Random little tidbits...

The new Creating Keepsakes Scrapbooker of the Year (SOY) has a little contest on her blog. You have to tell something random about yourself, so I thought I would do that here. HMMmm...

1. My first and only job (besides working on the farm and babysitting) was at a tire shop where I worked from the age of 15 til I had my first child at 20. My dad worked at the same tire shop 20 years before that. And no, I didn't toss around tires a la Guido in Cars, I worked in the Accounts Receivable office.

2. I am named after my grandma, and we had the EXACT same name (until I got married, obviously) but it is not "Annie". I've always been "Annie" to everyone, except to my dad, who calls me "Rosie" and my friend Susan, who calls me "Rosie" because she thought it was funny that my dad called me that. (How's that for random rambling?)

3. I could eat chips and salsa every day. I usually don't, but I could!

4. After all of those lists of names to give my six (yes, I wanted six) children I was going to have, I still had a hard time naming my four kids. And I used none of the names I thought I loved! My kids should have been named things like "River" "Sapphire" "Willow" and "Taggert". But we all grow up sometime.

5. Baby number 3 actually came home from the hospital with no name, the hospital called three days later and still no name, finally we named him a very difficult, took tons of thought name:
Joseph Andrew after his Nonno and Daddy. Duh.

6. There is no other flavor better than a sour cream and onion chip eaten at the same time as an M&M. Glorious.

7. I like Birkenstocks. I know, Susan, you are so ashamed.

8. I was on the FFA Dairy Cattle Judging Team in high school, and we made fun of the kids on the Ornamental Horticulture team. What is our family business now? Landscaping. Karma, it comes and bites you in the butt when you least expect it.

9. I can fall asleep in 30 seconds flat. 2 seconds if I'm really tired. Drives Andy crazy as he's flipping and flopping, or trying to have a conversation with me.

10. I use my foot to flush the toilet in public bathrooms. When we stayed with my MIL Barbara this summer, after a day of travelling and lots of public bathrooms, Mario went potty at Nonni's house, pulled his pants up, then tried to flush with his foot. After cracking up, I explained to him that at Nonni's house it's OK to use his hand. I guess kids do pay attention to what we do!

OK, some of you come out of cyberspace here and give me some randomness about you, something I may not know already. Even you, Dad.

We eat our eggs and bacon with pasta!

OK, maybe not all the time, but tonight we had this for dinner

which is a take on Rachel Ray's Spaghetti Carbonara.

She makes hers with Pancetta, but all I had was turkey bacon (the poor man's pancetta). Yum-O!

This was sitting outside the back door last night.

Isn't he lovely? This is a cicada. I made the comment to Andy that it must be a HE since his colors are more flashy than the other cicadas I've seen. After reading about them I found out that only the males make the noise. (Typical!) He doesn't look very big, but he must have been about 3 inches long. The noise around here has been positively deafening from these little buggers! We have a lot of trees in our yard, and they love to roost in them to serenade us.

If you would like to hear what noise they make, this lady has recorded them, but she talks the whole time, too. Her talking is actually more annoying than the cicadas.

Did any of you watch Survivor last night? I'm so out of touch with what is going on in the world that I didn't even know it started last night, but Andy let it slip when he called me on his way home. This is pretty much my only TV indulgence. I'm not one of those crazy buff-creating fans, but I like the competitiveness (and short duration) of the show. I had a couple issues with this show, which were brought up in this article, also. If you know you are going to be on SURVIVOR, dress the part!!! PLEASE!! Heels? Dresses? No BRA? Give me a break. And as ripped as some of these guys are, I don't want to see them in their boxer briefs! OK, maybe I do, but don't tell Andy! Or you ladies in just your bras (those who remembered to wear them). Unfortunately, the show is on at 7:00 here, BEFORE bedtime for the animals in the zoo. Between the scantily clad contestants and the commercials for "How I Met Your Mother" where Doogie Howser asks a girl, "Do you want to have sex?" I was about ready to shut the TV off for good. Gone are the days when we can watch Survivor with the kids. But then again, maybe we never could, what with Richard Hatch running around NaKed and all. I guess I'll tape it next week.

Guess who turned 6 yesterday?

