Puppies

I love to look at the puppies at Cuddly Canines. We fostered puppies for them last summer, and it was quite an experience. There is nothing better than waking up to five adorable puppies jumping all over you. I want to do it again, but Tim is resisting. It was an incredible amount of work, but being able to snuggle puppies made it all worth it.

I just realized that I already posted about this. Oh, well. Anyway, I was just reading that some of their puppies died of parvo. It made me very sad for the foster family, because you really get attached to the little things. We were lucky the ones we had were all healthy and all went to great homes.

Basic Recipes

These are pretty basic recipes, but it took me a while to find ones that were just right.

Cornbread

• 1 1/2 Cups Flour


• 1 Cup Sugar


• 3/4 Cup Cornmeal


• 1 Tablespoon Baking Powder


• 1/2 teaspoon Salt


• 2 Eggs


• 1/2 Cup Margarine (1 stick)


• 1 Cup Milk

Mix together flour, sugar, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. Add eggs, margarine and 1/2 cup of milk. Beat on low speed until blended. Add remaining 1/2 cup milk. Beat on low speed until blended.
Spoon into foil baking cups. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.


Pancakes

• 1 Cup Flour


• 1 Tablespoon Sugar


• 2 teaspoons Baking Powder


• 1/4 teaspoon Salt


• 1 Egg


• 1 Cup Milk


• 2 Tablespoons Vegetable Oil

Mix together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add egg, milk and oil. Mix on low speed until blended. Let batter rest for a few minutes before cooking pancakes. If your family is anything like mine, you will want to double this recipe!

Potato Pancakes

• 2 Cups Mashed Potatoes


• 1/2 Cup Flour


• 1 teaspoon Baking Powder


• 1/2 teaspoon Salt


• 1 Egg


• 2 Tablespoons Milk


• 1 Tablespoon Vegetable Oil

Just mix the ingredients together! If batter is too thick add more milk. If it is too thin add a little extra flour. Cook on a griddle just like pancakes. They taste so good with gravy. (I am still experimenting with this recipe, so let me know how it works for you).


Drop Biscuits

• 2 Cups Flour


• 3 teaspoons Baking Powder


• 1 teaspoon Salt


• 1 teaspoon Sugar


• 3/4 Cup Milk


• 1/3 Cup Vegetable Oil


• 1 Egg

Mix together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Add milk, oil and egg. Hand mix until dough is formed. Drop onto greased pan. I use a Pampered Chef Large Round Stone from their stoneware collection. It helps biscuits and cookies cook evenly without burning on the bottom.
Bake at 450 degrees 12-15 minutes.

Oh no...

I am feeling a little achy and feverish. I think I am getting what my kids are just getting over, and I am not looking forward to it. Morgan had a high fever for nine days. I have never seen him so sick. Haley is in the nasty cough phase right now. Annie is in the "can I go play?" phase, but she still has a bit of a fever.

Anyway, the last time I was very sick, I ended up having to have one lobe of my lung removed, so I get quite nervous when I am coming down with something. I know logically that it probably will never happen again, but it is still hard. Actually, the reason I started this blog was to write about my illness and surgery, but I haven't been able to do it yet. It is kind of depressing to get into, but I will get around to it one of these days.

Great Blog

I found this blog today and was so excited to bookmark it, so I could go back later and read it all when I have time.

She has beautiful photos, too, which make me want to spend some time experimenting with my camera.

This post really made me laugh. It reminded me of my nephew, when he was little, sputtering out, "You...you lampshade head!"

Destruction and Microsoft

Well, my "work" on the server went as expected. I totally destroyed all of the work Tim has done for the past two weeks, including client databases. But...I stayed up all night until I fixed it. I actually fixed it! I have to give God all of the credit, as I had an intense religious experience around 6:30am, where I acknowledged I knew nothing, so would He please help me fix it.

Anyway, I have definitely been humbled.

Part of the problem is that I use a Mac. I have always used a Mac. I have experimented and tried new things with my Mac and downloaded every new program I could find, and it has always worked perfectly. Last night, I attempted to have the same freedom on a Windows 2000 Server. Well, Microsoft is just not as forgiving of incompetence.

I still hope to learn enough to feel competent, but from what I have seen so far, you never know what can go wrong on a PC. I hope I can always remain loyal to Macs.

Like my five year old once said,"When I have a choice, I always choose Macintosh!"

Miscellaneous Thoughts

• We are trying to figure out if we can trade our car in to lower the monthly payment. We made a big mistake and bought a BMW when business was good. Now when business is slow, we are trying to get out from under the payments.
  
  
• Tim just got back from the 24-hour pharmacy with cough medicine for Morgan. He is 13 years old and will pretend he is not sick so he can play football, but I heard him coughing all night last night. Hopefully, the cough medicine will help him sleep through the night.
  
  
• Two of our hamsters died last month. They shared a cage, so they must have had the same sickness. Our third hamster is in a separate cage, and he is fine. For the first hamster we had a little funeral. The second one, we just dug the hole. I felt bad, but I didn't have a real connection to them. They didn't seem very interested in us unless we had food in our hands. I guess the dogs are the same, but they like to cuddle, too. :)
  
  
• Now I am off to try to install Visual Basic Web Developer on the server. Wish me luck...
  

December Begins!

The kids are all sick with some fever/throat thing. And the temperature has been in the 30's at night (which is quite cold for Southern California). The neighbors have the plastic baby Jesus on the lawn, so I guess it is finally Winter!

I have been busy working on a website for Tim's business. It is fun to make a website that someone will actually see. I am also trying to learn to handle the more technical aspects of his server and database stuff, but I am way lost. I keep thinking back to the computer programming class I took in junior high. I wanted to have the same schedule as my friends so I switched to home economics. Now I wish I had taken the class.

Although, I suppose the info would be outdated by now!

Anyway, I need to get smart, very quickly.

I did learn to make my own cream cheese frosting from scratch, so I have that to fall back on.