The new garden

GardenDayOne11.4.07
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

My neighbor Mary, to the south of me, is helping me with my backyard garden. She's out of town now, but is scheduled to arrive home tomorrow sometime. In the meantime, the plants we ordered online have arrived and I have begun preparing the bed.

She has been nagging me for years to "curve out" the straight lines I have. So I've laid out the edging bricks with a couple of gentle, long curves. Mensa Boy grubbed out some azaleas, roses, and a butterfly bush I wanted to keep. I raked all the pine needles out and piled them up on the edge of the woods. Then I bought eight 50-foot soaker hoses and laid them out. I left them on from 2 p.m. yesterday until this morning in an attempt to soften the ground for tilling.

This morning my friend Steve is bringing his garden tractor and he'll try to gouge everything up and work it all loose. I think we're going to rake the needles back and work those in again. Then we'll add garden soil/mulch and work that in.

I'm just hoping the little plants all survive. It's been in the high 30's overnight. I've been bringing them in each night and putting them out in the morning. They weren't supposed to arrive until now, but I've had some for more than 10 days. We delayed ordering them as long as we dared, hoping for rain. At any rate, I have about $200 worth of plants to put in this week and they are so small and tender that I know I'm going to worry about them. I'll cover them at night as much as I can, for as long as I can. It will be good practice for teaching myself to think about the garden. Then next year, I'm hoping I'll be thinking about it enough to be mindful enough to keep it watered, fed, and cleaned out.

Here's a funny photo I took with my "human remote," Nate:

Don't want to Jinx It

But it looks like the bulk of my computer problems may be resolved this morning. $80 poorer, but many, many gigabytes richer (120GB, to be exact), the system seems to running much better. I was not out of storage space. I still had 10 gig or so left on the other disk, but the operating system had become so corrupted (most likely due to a particularly nasty Windows update a few weeks back), that I was faced with the prospect of reformatting my hard drive.

Now, I do keep pretty comprehensive back-ups. I have an 80 GB hard drive on the guy's computer that I like to put copies of stuff on. But still and all, one worries and worries that something will have been missed and never be recovered after a reformat. So I opted instead to buy a new drive, put that one in, slave the old one on to it, and now I have every single thing still available to me. And it never hurts to have more storage.

Here is a photo of Bear sucking up to my buddy Don, he of the computer geek part of the human species:

And so, with new point & shoot camera in hand, a computer that appears to be pretty stable, I go into the wild world of Indian Land this weekend prepared to shoot many, many photos of events...barbecues, fall festivals, brunswick stews and attic sales. And after all that is said and done, I need to get going on my food story...Christmas gifts from and for the kitchen!

Taylor Taylor Pumpkin Carver

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Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

No matter how much or how little Taylor participates in Halloween festivities, he always carves a pumpkin.

We had hundreds of kids come by last night. But not nearly as many as the other side of the 'hood. I'm glad. It was a complete zoo over there. Buddy Rena and I walked around our side stuffing flyers for her husband's handyman work in newspaper boxes. We also put out flyers for Jazzercise. It was a beautiful night for walking around.

Today I need to do some serious research for a food story. The annual Christmas Gift Guide. I always do a "Gifts from the Kitchen" story. I'm thinking about doing spice blends this year. And a basket or two of gifts for the cook. Maybe a complete meal in one and the other could be a gadget basket.

Hopefully I've finally settle on a reasonable point & shoot camera to use while the Nikon is in the shop. I bought a Canon PowerShot S3 IS from Amazon. The price is more than $150 less than it was when it first come out. Because there is a now an S5 for people to buy! It arrived yesterday as I was rolling down the driveway to go to the school to shoot a classroom event. It did a good job with zoom and lighting. Better lighting than I usually get in the schools. I was not able to get a handle on all the settings before shooting a haunted house last night, though. This one has Aperture Priority mode, but I couldn't figure out how to actually SET the aperture! So the photos are too dark. Hopefully the newspaper photog can use Photoshop to bring out the overly-dark guy in this scary lab shot:

I like how the lit-up lab stuff came out. And that stuff is clear and sharp, too. I think the image stabilization really helped me there. I don't have that on the D40. Hopefully this little camera will end up being a good compliment to my kit.

Chicken and Root Vegetable Potpie

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Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

This recipe was wonderful! I've used frozen puff pastry once or twice before, but this had to be by far the most impressive.

Potpie generally seems like a minor pain because you make a white sauce. But this recipe from September's Cooking Light magazine really made it a snap. Instead of making the bechamel, standing there and stirring and stirring, you simply pre-cook your veggies and chicken in stock, pull out the veggies and lay aside, and then stir in flour and milk that you've whisked together. 3 or 4 minutes of monitoring and minimal stirring and you have a wonderful sauce. Dump the veggies and chicken back into it, pour it all into a baking dish, and lay the pastry on top.

Simple as...well. You know.

Here's a link to the recipe: Chicken and Root Vegetable Potpie.
It's pictured on the cover, cooked in individual little crocks. Very cool.

Incidentally, I shot this with the little Canon Powershot. I'm really going through withdrawal, missing my D40, but I discovered a very cool feature on this little camera that I don't think my big one has: I can set it to do multiple shots on the self-timer feature. I put the camera on a little tripod I have, set it to shoot 10 shots with a 3 second delay to start, and then started posing the food. The little camera just stood there and took shot after shot for me. I did that 3 times. Of course, only 3 of the 30 shots came out in focus, but hey...I got three shots! I've also noticed this one did a good job with natural light.

The Halloween Table

TheHalloweenTable10.21.07
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

On Halloween night kids of all ages (and many adults) go around from door to door, collecting enough sugary treats to rot out their teeth. Parents will beg them not to eat any of their booty until it’s been inspected carefully at the end of the evening. And truly most of the stuff will get home for the grand sort-out and trade-a-thon. But no one should ever think that a kid is going to resist eating at least a few pieces before the trudging and doorbell ringing is over. And if those few treats are consumed on an empty stomach, the prospect of sugar shock looms large and can threaten the trick-or-treater’s (and their parent’s) bedtime.
The solution? Well, maybe a partial solution anyway? Feed them a nice, healthy meal before they hit the streets. Yes, that seems like it could be hard when darkness falls just a few minutes after 6 o’clock, but with a little advanced preparation and a slow cooker, you could have a filling meal ready in just a few minutes. Dress it up in Halloween garb, and your kids might be willing to stick around for supper.
Beef stew has got to be one of the simplest and most common slow cooker meals. Simply toss the meat, any root vegetables you might like, and the liquids into the pot at the beginning of the day, turn it to low, and go off to work. When you arrive home, crank it up to high, drop in the softer veggies and you have a meal ready in less than 30 minutes. The recipe below can be easily adapted to a slow cooker. Just remember to keep out anything that might turn mushy with long cooking (in this case the zucchini, tomatoes and olives) and add them just before serving. Use your judgment about thickening the broth. If you like it runnier, leave it like it is. There’s more to mop up with your favorite crusty bread that way anyway.
Many folks like to do up Halloween proud and have a big party. Finger foods are the order of the day when you go with something like that. Here are a few ideas for party snacks:
• Hairball Salad with Saliva Dressing-recipe below. This seemed a little bland. You might want to consider making your favorite guacamole recipe and mashing the sprouts in with that.
• Fried Spiders-made with jalapeno poppers and onion rings, this tasty treat is easy to make, but very hard to keep the spiders intact. They tend to fall apart in the oven. Reassembling them on the serving plate, while yielding a rather flat bug, is still a fairly effective presentation.
• Punch-Green. It has to be green. Mountain Dew is a good choice for the main liquid. There is no other beverage that yields that special yellow-green glow. Float a frozen red hand in it. Beware, however, as the hand thaws fingers tend to fall off and one can not control which fingers will go first!
Whether you are talking about the last supper before trick-or-treating or a big, bang-up party for all your friends, Halloween food definitely needs to have two main components: quick & creepy. Search the internet, magazines (and newspapers) for ideas and start shopping!

