Eve of New Year's Eve....

I really can't believe an entire year has passed. It was one year ago that I was blogging about Emma's journey to South Africa. I made an attempt to blog about her trip day to day. I was reading my posts from last year, and remembering what it was like. Looking back on it all now, it was without a doubt a trip and experience of a lifetime for her!! Even though old mom was lonesome for her the whole time, I am so glad she took the opportunity to travel to one of the old home lands, even though it's not her homeland! ha!

Now, she's been invited to work on a fully paid research project this summer at Purdue Univeristy to enhance and further her studies in the environmental field. This is a project she can also use toward completion of her BS undergrad in Environmental Studies at BSU, and further her goal of getting her Master's in the same field, Purdue is actively recruiting her for their graduate program!!! It's pretty exciting.

I received a phone call this evening from the U of M, they're inviting her to present/participate in an Environmental Studies workshop in March. I have a feeling in the next year, this will escalate. Her ultimate goal is to complete her doctoral studies in ES at the University of Hawaii, or go into environmental law possibly in Oregon, and then....move to Hawaii and live for a few years. She really connected with the indigenous culture of the Island People when she was there a few years ago, I think she kind of fit in there.

I'll only let her do this if she takes me with! ha. Like I could really stop her. So, as you can see...I am very proud of her and completely supportive of whatever she decides to do.

Merry Christmas!!

This is how I was feeling the other night! Ha. Feel better now, it's already Thursday tomorrow. Things will be quieting down at work after tomorrow, our students will be gone for about a month...I mean it will be dead quiet. No students in the hallways, everything will be shut down, just the employees that keep the place operating will be around.

I have no plans for the holiday season, just staying home and trying to get things done as usual if I don't get lazy like I usually do and relax with a good book or get into movie watching mode.

Just want to get through the next few frigidly, deadly cold days.

Holiday Potluck Tomorrow @ Work!!!

Well here she is creating her signature fruit pizza! Tomorrow is our holiday potluck at work and Emma made fruit pizza, I made boring old 3 bean hot dish. She made this last summer for grandma/grandpa's summer cookout and it was a hit! I think it was gone within minutes...that's how good it is.

I have no idea what I will do when she no longer works in my office, life and work will not be the same. I know her boss think's she's pretty adorable.

DISTURBING.....To say the least...

I know we've all seen this cute little image in the last few days, I had to comment.

I've been very disturbed lately about how a young mother can take the life of her innocent, beautiful little girl. Who knows what her reasons were in her obviously mangled, f'd up mind??

In our American justice system, I hope that every single step is taken to make sure that this monster pays for taking the life of this innocent little baby. Hopefully in this case, the death penalty will apply.

When I saw the video of her sitting on her great grandpa's lap and he was singing to her, it was so apparent to me that she was not in a good situation. Any trained eye can see that this was an abused little girl. At that time this cute little baby was CLINGING to safety in her great grandpa's arms.

Makes one wonder, what were the grand parents thinking, I personally think that the grandmother was one fucking controlling person with many of her own issues!!! And the grandfather is this weak ass that can't even conclusively decipher that the smell in his daughter's vehicle was a death smell. Even though he has many years of training to include police training?? WoW uh! Very sad to say the least.

This will undoubetedly turn out to be the crime of the decade if not the century!! One to watch and follow for sure.

Whew!!!

Ok so here I am again after being on a blogging hiatus. Life has a way of taking over everything....just everyday life. Things were pretty busy, stressful, hectic, bitchy, and so on. I have a feeling things will begin to taper a little, even with the Christmas season upon us, speaking more for myself when I say that. It's a weird time of year to feel this way I know, but that's how life goes for me, things happen at the weirdest times. Just finally figured out some important financial things that needed to be figured out, that I've been struggling to figure out and finally it is working out!!! So slowly....over the next months, I'm hoping things will get a little better. And, I am so thankful for that. I'm keeping my fingers (and ugly toes) crossed that nothing major or dramatic happens.

And yes, by the way this picture was taken on my deck this past summer as I was lounging one afternoon with camera in hand and with a good book - probably contemplating what I was going to grill.

