Strawberry Shredded Wheat vs. Honey Nut Cheerios

Kevin was driving to school when he got a phone call. Angie and Amanda wanted him to pick up a box of Honey Nut Cheerios for the teacher. The teacher had once told a story about the tension in his home created by running out of Honey Nut Cheerios. Angie thought it would be funny to give him a box during the final class.

Standing in front of the row of cereals, Kevin forgot which one to pick up. So he called Amanda and said, "What kind do you want?"

A 60 year old woman was choosing her cereal nearby, and smiled sweetly at Kevin. "Are you picking that up for you wife?"

Of course, Kevin responded by saying, "No. My wife likes Strawberry Shredded Wheat."

Then his rascally side welled up and he stated cheerfully, "These are for my girlfriend."

The woman stopped smiling. Her mouth fell open. Kevin smiled and walked away.

Then he chuckled to himself the rest of the night. And once, in the middle of class, he accidentally laughed out loud and disrupted the class.

Sandbaggers Among Us

Monday morning the call came: Kevin asked if I would mind if he left. Because he wanted to go to the Red River to help sandbag. So he tromped off and has spent this week working really hard and I have been left all alone and lonely.

Can you find him in this video from the 6:00 news yesterday? (Look at minute 2 if you are having trouble)

Inside the Mind of a Minnesotan Fisherman

Kevin was very agitated in the garage yesterday. He was grumbling and looking around. He said it was because he couldn't find his fishing pole. That's a big problem because he was getting up at 4:30 AM this morning to go fishing.


I didn't know where else to look, so I went upstairs where I was greeted by a bunch of fishing poles. Horray! Kevin must have taken them out and forgotten about it. I rushed downstairs to tell Kevin that his poles were upstairs.

But he didn't want any of those poles. He wanted his nice pole that he couldn't find. WHAT?? There were 4 fishing poles upstairs, 2 more in the garage and he was upset that he couldn't find his pole?

That's when I learned about the intricacies of fishing. You need one pole for crappies, one for walleyes, some medium weights, some light weights, some ultra lights. Then we got into the line. It starts at 2 pound line and goes up to 10. Walleye is the biggest fish he fishes, so he is lucky because he can keep his fishing gear to a minimum. (HAH!)Hang on a minute while my head stops spinning.

It was still too icy to fish on the river, but, luckily the boys were headed to Red Wing. The river is warmer there, but Kevin said that they still got hit with a bunch of big ice chunks. Why is the river warmer you ask? Because it is just downstream from the nuclear power plant that releases hot........water?......into the river. Which has absolutely no contaminants in it. At all. But it still gets me thinking about....

Blinky from the Simpsons!! He is the product of a nuclear leak. Ain't he cute? Just for the record, we always eat the fish Kevin brings home from Red Wing.

Fish Faces

Why do the fish hate us? Surely it can't be because we kill them. They should enjoy that. Isn't their purpose in life to fill us with happiness [and Omega 3 oils]? Do lake fish even have Omega 3 oils?

Seriously, I had no idea that it was so much work to ice fish. We drove a total of 2 1/2 hours, drilled 30 holes in the ice on two different lakes, and finally, at the last hole, started catching fish. It was so much work finding the fish that we didn't have it in us to break out the chili we had brought along. I did manage to eat 1/2 the bag of granola bars that I had made, and about 4 corn muffins, and a cup of hot chocolate, but that totally doesn't count.

This pesky contraption singed off 3 inches of my hair and my right eyelashes. It did keep the ice house warm, so I'll give it one more chance.

Through Bleary Eyes

After stumbling to the bathroom this morning, I was halfway into the shower when I saw something new on the mirror. What was that? It took a good rubbing of the eyes to focus clearly on the note.

What a wonderful surprise from a wonderful husband.

It Gets Pretty Dirty

What on earth do you do when you realize that you aren't living up to your husband's wildest dreams?

It gets pretty dirty in the winter. Well....the car does, but I guess that I don't. Kevin wrote this message to me and we decided it was funny enough to leave it on the window so that others could enjoy it.

When Amanda left Mom's house, her kids read the message on the window and asked her what THAT meant. She called to say that I was in trouble because she had to tell her kids that it meant "nothing."

