A Momentary Guest

"Cowboy" stopped in for a bit while his owner scurried from work to collect him. Apparently, he dug himself out from behind his fence and set off for a grand adventure. When I saw him weaving through traffic like he was weaving through bubbles, I thought I'd better check to see if he had someone who cared to claim him. I called him over and he had this great little tag with a 24 hour pet finder number and ID on him. I called the number, gave the ID, and was patched through to his owner within 30 seconds. Awesome, huh?

Anyway, he was delightful guest, and I even began to feel the pangs of puppy hunger as he gracefully handled all the attention Rudy could dish out.

Until, that is, he squatted in the middle of my backyard to relieve himself. That's when the memory of all the responsibilities of dog ownership came flooding back to me, and I thought, "Thank goodness this is a 20 minute visit, and nothing more. :)

Peach Dumpling Recipe

This one's for Lydia. I do hate typing out recipes...but not quite as much as I hate tackling an over run kitchen and dining room in the middle of the afternoon heat, so here I am, typing out an old family recipe, for an old family friend. ;)

This is a super basic recipe, by the way--one of those that may not make sense to someone who hasn't done it a million times before. I'll try to clarify where I can-but let me know if you have questions.

For the dough:

1 24 ounce container Cottage Cheese

1 stick margarine/butter

6 eggs

4 heaping serving spoons of Cream of Wheat (Sorry! This is how my mom always measured it out, I know it's kinda vague-but the dough's pretty forgiving, really-just go with what feels right in your bones.) ;)

6 heaping serving spoons plain bread crumbs

9-10 heaping serving spoons flour

1/4 tsp salt

Ok- start by blending the cottage cheese 'till smooth in a food processor or blender (in a pinch). Add the margarine/butter and eggs to the smooth cottage cheese and blend it all 'till its nice and creamy.

Next, pour it into a bowl and add the dry ingredients. You'll want the dough to turn out sticky, but mold-able. I usually add the cream of wheat and breadcrumbs, and then just add flour till it feels right.

Toss the whole thing in the fridge while you prepare the breadcrumbs for the outside. It should chill for at least 1/2 hour or so.

For the breadcrumbs:

(I don't even have a recipe for this-so here goes!)

Melt some (like maybe 3/4 stick) butter into a large skillet over medium heat.

Add some (like maybe 3/4 to a full package) of bread crumbs to the butter and brown them slightly. Think toast.

Take off the heat, and add plenty (like at least a cup-probably way more) white sugar and a healthy dose of cinnamon (maybe 2 tablespoons for starters.) Keep tweaking it (by adding more cinnamon or sugar) 'till it tastes like something scrumptious you'd like to coat your dumplings in.

Set aside.

Wash and dry your fruit of choice. (You can use any pitted fruit-peaches, apricots (Mutti always pits the apricots and puts a cube of sugar where the pit used to be to make 'em extra tasty), nectarines, plums...whatever. My personal favorite is nectarines.)

Put a giant pot (or several large pots) filled 3/4 full of water on the stove to boil. Bring 'em to a GENTLE boil-just over a simmer. (You can do that while you're forming the dough-it's just good to get it started so you're not standing around waiting for a pot to boil.)

Pull out your dough, and lay down a good layer of flour on your work surface. Keeping your hands well floured as well, pull about a fist size piece of dough out to cover a medium sized fruit (like a nectarine). Pat it onto the floured surface, flattening your ball and making a kind of 'nest' for your fruit to sit in. Place your fruit in, and gently shmoosh the dough over the fruit, 'till it's totally covered. You should have about 1/2 inch of dough all around the fruit. Make sure to really make a good closure where the dough comes together to keep it from falling apart during the boiling. Lastly, lightly dust the whole outside of the dumpling with flour to help it seal together.

For the 'babies' all you have to do it make tsp/tbsp size balls out of the dough. Just remember to keep those hands floured so the dough doesn't stick to you.

Next, add the dumplings carefully to the gently boiling water. Make sure you don't over crowd one pot-they shouldn't be sitting on top of each other. You can push that rule a bit with the babies, but the fruit filled dumplings are much more picky and delicate. Use a wooden or plastic spoon (so you don't accidentally cut the dumplings) to be sure they don't stick to the bottom of the pot. Don't ever let your water get over a LOW (just over simmering) boil. Otherwise, your dumplings will fall apart. It's best to watch them carefully through the boiling process. (Now is not the time to get that load of laundry in.) When your dumplings are floating and you can easily push a fork right through to the pit, they're done. (Usually about 20 minutes or so.)

Using a slotted spoon, take the dumplings out of the water one by one, and roll each one in the breadcrumbs you've previously prepared. Then set into a cake pan or cookie sheet or whatever you'd like. For the fruit filled ones, I usually just kinda cover them with the breadcrumbs, and pat them onto the the dumplings, rather than rolling the dumplings around-just 'cause they're still pretty delicate fresh out of the water.

Eat 'em hot or chilled-both ways are SCRUMPTIOUS! We always serve them with milk.

