More Than A Song

How in the WORLD do all you chickadees out there do it? You’re moms & grandmoms, with kids and jobs and you cook, clean, etc. AND blog too! I don’t know how you do it. Daughter Kathryn and her Katelyn are visiting me this week, they’ve been here since Saturday night and I find that I don’t really have time to do much of anything after meals and cleaning up some. I haven’t been around to visit you and I haven’t taken much time to try to write anything either. Don’t give up on me just yet, I hope to get around to see you more later and maybe post a little something else.
I stand in awe of all you blogger moms/grandmoms that have your kids around!

I’m not feeling very inspired this week to come up with a meal plan….but here’s a rough outline of what I might be doing. Hope you all have a good week!
Be sure to visit our host Laura for more menus & ideas this week.

Maple hoisin salmon, sesame green beans, salad
Grilled or roasted chicken, roasted carrots, macaroni and cheese
Turkey tenderloins, peas, potatoes
Creamy chicken and pasta
Leftovers, or possibly eat out

Got tagged by Susanne last week sometime to do this 5 questions meme and I’m just now getting back to it. She’s asked me 5 questions that I answer then I make up my 5 to ask 5 people that I tag. The questions are always changing!

1. If you could meet any famous person in the world, be it political leader, celebrity, novelist, missionary or preacher, etc. who would it be? Nothing is really coming to mind on this one, I first thought I might pick Tina Turner (I can hear Stacy laughing) but I think we’d have nothing really to talk about so I’ll say Beth Moore because I think we could find lots to talk about.

2. What is your all time favorite novel and why is it your favorite? I don’t know if I have one favorite one, with books it’s hard to pick just one! I’ve always loved the Zion Chronicles and Covenant series but I have said in the past that Les Miserables by Victor Hugo is one of my favorite books; I loved the story of how Valjean changes his life because of unconditional love shown to him by a priest and how his life unfolds afterward.

3. If you could go on any game show, past or present, which would it be? Maybe Wheel of Fortune, although I don’t watch it anymore.

4. If you could obliterate one tv show off the current programming schedule which would it be? Don’t know if it’s still on but I used to say that I wish Howard Stern’s show was off the air.

5. What is your dream job? Other than doing what I love, wife and mother…….oh, be a back up singer or dancer in a big production show! Or get paid to travel for a living!

Here are my 5 questions:
1. Do you eat breakfast every day and if so, what do you usually have?
2. What 5 places do you like to visit in the United States?
3. What place/s overseas would you like to travel to?
4. Do you have a Bible verse that’s meaningful to you and why?
5. Who are a few of your favorite singers or songs?

I’d like to see more of you play along, let me know if you do so I can come read them!
Since I’m supposed to tag others I’ll pick these for now:
Jenna, Coach J, Karen, Stacy (the other one), and Annie
Don’t feel like you have to do it but play along if you like!

Can you guess! Be here by dinnertime hopefully but here’s the nice part, staying for about 5 days!
So who do you think it is? I’ll give you a hint…………she can’t drive so somebody has to bring her here to see me! Whatcha think.
I still have a few things to get done around here first and a bit of grocery shopping. I’ll check in later to see if anyone has ideas!

Update: Stacy knows, but she didn’t say! Katelyn is coming to see me! Well technically daughter K is coming and bringing the little one with her but I’m sorta thinking Katelyn is coming to see me. They will be here sometime around 5ish today and then I might be a bit busy. Maybe we’ll take some more pictures this upcoming week.
Hope the rest of your weekend is good!

Back in the spring I won a free trial to Netflix, something we were very excited to try out. I got signed up at the end of June and the first 3 movies were shipped to us. Hubby has been chomping at the bit for almost 2 years now to see a movie he’d read about in World magazine. It never came to a theater anywhere close to here and hasn’t been in the video store here either! In fact, they looked at him sorta funny and did that “huh?” thing when he asked about it. So the first one we signed up for was this:

Oops, you probably can’t read it! The movie is, Sophie Scholl: The Final Days It’s a true story about a 21 year old girl in Germany and her involvement in a resistance movement against Hitler. Some university students recognized how evil Hitler was and began to write leaflets about the truth and distribute them to the German people. This group was called The White Rose Society I believe. It shows their courage and their unwavering faith. We are usually drawn to movies about WWII and particularly like ones that show true stories. This one did not disappoint, hubby was very pleased he got to see it.
I’d recommend it as a good movie for adults to watch because of the intense subject matter and as best as I remember, it was a fairly clean movie…..it’s a German made film with English subtitles.
We are really enjoying our Netflix trial! There’s something very magical about movies appearing in the mail at your door! D absolutely didn’t like going to the one and only video store here, and it’s just so much easier to pick them out online and have them come right to you. It’s something I think we might keep up after the trial runs out, with Netflix or someone else, at whatever the best price is we can find.
I’m looking for more movie suggestions too so if you have any, please pass them along! What are some good ones, funny ones, ones you liked?