My Favorite So Far

14of365
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

This self-portrait project can be fun and stressful. There are days when I get a scathingly brilliant idea and manage to pull it off, and then other days that are terribly uninspired.

I'm particularly proud of this photo I took several days ago. I had the idea in my head for a few days, and really puzzled over how to do it without getting the camera in the photo. But once I scrapped that notion, I had a good time with it.

It's RAINING!!! Woo Hoo! It's been raining pretty much solid since Wednesday afternoon and we've gotten a little over an inch. Of course we could really use 38 more days and nights of it. I ordered around $200 worth of plants for the back garden the other day and they are on their way. I sure do hope we don't go to stage 4 water restrictions, which would mean no watering of any kind.

I had to take my camera to the shop yesterday for cleaning and repair. I have a service contract on it, which permits 2 cleanings per year, but the prospect of having it gone for 6-8 weeks seemed daunting. Then the other day the little latch that holds the on-board flash broke. It's particularly ironic because I don't really use that flash. I bet I've only used it 2 dozen times. I rarely use a flash at all. I think this photo was the first time in 4 or 5 months that I had the speedlight on.

Anyway, I took the camera, kit lens, and zoom up to Wolf Camera and dropped it off for that. Then I talked to them about a small point & shoot. I'm coming into the busiest season for writing and photography, and I can't be without a camera. I had picked up an HP Photosmart camera at Best Buy on Wednesday and it REALLY BITES! What a hideous little camera! It has NO user controls whatsoever...just scene modes and auto, and any little thing you set it up for goes back to default when you turn it on.

So I ended up buying a Canon PowerShot A560 for about the same price I paid for the HP. I'll run the HP back today. I'll have to spend some time with this one to see how to use it best, but I think it'll be okay. I still miss my Fuji Finepix F10.

Today I work hard and heavy at insurance work in the morning, and then this afternoon it's all domestic chores.

Canine Communications

I think my puppy is into instant messaging.

Pretty much, if he yips at you, you'd better get him outside. NOW. Or else. Tootsie rolls on the carpet.

One Cool Thing

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Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

on my husband's ibook: Photo Booth

Wednesday, October 17 was a big day for our community. That afternoon I went to the bid opening for our new library. We were very pleased with the results: 11 bidders came in and the lowest was only $9,000 over our cost projections from a year ago! Amazing when you consider inflation, gas prices, etc. And it was a local contractor, to boot. A nice bonus. I always like to do business locally.

Thursday and Friday I pretty much spent working on my continuing computer problems. The short story is, consider carefully before upgrading to Office 2007. My computer has been restarting unexpectedly since installing the suite. And I'm still not sure I can run MS Access at all. I had quite a few photos to run through and some writing to do, so it did make things rather slow going. But thanks to "autosave" I never lost anything.

On Saturday afternoon we had a picnic at Landsford Canal State Park. It was pretty much a spur-of-the-moment thing. It turns out that our guys don't mind hiking at all, so that morning after Jazz I proposed we go. We did some work around the house and then found out the park closes at 6. So we put together a quick burger picnic at Food Lion and headed out.

It was a beautiful afternoon! And fun! I have been wanting to shoot a family photo for Christmas cards, so I set up the tripod and we played around:

Yup. He threw up on my leg. Paulsons reading this will remember the time Nate threw up on my head at a family reunion. If someone is going to throw up on me, I guess I'd prefer the leg.

What a Week!

So much to blog about, so little time! Last Tuesday I went downtown with buddies Sarah and Debbie to shoot the Jazzercise demo classes they held on the corner of Trade of Tryon. It was really fun for me! With the shoulder thing, I wasn't able to carry a bunch of stuff or set up anything, so I basically wandered around and played with my camera all morning. They did two 30-minute classes (without weights) on the street corner. The idea was to promote Jazzercise, the Charlotte Checkers hockey team, and the special Ronald McDonald House fund raising they did at their game on Saturday, Oct. 20.

The classes were a big hit, garner attention of the downtown lunch crowd. Some folks stopped to watch, others just steamed on full ahead with their lunch plans.

After that was all over, the three of us hit lunch at Baxter's Liu Liu's, a chinese restaurant that has a very nice outdoor covered patio. And a decent wine list. I had an Italian Pinot Grigio I wasn't that crazy about, but it was okay.

That afternoon I hit the last home meet for our high school's cross country team. As I rolled up and was prepping my equipment, the newspaper's staff photographer appeared at my elbow. Neither of us knew the other was coming, of course. Since I am the reporter for the team, I've been shooting them whenever I can, but I hadn't told my editor I was going to be at that one. She sent Aaron up. I was so pleased with my jazz photos from the morning, that I decided to stay and practice shooting some more. Aaron graciously hung by me and we talked photography, me peppering him with questions, and he offering me some sage advice. Since another county high school was in the meet, I felt fairly certain that the editor would be willing to use a photo or two of mine for our team and then use Aaron's photos for the other. I'll find out on Wednesday when the paper comes out. Anyway, here is a photo I shot of what I consider to be the most inspirational runner on our team:

I took this photo in early October. Got a lot of great photos at that meet, but my exposure was terrible. The photos came out dark and grainy. Since then I've learned a lot about the metering my camera does and how to use that information. I went back last week to see if I could get this shot again with a better exposure. With Aaron's help, I was able to improve the exposure and reduce the noise, but then they had a slight blur! My panning really needs some serious work.

On Wednesday I shot a flower and some shoes. I wrote about the shoes and posted one photo. But I really feel the need to share this one:

Did I mention she has 113 pair? But go check out her blog.

I Shot the Shoes

FavoritePair
Originally uploaded by mary.mcclane

Yesterday, what I thought was going to be a "one hour show Mary how to put photos on her blog" turned into a three hour, 113 pair, shoe shootout.

