-term relationship. He and I are known for our differences, but we work hard at being respectful of what makes each of us who we are on the day to day. I promise too, that opposites really did attract on every single level, even down to us viewing my laptop screen: him with reading glasses, me with distance glasses, lol. Yet, one day at a time, one situation at a time, we’ve made it to Wedding Anniversary #18 (and even like each other today).

What keeps us strong? Speaking only for myself, choice.  As I’ve written in previous anniversary posts, choosing to be committed on those rare days I not want to be. Truth is, no matter how wonderful a relationship, it takes work. True, some might take less work than others, and there are those who find themselves in a situation in which only one person is doing most of it.

That’s par for the course. Ideas about a 50-50 share of the work is common, but most folks may not consider that 50-50 is an average number. And those of you who are mathematically inclined understand that an average is gained by adding varied sums and dividing by the total number of sums used.

What does that translate to? Simple, math-wise anyway. Sometimes I do more of the work. Sometimes hubby does.

Honestly, I may be more blessed than some. Hubby and I rarely fight, as in it gets nasty and/or ugly between us. (Maybe five or six times in eighteen years? Not bad, right?) Despite our disagreements and fundamental differences as people, we try to talk things out and approach each other as friends. I’ve also come to know that I need to explain my point of view the next day, or when we’re not in that angry moment, when one or both of us might not be thinking clearly. (That’s just plain-old impulse control, friends: an imperative life skill to practice no matter what the situation or setting, i.e., work, home, etc.)

Neither of us likes being at odds. Fortunately, those ugly times usually last little more than a week, and even when the stretch has been (much) longer, we’re still respectful when dealing with the matters a household and family bring. No directing the kids with, “Tell your father…” or “You can let your mother know…” Fights (between almost anyone, I think) are often about control issue(s) anyway. Being aware of that makes a huge difference—period.

I could probably go on and on but I most certainly will not! I will, however, point you to a pair of previous posts on commitment. (Find those here and here.) Please, also take a moment and visit April Cassidy’s Peaceful Wife’s Blog. She covers a range of related topics and shares much wisdom.

This was taken at my bridal shower. Geez, my favorite Frannie Drescher (as Fran Fine) got nothing on this big hairdo!

And before I forget, happy anniversary to my hunny! My humble gratitude and love to the guy who has shown his own side of love and commitment to this looney lady all these years! I am blessed.

Until next time,

Joanna

Trying to get myself back into a routine. I am so good at getting in my own way.

Wow. We may have entered a new era in clay court tennis. (View the winner of “The Little French Open” here.) So mad I missed the match! (Yes, I know I can find it somewhere on line. We’ll see what time–and overloaded memory–allow.)

Let’s move on. Last week older son said something about a renowned pancake chain and a new (?) red velvet variety. Mom thinks: Hmm. Can we make this for son at home?

Anyone who REALLY knows me is in on the fact that I don’t necessarily like to cook. I do, however, enjoy trying new recipes and getting creative with adapting them.   I have a special place in my heart too, for recipes that look complicated and elegant when done, but are actually quite easy. (Make the “chef” look amazing, know what I mean? ).

So I hit up the internet and found a few recipes. (I SO love the world wide web.)  I wound up going with this one that I found at recipegirl.com. I invite you to go to Lori Lange’s blog for the recipe (which, actually, came from a guest blogger, Tidy Mom, a.k.a., Cheryl). Are you all with me?

Here I’ll list the two minor changes I made to Tidy Mom’s recipe. (Hubby thinks I should follow a recipe to the letter, but those who spend a lot of time in the kitchen know tweaking is often what makes a certain recipe our own.) I also went with a basic cream cheese glaze. (That recipe follows.)

Tidy Mom’s recipe calls for 2 ½ cups of flour. I’m thinking I used about 2/3 white whole wheat and 1/3 white flour.

As per Cheryl, I also used a “buttermilk substitute,” (1 ½ cups of plain non-fat yogurt mixed with 3 tbsp of milk). She linked to here for this one and other alternatives. My choice worked really well.

Finally, I added a bit more milk to thin the batter to my liking—not unusual for any pancake recipe.