Yesterday I blogged about all the corn being grown this year in Mississippi. That corn is the kind that’s used for grain, feed, fuel, etc. and the post is here. It’s not used for eating I don’t think.
But there is a large farming operation not too far away from us that grows sweet corn, we think we’ve heard that they have a contract with some big company that buys their corn to sell in grocery stores or maybe Walmart. I bought some last year to put in my freezer and it is the BEST and sweetest corn I believe I’ve ever had in my life! They have big crews come in to hand pick it, then it’s refrigerated pretty quickly. They also crate lots of it up to sell to local people in the area that drive out into the country for it. It’s like going to the farmer’s market I suppose but right out on the farm! I was going out of town this week and would be fairly close by so I made a stop on my way home to buy a box of it to put in my freezer; about 50 ears in a box for $13, pretty good huh? I spent several hours one afternoon working on it and left out some for supper, yummy…….
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I live in the Mississippi delta, an area several hundreds miles long, very flat and very agricultural. Here it’s ALL about the farming and cotton has always been king, until this year maybe. For the first time, in almost forever, more farmers have planted corn than cotton. I think there might be several reasons, maybe having to do with prices and stuff I don’t always understand! But one thing I’ve heard is that more ethanol (that uses corn) is being produced, so the demand for corn is higher. Another thing I read was that more corn being grown is why our milk prices have gotten so high; farmers that need corn for feed for their cattle can’t get it as easily because more corn is going for ethanol so it costs them more to feed their animals and the milk has gone up. I believe some people are paying more for a gallon of milk than a gallon of gas!
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When I was in NC visiting we decided one day to do some altering. K is wanting/needing a few more maternity clothes to wear but didn’t want to spend much money for anything. When she was pregnant before, she worked and needed different clothes than she needs now that she’s home every day. She looked through her closet and found 2 pair of black maternity pants and decided we could cut one of them off to make them look more summery by being capri length. And a few months ago she had bought an inexpensive dress that isn’t a maternity dress but the baby doll style, empire waist that’s popular now. It was a bit too short for her as a dress, (she’s tall) especially now that she’s showing some but it was too long to be a top. So she thought the perfect thing would be to cut the dress off and make it into a top! It had a black satin band at the bottom that I didn’t think would be easy to deal with. And we needed to cut the top longer in the front to compensate for her tummy…..those kinds of things make me nervous for some reason, I think I’d rather start from scratch than alter something. But she made the first cut and we went from there…..
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And because I don’t want to end the day with a sad book excerpt, like I put in the post below………..I give you another one that I had copied and kept! It’s in that same pile of stuff I’m going through. This is from one of the Miss Julia books by Ann B. Ross, they are very light and funny reads.

“As I turned to leave, Little Lloyd called out, Miss Julia, you might better bring back a mattock too. This ground is pretty hard. I waved, not too sure what a mattock was, but sure that someone at the hardware store would know. I heard Lillian caution Little Lloyd against cutting any roots, as she began hacking at the daylily bed with the hoe.
I left them to it, and drove to Prince’s Hardware. It was not my favorite place to shop since I didn’t know one thing from another in it. But it was far and away better than one of those huge sprawling things outside of town where you had to dodge some old man wanting to hug you and where you couldn’t find anything or anybody to help you. Give me a business that’s family-owned and operated anytime. And I’m talking about a local family, not one that lives in Arkansas.”

I thought that was hilarious and SO very true! I love Walmart but many days you can’t find things in there, much less anyone to help you, and if you ask, they have no clue! I got a giggle from it!

At the moment I’m cleaning out a pile of stuff that hubby so kindly shoved all into a closet in the room I’m sewing in! I’ve run across several things that I think I saved to blog about at one time or another and never got around to. So this is rather random………
It’s from a book I read last year maybe, I didn’t particularly like the book but this paragraph at the very end of the book really caught my attention:
“Why did we never talk about books? It had been a common interest, after all. Because you didn’t dare. No, it can’t be that. Because I didn’t listen? Yes. I wasn’t interested in you as a person, only as my mother. Not until you fell ill, disappeared and it was too late, had all the questions come.”

And I thought how sad and maybe a bit true that can be………that we might not be interested in someone like our mothers as a person, until it’s too late. Although I think everyone could feel this way at some time or another.
Here’s to getting to know someone!

And maybe the next tidbit of info that I run across in this never ending pile will be something hilariously funny!

Was able to stick pretty well to my plan last week so don’t think I have any carryover meals this time. I’m only going to go with 4 meals this week, hubby might not make it for supper one night so I’m planning accordingly.
Visit Laura at Organizing Junkie for the other participants this week and her great tips.

Teriyaki salmon, green beans, squash casserole
Chicken, foil pack veggies
Grilled shrimp caesar salad, broccoli
Southwest stuffed turkey burgers and maybe corn

What’s on your menu this week?
Happy Monday!

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday yesterday….it was a nice little break for us! We went down to our friend’s house in the early afternoon, there were 6 of us adults and one was babysitting their little grandson. One grilled some meat and did pasta salad, I made crunchy slaw and squash casserole and another made homemade ice cream. We ate entirely too much! So we vegged out in front of the tv looking for something to watch, nothing was on and finally decided to send Don back to my house for games. We played Mad Gab for a while, SO much fun! I brought my iPod dock/speaker and music to play outside trying to get the boys to dance with us………..
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I hope you have a wonderful Fourth of July today! Fly the flag, eat something fun and give thanks for our country. That’s what we’re doing this afternoon with a small group of friends. I’m glad my hubby has the day off today, although he told me he needed to do some office work later on. Maybe I’ll get to see some patriotic concerts/fireworks on tv tonight! Have a fun day!
God Bless America!

I’m being totally self indulgent today and posting a bunch of pictures. I took well over a hundred last week when I was visiting Kathryn and her family in Charlotte but don’t worry, I’m not putting that many up! I enjoyed my time there just hanging out with them, shopping a bit and playing with Katelyn.
These will be on the extended page so click below if you’re interested in seeing them…..
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I meant to include this picture with my menu plan but totally forgot about it! Stacy and I went to the farmer’s market on Saturday, a first for us I think. And we both bought things to use this week…..she pictured hers a day or so ago and you can see it here. She had a picture of the outside of the market and I took a shot of my stuff when I got home! So I’m incorporating some of these things into our meals/breakfasts this week.

Blueberries, they were $2! So I had to have 2 and might freeze some…..sweet onion, bell peppers, cantaloupe, tomato (yum) and a jar of honey, which might take me forever to use.
It was a fun excursion!