In my old age, I still can't believe how our seasons change so drastically from one month to the next! Here we are already in December with the winter wind and snow blowing like hell.....and wind chill temps below zero. Next thing we know, the next 3 months will be over and it's spring again, and we'll probably get a few more feet of snow in April, but that's how it is here, I can hardly wait because that will all melt in a week and it's finally spring.

I'm looking forward to trying my hand or should I say my green thumb at gardening again in the spring. I will start out small this time, none of this trying to be like my gourmet gardener neighbor shit, I can't keep up with that.

I just want to grow simple, like tomatoes, beans, onions, carrots, a few peppers. Maybe I'll plant my wild flower seeds somewhere by my veggie garden. Anyone know how to plant mushrooms?

Post Thanksgiving (post)...

This is the closest to a turkey I can get, Orville in his rooster cap. I can't believe I didn't take one picture during t-giving dinner. As usual, the dinner was out of this world delicious! I ate waaaaay too much, snacked throughout the day as I cooked roasted veggies, baked pies and made the sweet potatoes, cleaned house and kept up with doing the dirty dishes as I dirtied them.

From the turkey, rolls, perfectly baked beans, mashed potatoes, gravy, green bean casserole, fry bread, wild rice and brownies....it was better than any restaurant.

I saved the turkey carcass and boiled it into a tasty turkey broth - it now sits in the fridge so I can skim off the fat. I plan on using the broth to cook wild rice in and if there's enough make a small pot of soup or turkey hotdish.

Last night for dinner I sauteed fresh mushrooms and onions til they were brown, then turned up the heat and added mashed potatoes and a lot of pepper and cooked til it was a little crisp, not sure what that dish would be called, probably some kind of potato patty - - but it was simple and good, I skimped on the butter so it wasn't thaaat fattening.

Orv and Gwii Video

Here they are, probably a good thing Orville was on the outside looking in - watching Gwii chow down on his food. After they left and he came in, he wouldn't touch his food for a while just sniff around his dish. But since he's part gookoosh, he did end up cleaning up the rest of the food later. He was funny though the rest of the evening, he was pretty jumpy and on guard - like he was waiting to get jumped or something.

Little Gwii.......

Here's the newest baby animal addition to the FAM!! Little Gwiiwizens (little boy), Nona just got him last night and he's already making the rounds. He was a little fussy when he first got here, but he's sooooo cute!! He has such a baby face.

After we held him and cuddled him, we let him down to explore. Didn't take him long to find Orville's food!! He ate like he was starving to death, Nona's been feeding him special puppy food - but he prefers cat chow.

I have a video I'll post later, as Orville's outside on the deck, he's watching little Gwii eat his food. So I cracked open the door a little, and Orville's such a big chicken - he took off when Gwii tried to sniff at him. Since then for the rest of the evening, he's been pretty traumatized and jumpy! Funny cat.

Roasted garlic...

This is one recipe you HAVE to try if you like garlic. It's great after it's cooled a little and eat it straight, just pop it right out of the skin. I tend to get carried away with eating it right away.


Roasted Garlic Recipe

1 Preheat the oven to 400°F.

2 Peel away the outer layers of the garlic bulb skin, leaving the skins of the individual cloves intact. Using a knife, cut off 1/4 to a 1/2 inch of the top of cloves, exposing the individual cloves of garlic.

3 Place the garlic in foil. Drizzle a couple teaspoons of olive oil over each head, using your fingers to make sure the garlic head is well coated. Sprinkle with pepper. Close it with the aluminum foil. Bake at 400°F for 30-35 minutes, or until the cloves feel soft when pressed.

4 Allow the garlic to cool enough so you can touch it without burning yourself. Use a small small knife cut the skin slightly around each clove. Use a cocktail fork or your fingers to pull or squeeze the roasted garlic cloves out of their skins.

Eat as is (I love straight roasted garlic) or mash with a fork and use for cooking. Can be spread over warm French bread, mixed with sour cream for a topping for baked potatoes, or mixed in with Parmesan and pasta.