Ta da! I know this could be a potentially frustrating recipe. Let me know if there's anything I can clarify for you-or if you want me to be on stand by on the phone while you make 'em, we could set that up too. ;)

Musical Taste

Humph. Jason just informed me that he thinks the music on the blog is "kinda lame". We do have pretty different tastes in music (which is what makes that fact that music was one of the first things that sparked our interest in each other nothing short of miraculous.)

I'm going to invite him to create his own playlist for the blog. It'll be interesting to see what comes up. :)

Don't expect anything before the weekend, though. School's crazy for Jason right now-not to mention home and car repairs. Someday...maybe someday...life will slow down....you think?

Peach Dumplings

This is one of my favorite foods-it's an Austrian recipe adapted for American ingredients. Delicious-I always eat way too much, but oh well, I only make them about once a year. ;) It was fun to share this with Rudy this time around.

Blending all the wet ingredients.

Rudy playing the "is it a hat?" game. I'm not sure, but I think that Jason started it-taking everyday objects and putting them on his head with the question for Rudy, " Is this a hat?" Anyway, Rudy likes to play it, and it makes for some funny pictures if I can grab 'em. :)

Putting in the dry ingredients.

Mix-a-rooni!

Flour the surface...

Grab that dough and

turn it into a ball! (These are the 'baby' dumplings we make without any fruit inside because they're just so tasty plain, and some people in the family prefer them that way.)

Dine upon the delicacy. :)

A First of My Own

Nice that you can be almost 29 and still have firsts in life to experience, huh? ;)

My rockin' friend's rockin' husband sent she and I off to what was my first ever manicure and pedicure, or mani/pedi, as 'they' call it.

Amazing. It's something I'd always wanted to try, and had actually been kinda wishing for lately even.

Thanks so much Matt! You're a peach- and there are at least 4 ladies in the world who know it (Bonnie, me, and the two ladies who did our pampering yesterday.)

Bonnie's nails (and the treat we stopped for after the pampering session).

The final result. I wish you could see how soft my hands and feet feel-that's the best part. ;)

Oh-and a side story about Bonnie's amazing hospitality:

Matt had called earlier in the day to arrange a surprise get away for Bonnie. So while he and I were in cahoots, Bonnie had no idea about what lay ahead.

I had no idea to what extent Bonnie had no idea, so when I showed up right at nap time and put my son to bed in her daughter's bed, (as instructed by Matt before hand), I assumed he'd at least given her some kind of heads up about the whole Rudy will be napping in Amy's bed thing.

Nope.

LOL-I can't believe how absolutely gracious that sweet Bonnie was! She just set little Amy up in her makeshift bed in their walk-in closet, and was grateful I felt comfortable enough with her to have a serious 'mi casa es su casa' mentality in her home.

Holy cow-I would not have passed that hospitality test. I'm sure I'd have figured out a way to nap all our kids at my place at a moment's notice, but I'd have wanted some sort of story first at least, and probably would have put Amy on the floor instead of Rudy.

(Amy did get to sleep in her bed in the end, which is nice, because Rudy wanted the novelty of camping out in the closet more than the coolness of sleeping in Amy's new bed.)

Those Parks are pretty cool people, they are, pretty cool indeed. :)

Life Lessons

Rudy experienced a little taste of heartbreak yesterday.

We had just completed our shopping at a local grocery store that offers helium balloons to their child patrons. Rudy had chosen a beautiful bright yellow balloon, which bobbed cheerily above him as we headed out the door. In an attempt to further secure it from 'blowing away', he accidentally loosened it and away it went.

Up, up, up, 'till we couldn't see it anymore.

We must have been a pitiful sight: two year old sobbing for Mommy to tell the balloon to come back, Mommy trying to balance a flat of strawberries on one hip while holding her heartbroken son in the other. I was so sorry for my little man, I just about cried myself as I tried to explain that the balloon would not be coming back.

A well meaning woman, seeming to see my uncertainty about what I should do next, said matter-of-factly, "You'll just have to go back and get another one."

Something in me resisted that suggestion, though. There are lots of things in life that you can't just "go back and get another one" for. And while I knew my son's heart was breaking at the moment, I also know Rudy well enough to know that this crisis was indeed, a mini crisis, and something he could handle with the proper guidance.

So, instead of marching back in to demand our balloon be replaced, I just held him close, and told him how sorry I was that he lost his balloon. After he'd had some time to calm down a bit, I talked to him about how even though it was sad for him to see his balloon go, maybe his balloon was really excited about the grand adventure he was off to, and we talked about all the places the wind might carry that cheery yellow balloon. To the mountains? To the ocean? Would he get to see some whales maybe? Would he visit the airplanes going by?

Rudy seemed to catch on to the make believe, and said he would pretend that he and the balloon would go on the adventure together, and they would fly through the sky and wave at all the people in the airplanes, and everyone would think how lucky he was to be on an adventure with his yellow balloon. And then he would land, and say good bye to the balloon, and his yellow friend would sail off to find more adventure on his own.

After telling that story to ourselves together, we both felt much better, and even cheery about what lay ahead for Rudy's balloon. We gathered our groceries again, and completed the trek across the parking lot to our car.

A bit later, Rudy said something like, "I said good bye to my balloon, so I'm not sad anymore."