Note: I saw no significant difference using liquid food coloring (less than the 1 tbsp called for, since I ran out). Some recipes suggest red food paste gives a deeper red. IDK as I have no experience to fall back on.

I happen to like preparing pancakes on a griddle, but a good (preferably non-stick) frying pan works every bit as well. Also, rubbing the griddle with a canola oiled-napkin worked better than spraying it with cooking spray. I’ve never liked the speckled appearance pancakes get with that.)

Basic cream cheese glaze (easily increased as needed):

4 oz. cream cheese* (softened)

4 oz. butter* (softened)

2-3 tbsp milk

½ cup confectioners sugar

(*I use the whipped versions. Think it makes for a lighter glaze.)

Using an electric mixer (or by hand) cream together cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add milk and confectioners sugar. Continue mixing until glaze is as smooth as you want it. Serve over warm pancakes. Refrigerate (or try freezing) leftover glaze.

There you have it! These really were excellent, rich with flavor and brought together perfectly by the cream cheese topping—my favorite part of anything red velvet, hands down.

The finished product. Yum.

The finished product. Yum.

So, where do you stand on cooking? Do you follow recipes to the letter or does your brain start tweaking whenever you read one the first time? Are you a fan of pancakes? If so, what’s your favorite kind? Would you rather make reservations?

Have a great day and ttfn,

Joanna

Believe it or not–I certainly don’t–this is post #300! Had I been paying attention I probably would have gotten it up sooner.

Yes, friends, you’ve dealt with me for close to three years and 300 incidents of my musings, opinions, recipes and reflections (and surprisingly close to the three-year anniversary of my first post–so not planned). Every now and again, I’ve hopefully taught something, got you thinking, elicited a smile or chuckle or turned you on to a recipe you’ll use for years to come.

One could also hope I’ve created the desire for you to come back, despite the inconsistency of my posting at times, as well as the seemingly random subjects I’ve touched upon. I truly wish I had more time (and better focus and organizational skills) to really explore or chat about everything that interests me in some shape or form.

I THANK EACH OF YOU WITH ALL MY HEART for taking the time to visit and making me feel I am not alone here in cyberspace. (Giant hugs go out to those who comment regularly and to those of you who share my content.)

There are no words for how humbled one feels.

My sincerest gratitude,

Joanna

Happy Thursday after Easter, friends!

I apologize for not getting this up last week. Impending Spring Break messes with timelines for school-related paperwork, which has to take priority. (I always wonder though: God-forbid something serious happened to the person doing the write-up a few days prior–i.e., an injury–doesn’t the paperwork NOT get in on time? Does life stop because of that? Just sayin’… )

Anyway, these thoughts were inspired by a conversation between me and my older guy a few weeks ago.

Most Friday mornings I drop my sixteen year-old son off at school. Our other regular passenger is his ‘girlfriend.’ I keep asking myself why I still put quotes around that word; they haven’t broken up once, and she’s been around three years (plus).

Yep. 1/26/10: that used to be part of my older guy’s text signature. This year, that date fell on a Saturday. It wasn’t until AFTER I picked them up at The Olive Garden that I realized why they’d made dinner plans and just assumed someone would drop them off and pick them up. (Yeah, the mommy in me got a little cranky with them doing that, but I’d missed the bigger picture up front. I got over it soon enough. And I got on my kid’s case about getting her flowers. Won’t tell you he’s lazy, but he can be a bit lackadaisical when it comes to doing things.)

Back to Friday mornings. He was doing his hair for school—I swear he’s the daughter I never had when it comes to his appearance—and I happened to ask about a woman who is best friends with the girlfriend’s mother. (Names are made up.)

“How’s Melanie?”

“She’s good.”

“Did she and Henry get back together?”

“Yeah. They’re back and forth all the time. They fight over stupid stuff. They’re like teenagers.”

“Have you and Fiona ever have a fight?”

“Not really. Her mom and Melanie are envious of us. They want to know what our secret is.”

I laughed. “I’ll tell you the secret: control. You and Fiona don’t try to do that to each other. You let each other be.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

Funny. I’ve got a pair of teen sweethearts who inherently get that. (Hubby and I do okay in that department, but every now and again it creeps up. Then we deal and hopefully have learned something new about each other, eighteen years down the married line.)

