Reading

We've all been doing quite a bit of reading lately.  I've been trying to read some books in preparation for the birth doula class that I'll be attending in June.  I'm also reading a lot of fun, relaxation books.  Here are just a few: Wildwood Dancing by Juliet Marillier, Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, The Stepsister Scheme and The Mermaid's Madness by Jim C. Hines, Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner, No Place Like Home by Mary Higgins Clark.  I'm currently reading The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull. 

Morgan has read Hunger Games and Catching Fire, Wildwood Dancing, and the Maximum Ride series by James Patterson...as well as numerous others.  The girl is usually reading 2-3 books at one time.   Alex just finished reading The Candy Shop War and really wanted me to read it too.  He's been reading the How to Train Your Dragon series (the first 5 so far).   Corey is trying to work his way through Life of Pi.  Poor guy it would help if he could get some down time to actually read.  Work has had him really busy lately.

I love that my children love to read.  If you have a love of reading you can explore and learn your whole life. 

Happy 9th Birthday Alexander!

Nine years ago today, Alexander James was born, all 11 pounds and 22 inches of him.  :-)  It has been an amazing nine years.  We've had our ups and downs but who hasn't?  We wouldn't give ya back for anything.  LOL!  You are stuck with us.  We are looking forward to seeing what the next year holds for you...and us.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX!!  We love you!

Interview

Today I had an interview with a local midwife and 2 of her assistants.  She enjoys helping to train future midwives and usually has 2-3 apprentices at one time.  One apprentice just completed her apprenticeship so they are looking for a new apprentice to step into the practice.  I was just 1 of 15 interested in the position.  They are interviewing again next Friday and then will be making a decision by the following Monday.  So, I will know yes or no within 10 days.  Today was just a wonderful experience no matter how it all turns out.  I enjoyed meeting all 3 ladies and getting some time to talk to them.  Making that contact at this point is beneficial in itself.  I feel I was true to myself and showed them that I was excited & interest & ready to work hard.  If the timing or fit isn't right than it isn't right.  No problems.  :-)

On a different note.  I've switched the blog back to the original template.  A few things didn't make the switch over to the other template and I don't want to leave them off the blog.  Soo, until I can figure that out I'll leave this template in.

Tax Day

Well, I guess for some it is Tax Day.  We never wait until the last minute to file our taxes.  The *only* reason I can think of to wait is if you owed the government.  LOL!  Then I would wait til the last possible minute before filing. 

For us it was just Thursday.  An unseasonably warm Thursday too.  The day was better than yesterday, which started good but ended badly.  So that's a positive.  We had the oven on a lot today (pizzas for lunch, baking dinner for an hour, and then baking cookies) and egads that oven made it worse.  Note to self, when you are trying not to use the a/c and it is hot, do NOT use the oven so much.  We got through just fine though.  We are getting really good at making the Ginger Sorghum Snaps.  They turned out even better this time.  We might make this our signature cookie.  Alex loves them...believe it or not. 

This evening when I took Morgan to dance I signed us up for a summer class.  She will be taking lyrical and I'll be taking the adult hip hop class.  Woot! Me, taking hip hop.  Who would have thought?  I'm looking forward to it and think it will be fun.  Dori has promised not to kill me.  ;-)

Corey and I watched the next episode of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution that we had DVR'd.  Omigosh, just love that show and what he is doing!  We are having our own Food Revolution in our house.  Morgan doesn't want to touch a chicken nugget unless it is a fresh, homemade one (we will be making some this wknd or Monday) and doesn't want fast food.  We've had no chips and both kids are eating more fruits & veggies.  Corey & I are too.  Yay!  We haven't even started with our spring/summer CSA boxes yet.  Can't wait til we are getting those every Wednesday.  I can taste the freshness now.  Yumm! 

Tomorrow is a busy one.  I have an interview with a midwife in Franklin at 3pm and we have Shakespeare Club at 6pm.  I'll be coming home during busy drive-time so dinner might be a squeeze...or late, after S.C.  We are doing Reader's Theatre of Much Ado About Nothing.  Should be fun.  Last month was with As You Like It.

New Address - New Look

Since I had to move the blog to a new address I figured I would give it a new look.  I'm not sure if this is the look I was going for but it will do for now.  It might be different next time you visit, just letting you know. ;-)
Thankfully the migration was made easy by the folks at Blogger. 