What a profound bit of wisdom about dealing with disappointments, sorrow, even heartbreak. When we give ourselves a chance to be sad, and then face the fact that what we wanted to be simply isn't, we free both ourselves and whatever yellow balloon we were calling back to us, and we don't have to be sad anymore. We can get on with our next adventure.

And that's just what we did, my sweet Rudy and me. :)

Good Things to Come

How cool! The Church put out a little video with the story from Elder Holland's talk on it just a bit ago! Here it is:

Good Things to Come

Great video-but really-the whole talk is full of good stuff. Don't miss out! :)

Vacation...

We decided to turn a dog sitting opportunity into a family vacation last week. It was supposed to be this rockin' recharge of relaxation.

Why is it that at least half the time I go on vacation, I end up more stressed than when I left? Does that happen to anyone else?

The plan was to spend Sunday night through Wednesday morning at my parents' awesome, ultra-cozy home, feeding the animals and otherwise chilling and having a good time.

On Saturday evening, our radiator cracked. How are you supposed to relax and enjoy the splurges of a vacation when you're stressed out about a multiple hundred dollar unexpected car repair, not to mention lack of transportation?

My sweet mother picked us up from our home and brought us to hers, plus left us with some spending money so that eased things a bit, and our awesome car mechanic had the car ready to be picked up by 10 am on Monday, but my nerves were still quite raw about the whole deal.

We spent a ridiculous amount of the vacation smoothing over irritations, re-irritating each other, and then smoothing things over again.

We did have some fun times in between:

Horsing around with Sam, my parent's two year old lab mix. He's a sweetie, and getting to be more and more of a gentleman, thanks to all my parents' hard work in

training him.

Playing in the hose, and catching some rays on my parents' super cozy lounge chairs.

Exploring Cascade Springs together.

Oh, and we can't forget the train table. I think Rudy put a good 10 hours (if not more) of train play in over the 3 days we were there. I can't believe I didn't record it in pictures.

By the time we were packed up and headed home though, I was so ready to get back into the swing of normal life again. That is, until Jason headed into our bathroom and found it had turned quite, er...swampish...over the 3 days we were gone.

Our swamp cooler leaked and flooded our bathroom, hallway, and downstairs bathroom. Thank goodness it didn't do more, but that's not what I was thinking as I watched multiple drips coming from my bubbling ceiling.

I guess it's just one of those growing up moments when you realize it's always a good idea to turn off your water if you're gonna be gone for any length of time. We're learning all about making home insurance claims and luckily, things are going smoothly in that respect.

To complicate things further, however, Jason was in the middle of converting our tub into a combo tub/shower when we left (we had planned to let the stuff he'd done 'cure' over the 3 days and then finish on the day or day after we came home). With the damage, we're not comfortable finishing the conversion until we know we won't just have to rip it out in a couple days, so Rudy's been stuck taking "sinkies" instead of "tubbies" for the last 5 days.

Besides the inconvenience of having to convert the kitchen sink into a bath and then back again, it's actually kind of nice not to have to lean over the tub to wash my kiddo (small though my belly may still be, it's definitely got more of a presence than it did 17 weeks ago). :)

On Sunday, we backed out of the garage and ripped our left side mirror's casing right off the car. Today, Rudy threw the camera rather than relinquish it to his 'demanding' mother and IF I can repair it, it will held together by duck tape.

Needless to say, we're feeling kind of thin by now. Sigh.

When I feel thin like this, I listen to this talk, and it reminds me what I have to hope for, and why I can seek for and expect peace no matter my circumstances: "An High Priest of Good Things to Come" by Jeffery R. Holland, October 1999 General Conference. I like to listen to it better than reading it, because it's the kind of thing I want to hear from someone with faith, confidence, and love in his voice, rather than reading it in the fearful, doubtful, or burnt out voice I may be harboring at the moment.

Give it listen-maybe it'll come in handy for you the next time you have a vacation you need to recover from . ;)

Farm Country with Grandma

Mom took Rudy and me out to Farm Country with her Grandparents' pass last Saturday. We had tons of fun seeing all the baby animals and talking about farm life. Here's a few favorite shots of the day:

Rudy's first time ever on a horse (pony, whatever). He was totally stoked, up until she started moving. This is his expression as he realized that his perch was not so stable as he'd assumed. ;)

He recovered quickly however, probably 'cause he had Grandma right there with him to help him feel secure. Soon enough, he was lovin' the horse ride, and ready for more at the end of it. He even got brave and ventured a quick wave or two near the end, but I didn't get any decent shots of that daredevil stunt. ;)

Cheesy grins for Grandma.

Feeding the goats through the fence. It took a bit for Rudy to figure out how to do it-he kept holding the grain just out of the goat's reach and asking it to come get it. Finally he figured out that the fence was not going anywhere, and he'd have to bring the grain to the goats. :)

Petting a Clydesdale's nose. I loved how tuned in and observant he was with those giants. It was almost a reverence he held, as he said to me, "Look at his eyes!" His toddler self was distracted away before I could get further info about what he thought was special about those eyes, but I like to think he had one of those soul to soul moments with this horse. Maybe that's just the granola in me, though. ;)