I’ve watched these kids in action over the past three years. Like her mom who grew up the youngest of five and the only girl, Fiona’s friends are mostly boys, the same ones who are my son’s core group. (Doesn’t seem to phase him none, to his credit.) Her appearance matters but she’s no diva, which is nice.

She and my son spend a ton of time together, but neither cares if one does something without the other. And—thank God!—there’s NONE of the ridiculous, “You can’t talk to that girl” or vice versa. (I’d probably bean either or both if they did. Can’t stand that nonsense.)

We’ve spent vacation time with her family and she’s come away with us. Spend that much time with someone, s/he’s bound to get on one’s nerves. Not so with this girl. They’re a lot alike—even resemble each other a bit—in how overall easygoing each one is.

Got me thinking about how much control gets in the way of having ANY relationship, and not necessarily a romantic one.

When one lives and lets live, life is so much easier on both sides. I can be me without worrying about feeling judged. Disagreements are seen as differences of opinion and not as a personal affront (most of the time anyway). I can do what I need to do without worrying someone else is going to get bent out of shape. When that goes both ways with a spouse, parent, child or friend, I’m can pretty much guarantee a respectful, peaceful and mutually satisfying relationship where two-way interaction just flows naturally.

What are your thoughts on this? Any experiences come to mind that you’d care to share? If positive, what made them so? And if not, how did you deal?

My little home in the woods. Water to go on in about a week–that means we can actually start going again! I’m psyched!

Have a great day, all!

Joanna

Here’s a photo of the champ hoisting his trophy! (So no fun not being able to one here. ) And all credit to Juan Martin for really fighting. (The guy’s pretty much gained ranking of one of my favorites.) He fought hard doesn’t describe how well he played, including blasting off three match points to make Rafa serve it out. It was a helluva day in the California desert for tennis fans, folks.

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled post.

Two weekends ago my brother and his family stopped by for a visit. Although my Italian-born mom would have preferred different, we agreed to keep the fare simple: snacks, pizza and salad (which I forgot to put out) and a few desserts.

Long story short: my brother really enjoys my pizza. As he walked by with his fourth (or fifth) piece, he casually tossed out a comment. “You’ve come a long way from those eggs you used to burn, huh?”

Let’s get this right: I undercooked the eggs and boiled the milk, lol. (Hey, everybody starts somewhere.)

His comment, however, reminded me of a couple of times I did burn food; both times I was pretty oblivious. And both times, my nose was stuck in a book, too.

The first incident: we had one family car and my mom went to pick up my dad. I was most likely a teen, because I was old enough to stay home alone. Mom had two covered pots on the stove. One had artichokes, the other broccoli. In Italian, she told me to turn on the latter.

FYI, in my mom’s dialect, broccoli and artichokes rhyme. Broccoli and caccioffoli. (Bet I was already into that book while she was passing on instructions.)

That’s right. I turned on the wrong pot. Then I went out on the front porch where I read until my parents got home. They pulled in the driveway to a stream of black smoke creeping out the back window.

Appropriately so, my mom freaked out.

The next time was even better.

Without another person to whom to assign the cooking—and having hoped I’d learned something from the previous experience—she put me on lentil-watch.

This time I was actually in the kitchen.

Well, I’d never heard food burn before. And I must have been so enthralled by my book, I didn’t smell or see the smoke filling the kitchen and our first floor apartment.

When the parents arrived and found smoke seeping out that back window again, they—especially mom (she’s the anxious one)—figured the house was on fire with me in it. (Good thing cell phones were probably a prayer then. She probably would have called 911 from the car.)

Guess I have come a long way from those days, but keep me away from an electric oven. (They tend to run hotter than gas, at least 25 ºF.) The pizza I made and brought and reheated at a friend’s wound up just a little crisp at the thinner end.

Care to share your kitchen gaffs? The floor is open!

BTW, if you’re interested in trying your hand at my (almost homemade) pizza, the recipe is here. A link to my fresh-veggie pizza is embedded there as well. And if you’re looking for more in the line of easy, elegant and/or quick fare, check out Recipe Central. Scroll through or just search this site as the more recent ones are simply tagged posts. And feel free to throw in links to your own favs too.