Yes. 113 pair of shoes.

I did not shoot them all individually. I shot about a dozen individually. And did a couple of collection shots...goofy collection shots.

Mary, bless her heart (and I do say that in the "southern" sense of the word), is under the notion that if she exposes me to her shoe fetish often enough I will become a shoe collector myself.

But it did make for some fun shooting.

How's the Self-Portrait Project Going?

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Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

Not bad. Of course, some of our suppers have suffered. I'll be doing some prep work and suddenly think: "Hey! Self-portrait!"

Took me half an hour to chop one package of mushes for supper. I also shot me flipping them in the skillet (A flippin' skill I have that my MOTHER does not! ha!).

I like this one, but it's a bit orange. I need to work on color management. But the natives were getting quite restless about supper so that lesson will have be learned another day.

I had a very good photo day yesterday. I shot some wonderful photos of the jazzercisers doing their thing downtown yesterday. Here's a link to the TV story about it. (it's Cam Man for Tuesday. Hit "Play." I doubt it will be up after tonight's news.) In the late afternoon I hit the Cross Country team at their last home meet. I haven't reviewed those shots yet. But I learned a TON about shooting action photos, and understanding the metering on my camera.

Well, At Least it's a Sports Injury

An inflamed Subscapularis. Who'd a thunk it? Me. A sports-related injury. Doesn't matter how I got it. It still hurts! The directions are to stay off it for a week at least. Well, it is the shoulder. So I guess I'll have to give up all that shoulder walking I do.

Today I go downtown with buddy Sarah to a promo event put on by the Charlotte Checkers hockey team. They are having a game Saturday where a lot of the proceeds will benefit the Ronald McDonald House. Today the Checkers are putting on a lot of stuff downtown to promote the game. They will be at the corner of Trade & Tryon. Jazzercise of the Carolinas is doing a floor show during the game Saturday, so today they are doing two half-hour classes on a street corner as part of the promo. Since I have a SPORTS INJURY (argh) I'm not participating in the classes. I'm going along to photograph it. It'll be fun. And less sweaty for me.

I watched a good movie this weekend. "Shooter." Mark Wahlberg is an ex-sniper that is coaxed into coming out of seclusion to help foil a plot to kill the President. But he's double-crossed and ends up having to be on the run and defend himself. It was a great movie!

Our Weekend

Bear and I enjoyed "Prairie Home Companion" after church on Sunday. A ritual of mine that I now share with this little fellow. This was one of the shots I got off for my 365 project yesterday.

We napped while Mensa Boy screwed down a metal strip on the family room carpet where it connects to the kitchen floor tile. Why was he doing that? Because SOMEONE found an errant thread sticking up from the carpet edge and managed to parlay it into a 2-inch wide HOLE before he was caught!

So that was our Sunday.

We worked hard to get to Sunday this weekend. We began Friday afternoon by piling into the car. Nate forgot something, so had to go back into the house to get it. I saw no reason to make it easy for him:

And so we were on our merry way to the beach by 4:30.

We stopped at a BBQ place called Westwood sometime around 6 p.m. and had a wonderful supper. And then proceeded into Darlington.

Where the transmission on my car started to act funky. Not shifting over 45 mph. Check engine light came on. After an hour in the company of a local gentleman named Charles Parker, who led us to two different auto parts stores, where we were able to hook up to a handy-dandy device that told us the engine light was on because of a "transmission control sensor," we decided it might be best to head back home rather than on to the beach. (take a breath after that long sentence. I don't plan to edit it) One of the deciding factors was when buddy Tambri said she'd be happy to come rescue us if we were stuck somewhere between Darlington and home. But there was a silence on the line when the idea of proceeding to Myrtle Beach came up. Apparently her friendship only goes so far! (wink wink)

And so we were home by 9:30, and the next day mused to our friends that we had driven to Darlington for some good 'Que the night before.

Saturday was a pretty usual day, ending with a sad farewell to buddy Chris and her family. Late at night, wine and chocolate involved. It was a bit teary, but we'll all get through it.

Oh! I finally saw some cotton up close! Every time we travel to the beach in the fall I wonder why I don't stop and shoot some. Natives don't understand the Yankee fascination with cotton, but it's there. We grow up hearing about this extremely important crop (that and tobacco) and all the prosperity and heartache involved. And marvel at how our clothes are made from a plant. To see it up close is just...cool. So before the transmission deal, I had stopped at a field to shoot some up close:

IL Posse

ILGang
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

Back left: Chris, Rena, Tambri, Cassie
Front Left: Chris' daughter Samantha, me, Nannette

"Tied together by stuff too difficult to explain to someone new"

RAM & Rawhide

Good morning! I woke up this morning to find my computer won't boot up. Good buddy Don is going to help me troubleshoot that when I get back from Jazzercise. One of the first things he said was, "there was a Windows update yesterday that messed up a bunch of computers."

Yippee.

Of course, mine won't even boot up to let me back out of the update. Might be a RAM chip. My computer loves to eat RAM. Much like the puppy loves to eat rawhide strips. The computer takes its' time, though. About a year per chip. Bear can eat a rawhide strip in 3 minutes flat.

I'm starting to have some serious doubts about jumping into this 365 group on Flickr. This is the challenge to do self-portraits every day for 365 days. I'm up to day 5 and running out of ideas. Actually, I can get ideas, but they are rather uninspiring when you I look at what the others are doing. If I gut this out, the project should really boost my creativity. And Photoshop skills. Last night I took a photo of myself sitting on our patio in my shorts and tank reading about Thanksgiving dinner in Fine Cooking magazine. After I finally shot one that didn't make my neck look like I was 80 years old, I loaded it up and found a stick coming out of my head! Well, not actually coming out, but the vine behind me looked made it look like that. So I loaded it up into Photoshop and figured out how to used the clone stamp to erase it out of there. It worked great! I think I'll go back to a cemetery photo I shot this summer and try erasing some power lines from it.

So. Today will be computer repair day. And maybe cleaning bathrooms day. And I'll work on my camera. I can't give you any photos right now, I'm on the guy's computer and the filter blocks images from Flickr.

Have a good day!

I Won't Say I'm Getting Old. I Hate It When People Say That

Monday night I went to dinner and didn't get carded when I ordered my drink. Not unusual, but I did feel sort of odd when the waitress carded Brooke and Kitt.

Today I went to AT&T Wireless to see about getting a new phone for Nate. I didn't get the phone, but I did buy a Bluetooth headset for my phone. I'm having shoulder trouble from talking on the phone (just holding it...not clamping it between my shoulder and ear) and I'm having trouble hearing on my phone. After I completed the transaction, I said to the fellow, "Will I be able to hear better with this thing?"

"Oh yes, ma'am!" he said. "Are you having trouble hearing with your phone?"

"Yes. Many callers sound muffled or garbled," I explained. "Can the tone be adjusted?"