Tonight's dinner......Shrimp Stir Fry

Yep....this is what we had for dinner tonight right here at home! Shrimp stir fry with all the fresh veggie fixins. I put green, yellow, red pepper, baby carrots, fresh roasted garlic (did that yesterday), celery, sweet onion, and portabello mushrooms. Seasoned with sea salt, a lot of pepper, cayenne pepper, and a lot of Emeril's Asian Essence. All stir fried in virgin olive oil! As Freedom would say Waaaa-laaaa. ha ha!

Went grocery shopping Satuday night, saw this huge, nice shrimp in the freezer case there was one of those $4.00 sale signs by it and I thought OMG, what a good deal, so I put two bags in my cart. As you can see by the pic, they're huge. Anyway, the next day I looked at my receipt - 9.00 a bag!!! I splurged and didn't even realize it til the next day.

Oh well, it was worth it they are very deliciously scrumptious and plump. Don't know why I'm on a shrimp kick lately!!! I have another bag and I'm thinking about either grilling or fonduing maybe look up a recipe for tempura. That'd be different and I'm sure fun and tasty too.

Last Christmas Emma gave me this really nice electric fondue pot (the best), it's still in the box. I think it's time to break that 'mutha' in. Muaaah haaa haa, I crack myself up. If that happens, I will for sure put a pic of the fondued shrimp on my blog.

Out with friends.....Emma, April and Stephanie

Met a few friends out last Friday evening for good conversation, laughs, wine, and dinner where Emma works. The dinner was faaaaab-u-lous as usual, Stephanie and I shared the colossal shrimp dinner but we tried the broiled instead of the deep fried. The deep fried is the way to go even though it's more fattening.

One of those once-in-a-great-while dining out treats! Nice atmosphere, good company, good food and fun conversation.

Stephanie usually chef's it up @ her house, she's the ultimate gourmet. The last picture is April and Stephanie.

Friends over....Vicki and Carol

These pics were taken a few weeks ago. Two of my very very good friends, we go way back to college days....many moons ago. They both had to 'get away', they're taking care of grand children and foster children..babies.

So, they decided to pay me a visit and as usual we sat here and laughed, I mean gut wrenching laughs, you know the only way Shinaab people know how to do. We laughed at how old we're getting and all the dumb and daring things we did and said when we were so young all those years ago. We caught ourselves talking about aches and pains, medications, then we realized that we were really sounding like old women.

Especially when all three of us have beautiful daughters that are now the age we were when we became friends, I mean talk about feeling old. Carol's daughter just returned from Costa Rica, study abroad and Vicki's daughter is in college - tall and beautiful. And of course we all know Emma.

We had so much fun that night!! My dad even added to the fun that night with his stories.

Little Buck........

Well, here he is! Just happened to look out the window and there he was eating grass. Even after he spotted me at the window, he didn't run off. He's a cute little guy! A loner, typical male this one, doesn't hang out with the other two - they must be female. I hope they all live through hunting season, I would like to see them all back here again in the spring.

The video get's a little shakey in spots as I was kneeling down and standing up...it almost looks like I fell over at one point. But, no not this old lady. The knees aren't as bouncy as they use to be.

He eventually just slinked off, couldn't startle him into bounding and leaping away.

I knew it..I knew it all along!!!

'This is your victory'













I feel good today. I did know it all along though that Obama would be our next president! From the time I heard his first campaign speech, he carried himself so presidential, he's so eloquent, brilliant, self-controlled, not to mention handsome!

After we voted yesterday, Emma and I had a little pre-celebration dinner at Sparkling Waters. We shared the colossal shrimp dinner - OMG - we got three with our meal, they're the size of my fist! They are the best!!! Wish I had a picture to share. I would definetly order that dinner again.

Vote Obama!!

Happy Halloween!!

It's Halloween. Everyone around me is anticipating a fun filled night of dressing up, going out and having fun tonight! Even around campus today, students are walking around in costumes - pretty festive.

Not me, I plan on staying home, cleaning a messy house, reading and maybe having a glass of vino or two. Went out for wings last night with the family, I pigged out on the teriyaki - - oh man were they good!! Still feel full today.