Enchilada Sauce with Aunt Linnie

Not only is Aunt Linnie beautiful, she also makes a mean enchilada sauce. Kristin had gotten her hands on a jar of it a couple of years ago and I got to try it, and ever since I have been craving another taste of her magic sauce.

Last week, Hali and I had to drop a few things off at her house, and while we were visiting, it suddenly dawned on me that if I asked her for the recipe she might give it to me. It was a startling revelation, and the question blurted out of my mouth before I could second guess the impropriety of asking about a secret family recipe.

Aunt Linnie offered to make it with us the first time. This was very generous of her because she is getting ready to leave for a trip to California. We were so excited by her offer that we jumped at the chance and she came over yesterday to make it.

It was a bit of unfortunate timing because about 1 1/2 hours before she arrived I got a migraine. Arrrgghh!! It has been a long, long time since I have had one, and I had been looking forward to this enchilada sauce. Instead of calling her and telling her not to come, like a normal person may have done, I decided to ignore it.

We had only made it through mixing up the ingredients when I was forced into hibernation, and I went to bed. When I woke up feeling better at 1:30 AM, I got up for a snack and the enchilada sauce was already in the jars. It was the easiest batch of enchilada sauce EVER!

Aunt Linnie says that El Pato tomato sauce is the only brand that works in this sauce. She knows pretty much everything, so I am going to take her at her word.

Enchilada Sauce

2 big spoonfuls of shortening

2 3/4 C flour

4 quarts tomato juice

4 quarts water

2 cans El Pato Tomato Sauce (7 3/4 ounce)

3 T salt

1 1/2 C + 1 t sugar

4 t cumin

3 t ground oregano

1 1/4 T vinegar

Melt shortening and add flour until it makes a smooth paste. Add the water and tomato juice. Add El Pato tomato sauce. Keep stirring to get out all lumps. Mix all the dry ingredients together and then add to sauce. Add vinegar. Bring to a boil and reduce slightly.

Add sauce to jars and let them steam in the pressure cooker for 45 minutes before putting on the lids.

Enchilada Soup

1 quart enchilada sauce

2 cans corn with liquid

2 cans kidney beans, rinsed

3 chicken breasts or 1 large can of Kirkland chicken from Costco

Bi-Polar Pancakes

These pancakes are sometimes called German Pancakes, and sometimes called Pop-Up Pancakes. They do go up when they are in the oven, but as soon as they come out they go down. WAY down. You could say they get as flat as a pancake. Maybe they need some medication so their mood can be more stable.

I liked them in a muffin pan and in oven safe cups. Just remind me next time that even though the cups have a handle, it isn't the proper place to grab if it just came out of the oven....

Here they are, ready to go into the oven.

And here they are right after they came out. I had to open the oven door and snap the picture because they fell so fast that I would miss it if I took the time to take the pan out of the oven first. They have already gone down quite a bit.

Bi Polar Pancakes

1 cup milk
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour (or all purpose flour)
6 eggs
1/4 cup melted butter
dash salt

Blend everything with a stick blender and pour into cups, muffin tins, or a 9 X 13 pan. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

A Talented Family

I am part of a talented family. Yes, it is a heavy burden to bear. Here we are demonstrating one of our talents - being able to put our tongues on our noses. A surprising number of people in our family can do it. Out of the 100 or so family members at Grandma's funeral, we enticed 16 to demonstrate it for us in the picture. Some lost the ability to do it as soon as the cameras started snapping, and 3 families left before the funeral dinner, so there may be even more who can do it. At any rate, it is quite a high percentage of Grandma and Grandpa Neves' family who can do it.

The most surprising thing of all is that some family members had never even heard of such a thing. How can that be? Is our family hiding our talents under a bushel instead of sharing them with the world? What a shockingly selfish thing to do.

Another common family talent, but, sadly, one I don't possess, is being able to wiggle your ears. Maybe we just like to do weird things with our faces. When Dad was in Kindergarten his teacher thought he had a deformed ear because when he got nervous he would tuck the outer ear into the inner ear, and it would stay there.

Delaney and Cienna

Delaney and Cienna saw Kristin and my shoes, and Cienna begged until she got to try them on. We snapped this photo to show our cute debutantes. Have you ever seen two sisters happier to be together?