"Let me look at it," he said. He took the phone from me and pushed a couple of buttons. Then he called a number with a recording and handed it back to me. "Is this better?" he asked.

I picked it up and listened to it. "Yes! That's much better!"

"I adjusted the volume," he explained. "You had it on 3. I bumped it up to 5."

(!)


Then I went to Office Depot and tried to slide my card through a spot on the card reader where another box was attached. "Oh, no problem ma'am," the checker said. "Just slide it through that slot. It confuses a lot of people."

So. I went home and took a nap. That's what old people do.

Komen Race 2007

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Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

Here's our own Gang of Four, just before the start of Komen Charlotte. We brought our own survivor with us. That's Nannette on the left. 4 years cancer-free! Good on ye, girlfriend.

That's Cassie next to Nannette, then me, then Rena. I'm wearing a tag that says I'm walking in honor of my friend Pam Gonnella.

But there were really quite a few people that I thought of that day:

My Grandmother, Pearl E. White, who passed away from breast cancer in 1986.

Pam Gonnella, who is still suffering from the ramifications of her mastectomy and reconstruction.

Linda McCorkle, who just in the last few weeks stopped taking the toxic drug Remedex, which is sometimes given to hopefully stop the recurrence of breast cancer.

Leslie Hoffman, who is also a survivor.

Edith Buss, who does not have breast cancer, but instead has mantle cell lymphoma.

Elaine Lidke, currently battling this disease.

Kathy Paulson, who had breast cancer metastasize to her bones and still has survived. I don't recall how long ago it was, but I'm certain it was a least 10 years. The medical community has come a long way in this battle.

Marcy Valenty, who was just diagnosed last year.

Obviously, my dear friend Nannette. It was a privilege to walk along beside her.

As my friend Dave Dougherty says, we kicked some cancer booty Saturday!

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the race. I gathered $610 in contributions this year!

1of365

1of365
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

Yesterday I started a project called 365. The idea is that the photographer takes a self-portrait every day for a year. You're supposed to learn a lot about self-portrait photography that way, and I imagine it's going to do a lot for my knowledge of exposure, focus, etc.

I'm not going to post them all on here. This is the first one. But if you want to see them as I go along, you can click on the link to my Flickr account on the right and find the group marked "365."

Another Teenager Among Us

Here's Taylor, about to climb for the first time. He and Mensa Boy went yesterday for his 13th Birthday!

He liked it! Right after they did several climbs, he told MB he enjoyed it but probably wouldn't do it again. But later he told me he probably would. I think he got really tired. MB enjoyed it a lot and would like to do it a lot. I think we'll check out some other places in the area, too.

What NOT to Eat

The author of "Balance" obviously has an unbalanced palate:

Hungry?

I think my favorite part of this entry is in the comment section, where he likens his sandwich to the United Methodist Church.

"Open jars, open hands, open mouths…the sandwich of the United Methodist Church!”

Product Review: GFIC Dark Mayan Chocolate

GFICDarkMayanChoc
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

Heaven.

I'm in heaven.

It's a Thursday. Running out of Week!

I hit the $500 mark yesterday. Buddy Cindy from Jazzercise kicked in the last $5 to make it an even $500.

Yesterday I worked all day on one CD project. Very very frustrating. I went to Jazz in the afternoon and pretty much wiped myself out, too. Today I hope to get the rest of these done, but Mensa Boy returns from Uruguay today and I need to put together a nice family meal for supper, as well as do a little work on the floors here.

Bear's last puppy vet visit was yesterday. Quite traumatic. He has tapeworms (caused by swallowing fleas), and so had to be given medication for that. And we microchipped him, which is a little painful. The needle used to embed the chip is quite large. It actually drew blood. The poor little guy climbed up my chest and wrapped his paws around my neck. But after all the worming, rabies, bordetella, lepto, parvo, etc, he is now official. Bona Fide. Has a rabies tag. There is no pet registration in our county, so the microchipping the rabies tag are the best ways to get your dog back if he gets lost.

My neighbor, Mary Jean, lost her old dog at the beginning of the summer. He wandered off when she let him out to the bathroom at 3 in the morning. She sat down on the couch to wait for him and fell asleep. He was found 4 hours later on the other side of the road in the back part of our neighborhood. The woman who found him called the vet phone number from the rabies tag and the vet called Mary Jean.

He's coming along on the housetraining. He goes to the door more and more now and each time he does go potty when he gets out there. But he also likes to just get out there, so I know he's going out more than he really needs it. But for the time being, we'll need to respond every time.

That's it for today! I have another product review for tomorrow.

Yeah. I had fun...

Buddy Jenny Overman of the Fort Mill Times shot this Saturday at the Festival. Thank you, Times, for allowing me to post this. Yup, that's "Dr. Pretty," Indian Land's hot chiropractor. I'm proud to call him a friend of mine, too. Adam allowed himself to be dunked more than 250 times on Saturday. And he drew quite a few comments from the ladies, too!

This week I'm catching up on insurance work and trying to take back hearth and home. Mensa Boy returns from Uruguay on Thursday and then Saturday is the BIG KOMEN RACE! I'm so excited about that. I've raised $495 so far! Amazing! I'm thinking Mensa Boy may need to pledge a few bucks, too. (of course, what's mine is mine and what's his is mine, so I guess that would be me pledging...)

Product Review: Natural Greens

I'm up to $345 raised for the Komen Foundation! Thank you for your support! There is still time to pledge. The race is Saturday.

naturalgreens
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

I've never been a big fan of vitamins and supplements before. I've always eaten a well-balanced diet and never really felt the need to get my daily A B C's from pills. But in the past year I've had suggestions from both my doctor and chiropractor to try a few. My doctor suggested D, Calcium, E, and C. And so I've been taking those off and on for a while. Now I'm committing to taking them every day. My chiropractor suggested an Omega 3, and so I've added Flax Oil. Many people take Fish Oil, and that's fine. But I like Flax.

I can't really say I've had an overwhelming epiphany with any of those that tells me "Wow! MY entire life is better because I take these!" But they are good to do and I'll just keep it up. I do have to say my hair and nails are growing quickly now and also are strong and don't split.

Last week I agreed to try this Chiropractor's Blend Natural Greens supplement. The chiropractor suggested it to help with my sometimes flagging energy levels. Actually, my daily flagging energy levels. Just some days more flagging than others. He knows I won't use any sugar substitutes, and that I am careful about my sugar intake altogether. He suggested this supplement after hearing from a colleague in his office that it's the one supplement his colleague really likes and feels great about.

So, $35 later I went home with this canister of green powder. 1 tablespoon is a dose and there are 30 servings. A little over a buck a day. I add it to my smoothie. It adds a slight sweetness to it, but has no "green" taste to it all.

I've noticed an ENORMOUS difference in my energy levels. This past weekend was an exhausting one, with the culmination of the big festival I've been working on for months. I ran around all day for close to a week in preparation for it, and I can honestly say I felt pretty good all the time. Never even felt the need to nap! The body got a little sored, but my brain was going right along and the body just kept chugging along.