Happy Halloween to all!! Have a safe one.

Videos.....

I really like this video!! It reminds me of when my kids were this age, always sitting on the rocker recliner together - I have some really cute videos of them.

Anyway....last night I go into my son's room and here's his girlfriend putting in one of these videos, she turned it on and there they were...Emma and Gary when they were 1 and 4, Gary was toddling around at Christmas time, climbing on the presents instead of opening them and Emma talking in a little cartoon voice concentrating on opening presents.

Petra happened to find all of the old videos under the entertainment center and dug them out to watch! She's getting a big enjoyment out of watching Gary as a baby! She thinks he's pretty cute.

It was funny, there's one clip where he's following me around saying 'maammmmaa' holding his little arms out wanting me to pick him up as I was recording him. Another one where I have the poor little guy dressed in a colorful leotard with bright pink ruffles and a pony tail on top of his head.

While we were watching last night, he decided to 'run into town'! I think it was weird for him sitting there while we were laughing about how cute they were when they were babies.

Saturday morning...

This is what I woke up to this morning, opened the blinds and they were staring at me, mouths full of grass! Two little yearlings that've been hanging around the area lately, there's another one too - a little spiked buck - but he's pretty elusive. I scared him up the other morning by the garage.

The other evening as I was sitting at the computer, I felt like someone/thing was looking at me and I looked out the window and there's one of these little guys looking directly at me, his head was over the edge of the deck. I was a little startled. Of course I didn't have the camera ready. That's another story, I still have to figure out the settings to take better pictures.

In the first picture, you can see the little nubs of an impending buck!! Well, I watched these two for a while until the CAT came running out from the front yard and scared them both into the woods.

Grandma/Grandpa's dinner....

Here's the food! Looks pretty delish uh? Makes me hungry just looking at these pics. The thousand island dressing is awesome!! It's spicy, but a really good spicy. I was going to lick that dish, I sure was tempted too - I would've if I was at home!

And the seaweed wrapped bass - was pretty good - a little on the rich side. Nothing beats good old walleye!! They should change it to seaweed wrapped walleye.

The Group!

Like that nice pic of Ange Pange? She's striking a pose and grandpa's studying the menu.

Ok, so here we all are, we were seated in another waitress' section because Emma's was full, we had to kindly tell her we already have a waitress!! Ha, I think she's in the background in one of the pics. Yes she is, at least she managed to get in both pictures.

The Hostess and the Waitress....

A couple of pics from last weekend. Emma workin hard for the money!! She really did work hard that night too, she was all over the place, working her section on the other side of the restaurant and serving us in the bar. She was a little overwhelmed I'd say, but she did good.

And Jamie in her hostess mode, she's a good hostess too!!

Nona's Birthday Night!

We all had a really good day - Jamie had a nice dinner for the bday girl and family including Jame's in-laws. It was nice seeing BJ's mom, gram/gramp and I think that was his aunt. And the foooooooood - was awesome.

I wish I had more pictures from lite dinner we all had afterwards at Sparkling Waters!! Those are on Grandma's camera.

These pics were taken after Sparkling Waters, we were at Cattails. Had a good night! How about ole Don in that one pic....looks just happy or something.

Cool pic

I thought this was a cool picture of Gary and Petra. These two are together constantly, I keep asking them if they're sick of each other yet and she's the first to answer.....No!!

They spend most of their time here, he made a little fire pit by the garage, they sit by the fire, make smores, go four wheeling and play pool out in the garage. Oh...besides eating!

Biking for the environment

Back to blogging.....

Last Saturday Emma participated in a biking event to support environmental causes. I don't know much more about it other than she had to report to Diamond Point Park by 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning. She and a friend biked with the rest of the participants around Lake Bemidji. It took them about 2.5 hours, they did get a free lunch and a t-shirt out of the deal.