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Ginger Sorghum Snaps

We have received several pints of sorghum syrup from our CSA this winter. I knew it was like molasses but that was about it. I decided that the first thing we would try would be ginger snap cookies. I searched and found a recipe that sounded like it would work, and I had all the ingredients for, and set out to make them this morning. It was easy work making the dough thanks to my KitchenAid mixer...just love that thing. The dough has to chill for at least an hour so we worked outside creating a front flower bed. During our lunch break I rolled up 1 cookie sheet full and baked them so my mom could try them. She loves ginger snaps. They bake for 10 mins @ 350 but our oven is wonky so that was just a bit too much. The cookies were a little overdone, not burned, but you could tell. They didn't taste that "gingery" to me so I thought that I would make an adjustment on the printed recipe and add more ginger next time. Tonight, after we finished outside & had dinner I decided to finish baking up the cookies. I turned the temp down about 10 degrees and set the timer for 9 mins. PERFECTION! :-) Oh my gosh, the ginger flavor just pops! It was definitely the overcooking that caused the taste difference.

Here we have a sheet of cookies rolled in nice little balls and coated in sugar all ready to be baked.

Fresh out of the oven! Don't they look delicious? You can smell the ginger with a hint of cinnamon.

Oops, sorry, I couldn't help myself. Seriously, they are DELICIOUS and I don't care for store-bought ginger snaps.



Here is the recipe that I used.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 TBSP ground ginger
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup margarine or shortening, softened
1 cup sugar (white or brown) - I used 1/2 cup of each
1 egg
1/4 cup sorghum or dark molasses
granulated sugar or cinnamon sugar, to coat cookies

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift dry ingredients together and set aside. Cream margarine and sugar until creamy. Beat in egg and sorghum. Slowly add dry ingredients 1/3 at a time, mixing well in between each addition. Chill dough for at least 1 hour. Form dough into 1" balls and roll in sugar. Place on ungreased cookie sheet 2" apart. Bake about 10 minutes, until tops are rounded and slightly cracked.

Enjoy!

Family Weekend

Corey was off this weekend, the first weekend in about a month that he has had off and will be the only weekend for about another month that he will be off. "Off" for Corey means not being on call and not having any change windows scheduled. We had to take advantage of this time and get some good quality family time in. So we did. :-) Saturday morning we headed up to Nashville. Our first stop was McKay's Used Books. We brought 2 small/medium boxes with books, computer software and music cd's to turn in. If they buy them from you then you get $x in cash or $y in store credit. Store credit is close to double the cash amount. Since we LOVE books (and they have books, computer software, music, video games, movies,etc there) we take store credit. This trip we got $95 & change in store credit. Corey got 4-5 books, Morgan got 5 books, Alex got 9 books and I got 7 books; plus the kids each got a music cd - Alex got a Boston cd and Morgan got Imogen Heap. And we have plenty of store credit leftover for our next trip. Our second stop was the Adventure Science Center. We joined, homeschool family membership...woo! and then started wandering around. Alex wanted to come as part of his birthday so we let him decide what to do each step of the way. First, he wanted to try one or more of the NASA exhibits. He decided on the EVA Experience which simulates how astronauts do the extravehicular activities ("space walks") and is zero gravity.

Here we have Alex harnessed up and ready for the activity to start.

Here is Corey all harnessed up & ready to go.

Here is Alex up in the air.





Here is Corey up in the air.




And here is a shot of both of them (someone we don't know in the center) up in the air.

The line for the moonwalk experience (1/6 gravity) was really long so we decided we would put that off for another day now that we are members. Plus, the kids & I will be back on Wednesday for our last Homeschool Day of the year. Maybe he can try it then. After this we went through the other areas of the center and had a good time. Eventually hunger overtook us so we headed out for our next stop. We headed to Cool Springs (just south of Nashville) for a late lunch/early dinner and decided on Red Lobster. Afterwards, Corey wanted to stop in to Best Buy so we dropped Corey & Alex off there and Morgan & I walked over to Old Navy. We had picked out a few shirts for her (big sale) and were looking at some for Alex when the boys showed up...with an iPad. LOL! He wasn't planning on it but decided to get it since they had some and he REALLY wanted to get one. So we left with 3 shirts for each kid and 1 iPad. Leaving Cool Springs we headed into Spring Hill to visit my mom & brother. All was good there and we had a good little chat. Next stop, ice cream at Bruster's and then home. *phew* I think we were all tuckered out. We watched Cool Runnings with the kids.

On Sunday, we met up with my mom here in Columbia and all headed over to Tullahoma for the day. My BIL & SIL (Jon & Jody) were having everyone over for Easter. Corey, the kids & I, my mom, my other BIL, his wife & 1 son (of 3...other 2 couldn't make it) along with Jon & Jody's son & his gf, and their daughter. The kids colored eggs, then had an egg hunt with plastic treasure-filled eggs, then we had Easter dinner followed by yummy desserts. Afterwards we sat out on the front porch & in the front yard to enjoy the rest of the afternoon/evening. It was a gorgeous day!