Here is my smoothie recipe. I've been having this for breakfast most days. Note the calories. This is not a snack. It is a meal replacement.

Green Banana Peanut Butter Smoothie
447 calories

1 frozen banana
2 Tablespoons All Natural, no sugar added peanut butter (I use Smucker's)
1 Tablespoon Natural Greens powder
8 ounces vanilla-flavored Soy Milk

Break up the banana into 3 or 4 pieces. Drop in the peanut butter. Sprinkle with greens powder. Pour the milk over top. Allow it to sit for 5 or 10 minutes to soften the banana slightly.

Blend with an immersion blender (I call it the boat motor) until smooth.

This makes a smoothie that is cold and thick...the consistency of an ice cream shake. Drink in right away or pour it into a chilled stainless steel insulated coffee cup that you've reserved for non-coffee drinks. It will stay cold and creamy for an hour or so.

Tater Tots with a Creole Twist

When Mensa Boy's away, I sometimes don't spend as much time on supper as I should. (Oh, c'mon! We all do that!) Although we did have a nice roast chicken, potatoes, carrots, and even gravy last night. But most of the time when he's out of town I tend to not think much about supper until right before it's supposed to happen.

Monday night I asked the guys what they wanted to have and Taylor immediately piped up with Tater Tot Hotdish. I know I've mentioned that here before, but for those of you who do not know what it is, Tater Tot Hotdish is the quintessential Midwest potluck entree. And a fantastic comfort food as well. It's quick to pull together, bakes for an hour or so and then there you have it...meat, veggies and starch all rolled into one.

And so I ran to the grocery store to pick up the ingredients:

1.5# ground sirloin (90% fat free)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 bag frozen veggies
1 bag Tots

I lined the bottom of my 9x13 pan with foil to make clean-up a cinch, and layered the raw meat on the bottom, spread the frozen veggies on top, spread on the soup from the can and then the tots. Baked 350 for 90 minutes.

But of course I couldn't just leave it all bland like that. So I gave the dish a bit of a creole twist:
I used frozen gumbo vegetables...which had okra in it, and then before I spread on the soup, I sprinkled liberally with creole seasoning and then my all-time favorite spice: Black & Red pepper blend from Penzeys. I also used onion-seasoned Tots.

It was a big hit! We had a hard time keeping ourselves from eating the entire pan!

I bet those little ole Scandinavian Lutheran ladies that developed this dish were rolling over in their graves at the seasonings.

Sorry I didn't take photos. No time.

So Much to Complain About. So Little Time

Suffice it to say, yesterday was one of those days where you find yourself taking one step forward and then two back. Computer issues, festival issues. I really didn't get started on my day until 2:30 p.m.

And so this morning I'm knocking out CD after CD for The Cleveland Company. Not much time to write.

But I do have to say that the little dog is doing quite well. Only two accidents in the house since we put the barriers up Saturday afternoon. Both on the kids' watch, of course. One last night during the ONE HOUR I was gone, and another this morning when the neighbor showed up for his ride to school. They know they are supposed to rush him out when a new person comes but...well...they are kids.

I've posted a new photo of him on The Daily Bear. He's showing off his Vera Bradley collar, a gift from Aunt Tambri. It turns out he's also a Gator fan. Aunt Nannette came by yesterday with a white, stuffed squeaky gator. I'll try to capture him playing with that at some point. For now? TO WORK!

An Outline of my Brain Activity this Morning

Here are some random thoughts for you:

1. It's a miracle anyone ever lets their kids join Boy Scouts anymore. Every year, it seems, there are Boy Scouts out lost somewhere. Or maybe I should say "turning up missing." That phrase always cracks me up.

2. It's amazing everyone doesn't have one of these gizmos. If I had trouble with a neighbor's barking dog, I'd definitely think it was worth the investment.

3. Do they make wood-flavored nyla-bones? We could sure use one. I'm pretty sure my old bookcase would appreciate it. If my bookcase had opinions, anyway.

4. My horoscope today says: "You're doing the job well. Now it's time for you to start giving the job away." hmmm...

Not My Daughters

SammyandKendall
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

Chris' daughter Sammy and her little friend Kendall were having a very deep conversation the other day while waiting for ballet class to start. I believe Sammy was telling Kendall where she lives.

Stuff (musings, really)

Posts have been erratic these past days and probably will be for the next week as well. And The Daily Bear is also woefully behind.

There have been photos taken of Bear. I have not had a chance to sift through them. There aren't many though. I've been having scattered difficulties with the computer this past week and running the resource-hog Photoshop hasn't seemed like a great idea.

We've also been battling time issues as well as big viruses. So everything has been a supreme effort.

This next week Mensa Boy goes out of town and I'll be counting down the final days to the Fall into Fun Festival here in our community. The event benefits the new library and, as the library board rep for our area, I have had to be involved in the planning.

So there are all my excuses. Huh.

The Bear has definitely been a joy and a pain. Mostly a joy. (Actually, I guess not even a pain on the dark moments as much as he provides for us a moments of reflection on our failings as a pack, that we are unable to keep track of him closely enough to keep him from depositing gifts on our music and dining room carpets.)

And so today I bought baby gates. Did I buy baby gates! Three of them to go with the one we already have. The layout of our house is such that it is not possible to contain the dog on just the tile floor. We did go into this knowing full well that we needed new carpeting throughout the house and that it might happen next year. Still and all, we'd like to keep the spots down a bit.

And so we've cut off all his access to the entire upstairs, the foyer, music room (if we were truly sophisticated it would be our formal living room, but we aren't formal, so we've just stuffed lots of guitars and amps and a piano and a trombone into that room and declared it our music room which, now that I think about it sounds even more pretentious than formal living room. hmph), and dining room (even that is really a misnomer for this family. There is no real dining room furniture in there. I mean, there is a table and chairs and they are, I guess, for all intents and purposes, for dining. But they aren't much to look at. And so the table is piled with MB's youth group projects and the guy's school books and stuff and on many of the chairs on any a given day or hour there are dirty socks. I don't know why. I rail about it periodically...the socks...only to be soothed for a few days and then back to dirty socks, which of course don't get washed on time and then we have the whole "I have to go to school and I have no socks" thing.)

Where was I? Oh yeah. The gates and the sequestering. And so Bear has access to the family room, kitchen, office and bathroom (because we can't shut the door, otherwise we will always think someone is in there, which would mean having to go upstairs to one of the other biffys, leaving Bear down here unattended. And no. We can't just learn anything new like to lock the door when we are in there, or tap on it when it is closed.)

So this is our new plan and someone is always down here with Bear and we are all teaching ourselves to always know where he is.