Sorry I missed last week. Guess things got a little hectic. Tis’ the busy season at work right now.

Have a great day, all, and thanks for stoppin’ by!

Joanna

This one should have been quicker but backstory and set-up slowed me down. I’m shooting for relatable instead.

Last year my supervisor at work offered me a 4-session-speaking gig: I was asked to familiarize a small group of regular and special education teachers with software my school district makes available to our students. Since one of my aspirations is to get paid to talk in front of folks, I jumped on the opportunity. (Oh, if I were paid by the word… I could be semi-retired… )

Gave my first workshop. Wasn’t as prepared as I might have liked, but I had a kick-butt handout loaded with links and how-to’s. The session went fairly well, considering the computer provided with the projector functioned okay on our school’s not-so-wonderful wireless network; and since the point of a workshop is to create a springboard for going deeper into the info on one’s own. And as the presenter, I’d learn what to improve upon for the next session.

Feeling okay about the overall outcome of session one, I ramped up the handout and practiced the presentation at home. Put enough time into it that I felt highly confident going in, about 3 weeks after the first session. I even decided to bring my laptop since I have Windows 7 and the school’s laptops are still running XP. (Let’s not go there…)

Holy, moly. Biggest. Mistake. Ever. The first application wouldn’t even open. (That was only the lead-in and foundation for the other three.) The school’s network was ridiculously uncooperative, even with the school’s computers employed by the teachers present. It was so bad, if two people left-clicked the same link, one got directed to one page and the other person to another. That led to people frequently raising hands to ask for help and totally disorganized my presentation of the material, even with my detailed handout—fully marked and highlighted with relevant points.

My bookmarked page, to an excerpt from one of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder, was blocked.

Sigh.

It was a horribly embarrassing experience, in front of the teachers who are not only my colleagues but taught (or will teach) my sons.

One bright spot: two years prior I’d helped a tech who’d been contracted to present a similar workshop. One of the teachers who’d attended remembered having similar problems, network-generated.

There are just some things one cannot control. Knowing that helped me get over how bad my presentation seemed and what my coworkers must have been thinking (and might still think). Also wondering how major a gaff it was to bring in my laptop–but I wasn’t all that thrilled with the district’s either. What say you about the next time I present?

Care to share one of your most mortifying disasters, professional or not? What happened? How did you deal? Open forum begins now!

Have a great day!
Joanna

Yes, another recipe. Came up with this one last week for some leftover tuna salad. Chances are, it’s not new, although it is to me, lol. Sorry; no photo. (Shakes head.) I always think to share the recipe AFTER I’ve put together the dish.  (At least there’s no stove-time. )

I usually stir a 6 oz. can of tuna with mayo, onion powder (no onion breath) and a little sea salt. I top a slice of toasted multi-grain bread with cheese and half the tuna mixture and serve  it open-faced with a side salad of baby lettuces. Low-fat raspberry vinaigrette and a sprinkling of feta cheese brings it all together. Yum.

Wasn’t in the mood for that combo, since I’d had it the day before–and I was trying to skip the bread.

So:

I took the leftover tuna salad, chopped a quarter each of a red bell pepper and cucumber and stirred all together with fat-free Italian dressing. (I was out of the raspberry vinaigrette and too lazy to grab the feta from the fridge. I also love being able to add an unlimited amount of veggies to up the fill-factor w/o adding a significant amount of calories. Next time too, I might cut back the mayo or just skip it. )

Done.

Ridiculously filling and satisfying to chow down, especially for someone—like me—who prefers eating with utensils vs. biting into a sandwich.

And yes, this can easily be used to fill a pita, curl into a wrap or create an open-faced sandwich as I usually do. I imagine you can top cold pasta with it too, for an impromptu side or main dish.

I’m also thinking chicken (grilled or canned) could easily be substituted for the tuna and that either or both would could be the basis of a great appetizer: as finger sandwiches or served in a bowl surrounded by crackers, toasted pita, etc. Heck: skip the meat or fish and serve the peppers, cucumbers and feta mixed with the dressing for a vegetarian spin.

What are some of the easiest and surprisingly tasty, satisfying dishes you concocted? Share them here or link back to your site. It all works and it’s all good.

Have a wonderful weekend, folks!

Joanna