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Chopped Tomato Basil Salad
Tomatoes are red and heavy on our vines. We have been picking them almost daily, the bounty this year is wonderful! Dale and I have been canning our produce weekly – so the promise of a summer’s kiss will be tasty in our winter soups and sauces. The Harvest I have a passion for pretty plates and dishes. I look for meals that compliment a color theme, or let me use a certain precious gift given to me by a Grandmother who’s memory I hold dear. This great recipe uses fresh tomatoes and pungent basil. These tomatoes need to be skinless. This is a simple process. I put a small…
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From a Big Ole Acorn…
I know that from a little acorn, big trees grow. They are dropping all over our deck, and my bare feet get me hopping sometimes! However, out in our vegetable patch the acorn squash has spread its vines down the hills, up the fence and is quite cozy with the tomato plants.The problem with squash plants is, if you move the vines, or touch the fuzzy leaves, they up and die. Just like that. So, a few tomatoes are fertilizing the field under the vines.I love acorn squash. I think of it as a fall plant, but really it is a late summer addition. We serve this up brown sugared,…
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School Supplies
Reynolds & Reynolds went out of their way to support the troops at the start of this school year. Early in the summer they asked for school supply lists for all of Hubby’s Brigade’s children. Wow. So I did my best, after all all three of my children’s schools were wrapping up the current school year, and not really thinking about next year yet. Basically, I found last year’s school supply lists and forwarded it on to our Family Readiness Group leader. This morning I drove out to the house of a fellow Army family. Her husband is with my husband and she had been kind enough to pick up…
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Feeling Thin
… ya it’s not what you are thinking. I’m feeling thin like a piece of toast with BARELY enough butter to make it palatable. Thin like scrape the jar of peanut butter and come out with barely a knife full for a PB&J sandwich. Thin like no matter how hard you try you just can’t get another drop of honey out of the honey jar. Thin like … I think you get the picture. How do single-moms (or dads) do it?! Soccer has started with a bang and I have three boys playing this year, practices and games are weekly. (Daily practices actually for my high-schooler.) School starts in 8…
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The Harvest
We have had a great summer and the harvest season is here! Our garden after a lot of work is producing and we have started freezing and canning almost every day. What fun it is to see the fruits of our labor! We started with an empty spot under our power lines a couple of years ago and just kept adding space (plus a fence to keep the deer out). Now the rotor tiller has to work extra hard and long in the spring to get us started! The preparation and planting can be back breaking but healthy as we stretch out the muscles after a winter of cold. We…
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The Shah of Iran and A Family View of OPSEC
Sometimes OPSEC is just an acronym many folks do not know the definition of or if they do know it means Operations Security they are not sure how it affects them. In fact, military families may not understand that it may directly affect the safety of their loved ones and the members of the unit they belong to. I usually illustrate the point by telling the story from when I took part in a special mission involving the movement of “high value” passengers. There had been a revolution in Iran and the Shah and his family had left the country. We watched from our overseas location having no idea that…
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A Ball of Mixed Emotions
I am lost in thought this week as my sweet *E* is off to kindergarten the last week of August. I always thought I would be ready to kick him out the door but somehow the closer we get to *the big day* the more reflective, and a little sullen, I feel. He is my oldest; although my 14 year old step-son is our oldest. I feel like I am crossing into new territory as *E* crosses the bridge of preschool into public-school. So as our summer vacation winds down on Monday & Tuesday we took a quick ‘road-trip’ out to my parents house. They live far enough away that…
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Music to my ears
I come from a musically-inclined family. Probably not what you are thinking, though. In fact, I remember one of the funniest jokes my mom ever told: “I can play all kinds of music; on the radio, on the record player, on the tape deck.” Ok, I was young… I thought it was really funny at the time. 🙂 Our family made QUITE A FEW PCS’s over the years and what was the first thing that was set-up in each new house after the movers came and went? (I think even before the beds!): The stereo. I remember Dad getting all the wires set up, getting the speakers in place and…
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Spilt Black Berries
We have a wonderful wild blackberry patch in the “back 40” of our land and they are at the height of their season! We have had a couple of nice rainshowers recently and they are black and fat and I love them in the winter on my cereal and in my muffins. Right now we put them in salads and other wonderful summer dishes. I grew up on a “Berry Farm” and we often call ourselves a Berry Pickin Family. But I get ahead of myself since before they can proceed into my bowl of many types I have to pick them. Now these are wild berries; not in neat…
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Contrary to Changing Life, OPSEC Requires a Firm Stand
OPSEC OPSEC is an acronym that could be life changing. It is an acronym that in a perfect world would not ever be used. OPSEC (Operational Security) could mean “Our precious security is ever changing” as our world is ever growing. The safe world that was defined by a hometown has gone the way of the rotary phone… TV’s without remotes… Roadmaps instead of GPS… Encyclopedias instead of Google… a DVR instead of a VCR… IPOD instead of walkman CD player, YouTube instead of boredom! So much that we take for granted, and isn’t life great because of that! But with the addition of ease, comes the responsibility of control.…