Bear is definitely a "pack" dog. Not really a "prey" dog. He just likes hanging with his peeps. He figures I'm the leader and all the guys are his brothers. Including MB. (That reminds me of a funny story: my friend Chris has a 4-year old daughter, Sammy. She keeps talking about my "brothers." I have one brother and I try to answer her questions about him, but I've never understood why she's had this fixation about my brother! Until the other day when she was here and she pointed up the back stairs to the bonus room and asked if my brothers were up there! Yup. She thought my boys were my brothers. Funny.)

Back to Bear. He's learning about going outside. He also does "Sit" pretty well. And he's quite good at "Come." (If he's not distracted by something else BIG. Like mockingbirds. He really is disturbed by our mockingbird. I don't blame him. So am I.) He also will do "Down" if we are on carpet. But not on pavement or the tile. Soya would never do that then, either. I should find out if we are to expect dogs to do "down" on hard surfaces. I imagine we are. And today I took him around the block with his VERA BRADLEY leash on (a gift from his doting Aunt Tambri) and we worked on "heel." We'll do that a lot. I'd like to have him know he can roam with the extendable leash attached to the "dead" ring on his collar. And heel with the short leash attached to his "live" ring on his collar. Soya did that.

So he's pretty smart. Kind of. I'm not going to brag on him, though. I don't want to be one of THOSE people. He is a dog. Not a person.

We've got him not begging at the table. We just shoved him away for the first few meals and he gave up and laid down. Now he doesn't even try. And he does not cry in his kennel at night. He was starting up the yipping if he heard a toilet flush upstairs, (causing us to tiptoe around in the middle of the night, nearly dying of thirst and not flushing toilets for fear of waking him up) but he'd settle down after a few minutes. Now in the last couple of nights I've been flushing away. I still don't have the nerve to come down and get a drink though. Maybe soon.

He does have a funny kennel yip. He doesn't bark. It sounds exactly like the squeak you get when you hit the gym floor with your tennis shoes. He will bark, though. At the mockingbirds. That's it. Not a lot. He doesn't react to the doorbell at all. I hope he doesn't start.

I am still expecting him to start with the terrible stuff. So far he's eaten the comb off my doorstop chicken, but nothing else. I have a photo of it. But posting that will have to wait.

Well, I think I've prattled on long enough. I've basically been just trying to stay awake until 10 so that hopefully I'll sleep all night.

A Bit Whiny, I'm Afraid

Well...the terrorist is starting to come out. Yesterday Bear had some severe gastro-intestinal issues due to all the little things in the yard he's been finding to eat. Including bark from the landscaping.

This morning he ate the comb off my doorstop chicken.

Just now he drank out of my water glass.

I still like Bear. Very much. But Mensa Boy and I are both jammed up with work and projects right now, which leaves the guys to the puppy training in the evenings. They are not so good at it. And today I wasn't so good at it either, as I'm struggling with this virus I have and trying to get work done.

But...I knew this would happen and we'll gut it out.

I'm mad at work on this darn library festival again this year. Involved when I didn't want to be. But it will take place next weekend and then all will be over.

I'm realizing this is not really an enjoyable read. Some blog posts go that way, I guess. Sometimes I stick stuff up here because I know people will ask if a few days go by. Don't want anyone thinking I'm dying or anything!

Today Taylor said, "Everything is so hard." He's got a sore back, lots of hard work in 7th grade, and the puppy responsibilities. Tomorrow we'll take him to see our chiropractor extraordinaire. I've been thinking it would be good for him to go anyway. He has kind of a flat-footed gait and is sort of hunched over a lot. Since we've met out family deductible for the year, it makes sense to get him going now. Buddy Nannette and I will try to take him out to dinner Sunday. He's been wanting to go to a sushi bar.

That's it for now. Tomorrow I hope to spend a small amount of time at Art on Main in Fort Mill. Buddy Jenny's husband, The Naked Woodturner, will be there with his wares.

Here's some Total Momsense

Ready to Run Away with my Little Dog

[begin rant]My dear friend Chris is moving to Nashville

I have a very bad, sinus-y cold

The dog threw up in my car

I went to the credit union to deposit checks and found it closed. A quaint custom they have of closing on Wednesday afternoons. I hadn't even remembered that it was Wednesday!

My caller ID box is stuck on Spanish. It says I have "1 nuevas." Earlier today I had a call from "Fuera De Area."

[end rant]

Wherein My Pending Demise is Greatly Exaggerated

Last night my friend Cassie called me.
"What is WRONG with you?" she began the conversation.
"Uh. I have a cold. Other than that I'm fine," I replied.

She then told me that prayers had been offered on my behalf in church on Sunday (for some reason Mensa Boy forgot to tell me that), and then she proceeded to enumerate the number of things I have NOT been to in the last week.

It is true that I have been somewhat of a serial church skipper this past year. As I struggle with "this menopause crap," as my friends call it, it's been difficult to have the energy just about every other weekend. Sometimes I just go anyway, but other times I think about how there is basically just a scrolling screen saver across my brain that says "I want to be home. I want to home."

I do feel much better than I did last summer and winter. But I still have low-energy days, and they seem to happen most on weekends. Probably because I run around as much as possible during the week to get work done.

However, I have also been absent from church as I cover the new ones that are opening up here in our community. I am the de facto "church correspondent" for our paper, and so I cover quite a few church events and some of them happen on Sundays. Last Sunday I went to a service for a new church called "The Community Life Church of the Carolinas." The week before I went to the service now offered in our community by St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Fort Mill. In a couple of weeks I'll be going to the Presbyterians.

I've never been much for attending multiple services in a week. And especially not twice in one day.

So I've been gone from church a bit. It's noticed in a little church like ours, because we only have about 90 people in our services. And of course our family sits right in the front row.

Cassie also is breaking my back about Jazzercise. We opened a new location here and I just haven't gotten to it. I've been going, but my schedule as a freelancer is very flexible, so I still end up going to the other location, which has daytime classes, pretty much all the time.

But what really concerned her were the prayers on my behalf. "Do you think they are praying for my soul?" I asked.

"I don't know," Cassie said.

And then all became clear when I asked Mensa Boy about it.

"Oh yeah!" he said. "They think you have breast cancer!"

huh.

I guess someone misunderstood my Komen donation letter...where I mention the testing I had last spring. My point was how cool it is that we have all the modern technology. That even someone like me, who is hard to screen, can be screened for this disease thanks to the work of foundations like this.

So my dear church put together my absences and my Komen letter and came up with me dying of breast cancer.

I'm not. But I do have a pretty bad cold. I feel like death warmed over, but I'm pretty sure I'll recover.

Maybe.

(Many thanks to those of you who have donated to the Komen Race. I'd love to have more. It's not a competition of any kind--well, Mary of "Shoe Dawg Shoe" and I are kind of having a Komen pledge throwdown--but really? It's just a good thing to do. I'd love to have more of you contribute!)

