On the first day of Christmas break my true love gave to me my eight year old throwing up baby octopus!

 

On the second day of Christmas break my true love gave to me, my eight year old and my four year old throwing up in my car!

On the third day of Christmas break my true love gave to me, last minute Christmas shopping!

On the fourth day of Christmas break my true love gave to me, three very sick kids!

On the fifth day of Christmas break my true love gave to me, my husband flipping his snowmobile (with my four year old on it everyone was fine the four year old sold out his dad lol)!

On the sixth day of Christmas break my true love gave to me, a cranky sick husband!

On the seventh day of Christmas break my true love gave to me, three healthy kids no wait someone threw up in the kitchen!

There are three days left of Christmas break, and I guarantee you everyone in my house will be healthy and well and ready to go back to school on January 2, and I will be ready for a break.

A very belated Merry Christmas to all of my friends and family and a happy New Year!!  

Goodbyes

The word friend is used so much and so easily these days.  But the word family we reserve for those who hold a special place in our hearts.  No matter how people come to hold that place in your heart, once they are there, it is to stay. 

John Brodnax came across as a grumpy old bear, but he had a heart of gold.  He was never failing for his chldren, and always there for his grandchildren.  He will always be a part of our family, and will be sorely missed by his little brother my husband.  Thank you for always being there for us, even when you didn't have to.

Ayisha’s Chicken Piccata with Angel Hair Pasta

Ayisha’s Chicken Piccata with Angel Hair Pasta

Serves 2-4 depending on the size of your plates

- One package fresh boneless skinless chicken breasts (usually come three to a package do not use the kind in a bag you get in the freezer section, they are full of preservatives and sodium and won’t be near as good!).

- 1 lb angel hair pasta

- 2 whole lemons

- 2 small or one large shallot sliced (optional) you can substitute ¼ cup of sliced red onion if you can’t find shallots.

- 2 cloves of minced garlic

- 4 Tbsp butter (yes butter not margarine, it took me years to figure this one out)

- 1 large egg

- (optional) Capers, drained -avoid the really large ones, they can be a bit bitter

- 2 cups and 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour

- 2 cups of water

- 2 cups of chicken or vegetable stock

- 2 tsps Lawrys seasoning salt

- Salt and pepper

- Vegetable oil

- Plastic wrap

Chicken:

Place one chicken breast between two large pieces of plastic wrap and pound flat until about ½ - ¾ inch thick. Until they are basically a uniform thickness. Repeat this process for remaining chicken breasts. After they have been pounded cut each breast in half

Season chicken with salt and pepper set aside. Break egg into a bowl and add a few tablespoons of water and scramble. Add seasoning salt and 2 cups of the flour (reserving 2 tbsp for sauce) to a large zip-top bag or deep dish. Add vegetable oil to large skillet and heat over medium heat. Dip the chicken breasts one at a time into the egg wash (letting excess drip back into bowl), and then roll into the flour until well coated. Repeat for remaining chicken breasts.

Add chicken to hot oil without overcrowding (larger skillets may hold three or four pieces). Cook on first side without moving until golden brown 5-7 minutes, turn over and cook on remaining side for an additional 5-7 minutes. Time will vary depending on the type of skillet and stove, but the chicken should be completely cooked at this point Place chicken on baking sheet lined with paper towels and place in warm oven (150 degrees or less).

Sauce:

Zesting lemons – if you have a microplane, run the lemon skin gently across the plane only taking off the yellow skin (not the white pith). Or do the same on the small holes of a box grater. If you don’t have a microplane, you can use a paring knife and peel the skin and add the peels into the sauce and remove them at the end.

Place butter in large skillet over medium, and heat until mostly melted (don’t let it brown!) Add shallot cook until soft about 1 minute add lemon zest and garlic allow to cook about another 30 seconds until fragrant (yummy). Whisk remaining 2 tbsps of flour into skillet and cook for about a minute. Whisk stock and water into mixture until lumps are gone, and cook about 4 minutes or until desired thickness (sort of like a gravy) is reached. Remove from heat, squeeze juice of two lemons into sauce add salt and pepper to taste, whisk one more time to combine. Stir in a palm-full of capers (do not add liquid from jar it is super salty and bitter but don’t rinse them either).

Cook Pasta according to package instructions angel hair only takes a couple of minutes. Drain pasta add a small amount of sauce to pasta to keep from sticking. Place chicken and pasta on plate drizzling desired amount of sauce across both. ENJOY!!!

Let me know how you like it guys!!

Topless photos

So at some point there are certain rites of passage women must go through that they dread. Mammogram is one of them. The pain of having the second most sensitive part of my body squeezed between two plates under sixty pounds of pressure became an afterthought when the technician came in and said the doctor needed one more picture.