She decided to do this about a week before, but waited until the morning of the event to get the bike out of the shed.....the shed that is a habitat for a family of skunks. The bike hasn't been ridden in a few years, so it was covered with cob webs and smelled like skunk, plus the tires were flat!! So, on the way into town besides gassing up we had to inflate the bike tires. But, that's pretty normal for us, always running with only moments to spare if even that.

She told her friend about her bike smelling like skunk and she said 'Yeah, I thought I could smell skunk"! It's been sitting outside in the truck box now since last Saturday, so hopefully it doesn't stink anymore. Plus, it hasn't been stolen out of the truck....yet. I'll take it out tomorrow.

She made it around the lake successfully, tires even held out.

The Floating Cabin....

Well.....Here's Vince's cabin, the floating cabin!! You have to either swim, canoe, ski or sled to it.......nice uh?

Ha, no it's not Vince's. At one time, this was the nicest cabin on the lake before the lake took over.

It was sitting on a small peninsula with a road going to the end of the point. My next post explains a little about the lake. You can see some of the trees in this pic that were killed off by the flooding.

Couple more pics

A few pictures taken at night one of the deck, the fire pit and one taken of the cabin from the lake. This lake is weird, it's a spring fed lake that began to flood about 10 years ago. You can see on the shores some of the cabins that were completely flooded and are still immersed in water. There's one in front of Vince's cabin, partially immersed and you can tell that back in the day it was pretty nice. It looks like a nice little cabin floating on top of the water. The trees along the lake shore were also killed off by the rising water.

Saturday morning...

After breakfast and cleaning dishes, Vince decided to take the four wheeler down the road to see his neighbors from the night before. I decided to go to the dock and wash my hair, afterwards as I was sat on the deck drinking a cup of coffee and putting on the face for the day listening to tunes. I decided to do a little video of the cabin, it's not the best quality of you'll get the idea.

Rustic little cabin.....

A few pictures from last weekend. It was a weekend we both needed, it was peaceful, restful, relaxing and fun. There were no other people at the end of the little peninsula, just us and the occasional fishing boat going by at 10 mph or slower. We got there about 7:30, got settled in and were relaxing when the neighbor from down the road a ways stopped by, he was just coming in from the city for the weekend, he came to Vince's cabin before he even went to his own. We sat and visited with him and his son in law for a while listening to their crazy shories. There was no cell phone reception, which I had mixed feelings about. On one hand I worry about no contact with the 'kids' and on the other hand I had to let that go and enjoy the company and peacefulness.

After we ate dinner, we sat outside on the deck, listening to loons and other lake noises. We just kept saying how nice it was, even better than going to the city and staying in a fine hotel and dealing with traffic and crowds.

Happy Birthday (one day late)....

In other words Happy Belated Birthday to my sis!!! Got a phone call this morning....'what you doing', 'where are you', DID YOU FORGET MY BIRTHDAY?? I meant to post this yesterday but didn't have access to my pics, plus didn't get home until late.

So here tis...Sounds like she had a good one with her hubby, daughter, and friends. Vi's pizza sounds really good!! So do the gift's she got. It's not everyday you turn 35 again.

I wish her happiness, healthiness, and wealthiness!

Ever feel like this???

Yes, there are days when I feel like I look like this. Especially in the last few months. Dealt with major stress at work, reorganization, moving of offices, moving of furniture, moving of people, and as a result dealing with disgruntled people that did not want to move but were basically forced to move from their department so we could move in - we knew they were disgruntled when on the weekend our wall pockets were ripped off the wall, and the hallway outside our offices was filled from one end to the other with their old inventory they had in storage probably since the beginning of this college, I'm talking ancient telescopes, computers, keyboards, monitors and other unidentifiable science equipment! And the list goes on and on.

I didn't realize how exhausted I was, it finally all caught up with me. Been laying low for the last few days dealing with the after effects. Trying to relax, once I get home I really enjoy my quiet evenings at home.

Hopefully, I'll be able to continue to relax over the weekend at Vince's cabin, second picture. I'm looking forward to it, the only thing is there's no cell phone reception, we have to ride 'out to the road' to check phones. We're loading up the four wheelers, grocery shopping and planning on pontooning if the weather cooperates.
The country there is beautiful!