Pants Death

The death of a favorite pair of pants is a tragic thing. I still remember when my favorite pair of light blue denim Eddie Bauer shorts bit the dust. They finally had become hole-y enough so as to seriously compromise my integrity as a mother. I never found a pair of shorts that I liked as much. (Okay. That was exaggerating. I have a pair of "Life is Good" shorts that I love more than just about anything in my closet. I'm really going to hate not wearing them this winter)

Today my buddy Sarah called to tell me that she had to give last rites to her favorite Gap pants. "Those pants always brought me compliments," she said as she poured out her heart to me on the phone. "And I put them on and found a hole."

Not a repairable hole.

She told me how those pants would feel good on bloated days...making her feel and look skinny. They went with so much of her wardrobe and were a joy to wear.

Oh yes, she hit the first stage of grief immediately: denial. But now it's been several hours and she has already worked to acceptance.

We're talking about a memorial now.

Alienation of Affection

Mensa Boy is very paranoid about germs. It's worse when he is about to go out of town. At my first mention of a viral-feeling headache the other day, he immediately took up his "you are a germy person" persona.

He now waves at me.

And so yes...I am snotty today. I'm remembering that I was hideously sick last year the week before the library festival too. But last year I was not sleeping...no good sleeping drugs were in my arsenal. This year I have sleep on my side. And I'm getting stuff done for the paper, so I'm able to take naps in the afternoon.

This morning it's an early-morning trip to the dentist. The appointment is at 8 a.m, which means we pretty much have to leave here in 10 minutes. It's not very far, but the traffic situation is really terrible, so we'll have to leave plenty of time for travel.

I read this article in yesterday's Observer and it resonated so strongly with me that I'm going to paste the entire text here. I've been a fan of Tony Campolo's for years now, but this is the best compilation of what he's about that I've ever seen. It makes me happy to know that we have some evangelicals that make sense to me. I'm particularly pleased about what he says about the death penalty.

THEOLOGY AND POLITICS

Trying to see today through the eyes of Jesus

Left-leaning Baptist author's article asked WWJD about Iraq?

TIM FUNK

tfunk@charlotteobserver.com

"What would Jesus do about Iraq?"

That's the question the Rev. Tony Campolo recently posed -- and answered -- in Tikkun, a left-leaning Jewish magazine.

Campolo is a left-leaning evangelical Baptist who's written 34 books on Christianity and social justice. He was President Bill Clinton's spiritual adviser. And on Sunday, he was in Charlotte to speak at Dilworth United Methodist Church.

In an interview, the Observer asked the Philadelphia-based Campolo what Jesus would do not only about Iraq, but about other issues dividing U.S. Christian churches.

Here are his answers, edited for space and clarity.

Q. What would Jesus do about ...

• Iraq: "I think what Jesus would have us do is repent. I would love to see (President Bush) go to the (United Nations) and say, `I really believed there were weapons of mass destruction when I asked for the invasion five years ago. I was wrong. Thousands and thousands of people have died, thousands and thousands of people are wounded and ruined for life. I ask for forgiveness.'

"I don't think you lose your stature when you ask for forgiveness. I think to be able to confess and to ask for forgiveness is a sign of strength. Jesus would have said, `Power is not the evidence of what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something better than guns and planes and armies. I'm looking for the kind of authority that people look up to.' "

• Gays and lesbians: "He'd love them and accept them. When we sing at my church, `Just As I Am,' I think we need to mean it." We shouldn't be saying to gay and lesbian people, `You have to become what you're not in order to be welcome by Jesus.' "

• Abortion: "I'm sure that the destruction of life in abortion would break his heart. However, I feel like if he were speaking to the church today in America, he would ask not the question, `Are you going to make it illegal and arrest women who have abortions?' I think Jesus would say, `What are you going to do to reduce the number of abortions?'

(A new survey reported that) 70 percent of all abortions are economically driven. You have a poor woman working on minimum wage with no hospitalization. She gets pregnant. She can't afford to have the kid, she can't afford to pay the hospital bills, she can't afford day care after the child is born. So she says, `I'm going to have an abortion.' Can Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives agree on one thing: that it's wrong for women who want to have their babies to have abortions? And that's about 70 percent of them. Then we can start talking about the other 30 percent."

• The death penalty: "(If you support capital punishment), you cannot believe in the Beatitudes -- `Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.' You cannot say, `I'm going to overcome evil with good.' You cannot say all those things that Jesus said and believe in the death penalty. When you say there's going to be a death penalty, what you basically say is that there are some people who are beyond redemption. There are many times I feel that way. But I'm sure Jesus never feels that way."

• Muslims: "He would love them. Jesus said some very interesting things. He said, `Other sheep I have who are not of this fold.'

"I know I'll get in trouble for this because I'm an evangelical, but (in deciding who gets into heaven), the questions (Jesus) asks on Judgment Day are not theological. I wish they were because I'm an evangelical.... Here are the questions -- the only descriptions he gives of Judgement Day. `I was hungry: Did you feed me? I was naked: Did you clothe me? I was the alien, the (immigrant) from the other country: Did you make room for me in your country? For if you did it to the least of these, you did it to me.' I think there's a wideness in God's mercy that's greater than mine."

• Young people: "Jesus would say to them, `Youth was made for heroism and not for pleasure. And the church has been entertaining you. What I am here to do is call you to sacrifice all that you are and all that you have for love and justice in the world in my name. I want you to live out your life heroically for my kingdom and not get sucked into the dominant values of the culture.' "

This n That

First, the Komen Race. I'm getting pledges already and have met the $125 goal that they automatically put on my site! Cool! Thank you. I have not listed it, but I think my personal goal should be $700. I raised a little over $600 last year. But this year I sent the notices out a little later, and I haven't done any talking about it around the neighborhood, so I've been reluctant to go on record with the goal.

But thank you, Candy J, Julia, Sheryl B, and Steve P, for your donations! Sheryl is giving in honor of her Mother, who is currently battling cancer...not breast cancer, but mantle cell lymphoma. I've not heard of that before. And also in honor of Elaine Lidke, a mutual friend we have that currently has breast cancer. I didn't know Elaine was going through this. Our prayers are with you, my friend.

So keep the pledges coming, folks! I'll have this little link up here every day for the next three weeks.

The puppy training is going quite well. He's notified us more and more that he wants to go out, so that's a relief. The main thing is that he's so darn quiet. If someone is in the kitchen area, it's noticed right away and all is well. But if not...then we've got trouble. For two nights now he's woken us up with a couple of yips while he's in his kennel. We get up, take him outside, he does double duty and then goes right back to bed. I'm grateful that he's telling us, grateful that he goes right back to bed without saying anything, but not really excited about losing the sleep. The first night, Mensa Boy heard him. That's good because MB falls right back to sleep immediately. Last night it was me. That's bad, because I lost about 90 minutes of sleep after that. Once I wake up in the middle of the night, it's pretty hard for me to get back to sleep. I do learn a lot about the world that way, though. I listen to the BBC.