When the word nodule slipped out of her mouth a million thoughts ran through my head. Suprisingly the thought of dying was not one of them. My first thought was whether or not my mom could come up and stay with the kids while I handled this. So now I sit here after having two more pictures taken wondering what she saw. What comes next? More tests? The technician returned handed me a piece of paper. The paper had a box checked and next to the box it read:

"Probably benign. (No evidence of cancer but further work-up needed.)"

She then explained to me that the doctor saw a dot. A dot? What does that mean?

"Well, she's pretty sure it is just a lymph node, but she wants you to come back in six months to make sure it hasn't changed."

What?? Six months?? I'm supposed to just continue on like nothing happened for six months to see if a dot grew? That's what I wanted to say. I actually thanked her for her time and left.

I told Orson when I was on my way here, that if men had to have their testicles squeezed between two plates under sixty pounds of pressure, there would be a better and less uncomfortable way to screen for breast cancer.

But really, if men had to go through this, we would probably have a cure.

For the record, I am not overly concerned about the outcome of this. My family does not have a history of breast cancer. But something about this visit did bother me.

When the technician was doing my paperwork, she said

"You are a little young for a mammogram, are you sure your insurance will cover it?"

I said "well it is just a baseline, I thought the baseline age was thirty-five?" "No, it's forty." She replied quickly. "Well we'll put it through and see what they say."

Now, some of you remember last year when the American Medical Association came out with new research saying women didn't need their first mammogram until age forty. Well for arguments sake, let us just say that my dot isn't a lymph node at all, but it is a malignant tumor. After five years without treatment I am quite sure my little dot would have turned into a mass. What would my chances be? Certainly not as good as they are with my dot being discovered now.

I am tired of everyone, government, insurance companies and drug companies deciding when, how and what kind of medical treatment we should be receiving. But then that's another blog all together isn't it? See you in the surf peeps.

A

Vacation 2011 - Day 1

As anyone with children will know it takes a massive amount of preparation for a family trip overnight. The amount of preparation and planning is multiplied exponentially by the number of days you will be gone and the number of children you have. for us that would be 10 days to the power of three kids "eek". That said, everyone was packed the car was gassed up and loaded by 11pm house was clean by 1 am, and I made an executive decision that instead of leaving at 5am we would leave when everyone got up. Unfortunately, a little boy was bouncing out of bed and excited for the trip at 5am anyway!! Not only that, he insisted on waking me and all of the kids up. Yes, my husband kicked us all loose around 6am.

We stopped in Pennsylvania and had lunch at a scenic overlook in Shikellamy State Park in overlooking the Pennsylvania Susquehanna River. The view was spectacular, and the weather was pleasant with a decent breeze. Everything you could ask for . . . except restrooms (note to self, next time check department of parks websites for parks with facilities, duh).

Once we returned to the road and after a bathroom break, we entered the Maryland/DC area. And found the Friday/Holiday traffic "oh joy", then we discovered the HOV lane, we jumped into the High Occupancy Vehicle lane and were flying past the poor saps stuck in bumper to bumper traffic on the other side of the wall. Unlinke the HOV lanes in some states, there is a cement wall separating the HOV lanefrom the other traffic. So once you get on, if you get off, there is no going back. It was right about then that I realized I was low on gas, and my car seconded the motion by popping on a yellow light in the shape of a gas pump "oh crap". As we approached the last chance to exit out of the HOV lane, my professional truck driver husband, assured me that we had plenty of gas to get to the end of the HOV lane and to a service station. Just as I passed that exit I was blinded by the blaze of brakelights as the traffic in front of me came to a screaming stop. (insert favorite obscenity here).

And so the countdown began ,my car has one of those handy dandy overhead displays with all sorts of useful information like your MPG, the temperature, and how many miles you have left until you reach empty. 35 miles, 26 miles, 12 miles, 4 miles . . . we are out of the HOV lane hallelujah there is an exit in one mile. We are inching painfully closer, 2 miles to empty "does this exit have gas?" "Yes." Exit to Quantico, where's the gas station, left or right, there, there on the left. "WHAT? ONE PUMP THREE PEOPLE IN LINE!!!" Wait, there isn't anyone on the otherside, flip a louie, lady in a Benz racing for my space, "Lady don't you know my nickname was AJ Foyt in high school?" A brief game of chicken ensues and the silver minivan wins. HAH, eat my fumes lady!! Check-in at hotel, dinner, kids to bed, update blog (for the first time in two years). Tomorrow Kings Dominion amusement park, talk to you then.