Julia asked if we are having him go potty in the same spot every time. Not by design, but yeah...pretty much. The bad thing is that it's right there on the edge of the patio. So we could have dead grass right there instead of in a less conspicuous spot.

She also asked if we are using clickers to train him. We are using treats. Mainly because he doesn't eat much. And he really likes treats. If we used clickers then I think we'd have to have several of them around so everyone could use them, and they'd get lost, etc. Treats are easy because the bag is right on the counter and we all can grab handfuls for our pockets. Also? I suspect the clicker would bother the pack leader...ME! Sharp loud noises like clicking tend to wreak havoc on my nerves.

Enough about the dog.

This weekend I had a chance to go hang out with some guys from our community there were competing in a BBQ competition. The competition was to benefit the Anne Springs Close Greenway in Fort Mill. Our guys, who have a team called "Pork O Butts," invited me to tag along, help out, shoot photos and in general just be underfoot while the prepped their butts and ribs Friday night and then took them off the smoker for judging Saturday morning. We had a great time. They are wonderful guys and even promised to share their rub and sauce recipes with me. They've agreed to let me print the rub recipe, but the sauce one...NOT! So I'll devise a sauce of my own to print with the food story I'm writing for the paper.
I haven't found out yet how they did.

Here is the gang getting their pulled pork ready for judging:

And here are some ribs on the grill:

It's Time

It's time for the Susan G. Komen Race in Charlotte. Last year, thanks to your generous contributions, I was able to raise more than $600 for the Susan G. Komen Foundation as a member of the Jazzercise team.

The foundation was formed in 1982 by Nancy G. Brinker, who promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, that she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever.

We all know of at least one person that has had breast cancer, died from it, been treated and cured of it, or is currently dealing with it. But most of us are not aware that we directly benefit from the efforts of this foundation whenever we have a breast cancer screening, such as breast exams, mammography, ultrasound, and breast MRI. The Komen Foundation is a grassroots organization dedicated to raising awareness of this disease, as well as offering grants and fellowships to further research. In 1982, the U.S. Government funded $30M in breast cancer research. Now funding is in the $900M range. The five-year survival rate for breast cancer, when caught early before it spreads beyond the breast, is now 98 percent (compared to 74 percent in 1982).

This past spring I found myself personally grateful for the work of this foundation. I have very severe fibrocystic breast tissue. The situation is so complicated that routine mammograms really cannot adequately screen me for suspicious lumps. Digital mammography was discussed and rejected as being not much better for my situation. I was referred to the Blumenthal Cancer Center. Dr. Richard White, who is a surgeon ("that tries not to do surgery!"), recommended twice-yearly breast exams, once-yearly mammograms, and a breast MRI every other year. He arranged for my insurance company to pay for this costly test. I thought of organizations like the Komen Foundation and how they have not only funded the research that went into the design and implementation of all these preventive screenings, but also how awareness of the importance of this screening is such that my insurance company instantly saw the value and approved the expense.

All is well.

I am participating in the 5k walk this year to honor and remember these breast cancer victims and survivors that I know: In memory of my grandmother, Pearl Edith White, who died in the mid-80s. And in honor of these survivors: Pam Gonnella, Nannette Carnes, Leslie Hoffman, Kathy Paulson, Linda McCorkle, and Marcy Valenty.

I invite you to support me in my walk this year. Click on this link to donate and, if you have a breast cancer survivor or victim that you would like honored or remembered, please send me an email to let me know. Thank you so much for your time and commitment to fighting this disease.

Chauffer

Chauffer
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

Nate drives Taylor, our latchkey guy Fred (foreground), and the neighbor boy Jack (other side) to school and back each day. It's been very helpful to me!

However, yesterday he called after school got out to say his car wouldn't start. He'd left the lights on. "They didn't call me up to the office," he said. "They called the guy in the spot next to mine."

To my credit, I did not tell him that it's his deal to get those lights off, and not the school's responsibility to be sure they are off.

He did get another student to give him a jump, so at least he got the problem solved without parental guidance!

Love Notes

note
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic

I found this note in my car Monday afternoon after Jazz.

And then this came to my inbox yesterday:

"When did you move to South Carolina, and are you ready to move back yet?

Michelle Maher, Partner
The Cleveland Company, Inc."

Aren't I lucky?

Training

Training a new puppy is not just about training the puppy. Really about 80% of the learning is with the people.

Bear is learning "sit." And he has scratched at the door a few times while we are going out. But the guys in my house are still learning about keeping him in sight, and how to deal with his mouthy-ness. It's coming along. The accidents we have always occur when there is more than one person in charge of the dog. If it's just me and Bear? No issues. But as soon as someone else comes home we have accidents. It's the humans needing training.

It's been a busy week already, with a couple of interviews for stories yesterday and lots of library festival stuff. The big event is September 29 and I'm already planning an escape to the beach for when that is over. I also need to get my email out about the Susan Komen Race Oct. 6. I should do that today. Last year I raised over $600. I'd like to do at least that this year.

More Churching Around

It's another week. There are random murmurings that we could cool down and get some rain for a few days. I sure do hope so. Everything is just so dry and we are all so tired of summer now.

Of course, I'm working on a story about water conservation in the home. If it runs next Wednesday while it's raining, that would be ironic.

I went to visit the new Episcopal service here in our community last night. It was a very nice service. I told the pastor/rector/priest...whatever she is called...that I had never been to an Episcopal service before. I said, "this might be the last Protestant service style I hadn't experienced before." It was a very nice, contemporary service. I shot photos for the paper and will write a story about them in the next couple of weeks. She's going on vacation, so I'm to get together with her next week sometime.

They also are another church that takes communion every service. I'm not a big fan of that. My favorite Lutheran church does too. It's the only thing I don't care about with them, too.

Church stories are starting to pile up. There is a small mission-minded church that's been meeting at a local neighborhood clubhouse and they now have found a more permanent home. I'm to find them and write about them. And the Presbyterians that I wrote about this summer will start services in October.

So I will be quite ecumenical in the coming weeks.

Are They Just Lazy?

Do they think we just won't notice that all their covers look the same? That we won't think "Wow, they probably saved a lot of money sending this photographer to this one beach and having her shoot several covers all at once."

And of course the titles on the cover are all same-y too:
"[whatever] after 40"
"lose # pounds] in [# weeks]"
"Breakthrough [whatever]"

Sheesh! If this magazine weren't packed with such great articles, I'd scrap it. But I even have prepped some of the recipes.

Check out The Daily Bear. This is another blog devoted just to a photo-of-the-day thing for our pound puppy. I would have just added a page to this site, but apparently you can't do that in blogger. So there is a link there on the right you can check. The thumbnail of him will stay the same, but you should see a new photo there every day. Or at least often. I'm trying to shoot him every day to chronicle his changes, but also to work on my photography skills...portrait shooting, speed shooting, etc. There will probably not be a writing every day there, more likely just a shot and title.