Joseph is the dragon and his buddy Carson is the knight in this picture from pre-school last year. Aren't they just so cute?

We spent the day together as a family, tooling around Independence, MO and Liberty, MO, taking in the church sights that Andy works on every week. The Independence visitor's center was totally redone this last year and was very interactive. The kids loved it!

Next was a picnic lunch at the park in Liberty, which is a very cute town, and visiting the Liberty Jail. We watched the very touching new movie about the life of Joseph Smith while we were there.

We capped off the night with dinner at Applebee's with an Oreo cookie milkshake for the birthday boy. When the waiters started clapping and walking through the restaurant I looked at Joseph and said, "What do you think that's all about?" His eyes were so big, and he replied,"I don't know!"

Dinner at Grammie's tonight was chicken enchiladas. His cousin Ephraim made him this sign to wear. Notice how he spelled birthday? And the smudge of chocolate cake at the side of his mouth?

Happy birthday, my sweet boy!

Summer to Fall in zero to 24 hours flat and wedding bells.

Blustery and rainy with a 70 degree high today. It's a far cry from 85 and humid yesterday! I hope winter doesn't come too fast, Andy needs to keep mowing as long as he can!

We're getting ready for Family Home Evening and waiting for Daddy to get home. Natalia and I made cupcake cones. Remember those? Yummy! I tried to take a picture, but the batteries are dead. Oops! Our cupcake cones will have little Cool Whip hats on them.

Sis #4 Monie is coming home from Nauvoo for a visit tonight. We had a big surprise when her boyfriend Kyle called my dad late Friday night to ask his permission to marry her! Whoa! Their "place" they like to hang out at is the park area across from the Nauvoo Temple, and he asked her there with a ring pop. Isn't that cute? Mom thinks we need to have ring pops at the reception. The date is set for December 22. This will be one busy Christmas!

Oh, Habits, where are you?

The one thing I've been great at this week? A big zip-i-dee-do-da-zippo! Well, maybe I wasn't that bad, but so much room for improvement! The weather is getting a little cooler, so my exercising might get a little better.

Scriptures and lessons - habit

Chores for kids - needs work

Scriptures and prayer with family - needs work

Paperwork - needs overhaul

Thanks, Lazy Organizer for keeping this in my head, though!

You know you're from Missouri when...

1. Everyone you know has been on a "Float trip"

2. "Vacation" means driving to Silver Dollar City, Branson, or Six Flags.

3. You measure distance in minutes rather than miles.

4. Down south to you means Arkansas.

5. You know several people who have hit a deer.

6. You think Missouri is spelled with an "ah" at the end.

7. You've ever had to switch from "heat" to "A/C" in the same day.

8. You think ethanol makes your truck "run a lot better."

9. You know what's knee-high by the Fourth of July.

10. You see a car running in the parking lot at the store with no one in it no matter what time of the year.

11. You know in your heart that Mizzou can beat Nebraska in football.

12. You end your sentences with an unnecessary preposition. Example: "Where's my coat at?"

13. All the festivals across the state are named after a fruit, vegetable, or grain.

14. You install security lights on your house and garage and leave both unlocked.

15. You carry jumper cables in your car and know thateveryone else should.

16. You went to skating parties as a kid.

17. You only own 3 spices: salt, pepper, and ketchup.

18. The local paper covers national and internationalheadlines on one page but requires 6 pages for sports.

19. You think that deer season is a national holiday.

20. You get out to school for deer season.

21. You can't think of anything better than sitting on the porch in the middle of the summer during a thunderstorm.

22. You know which leaves make good toilet paper.

23. You've ever said, "it's not the heat, it's the humidity."

24. You know all 4 seasons: Almost Summer, Summer,Still Summer, and Construction.

25. You know if another Missourian is from the bootheel, ozarks, eastern, middle or western Missouri soon as they open their mouth.

26. You think a traffic jam is ten cars waiting to pass a tractor.

27. You know what "HOME OF THE THROWED ROLLS' means!!!

28. You think everyone from a bigger city has an accent.You know what "cow tipping" or "Possum Kicking" is.

29. You think "frog gigging" should be an Olympic sport.

30. You can tell the difference between a horse and a cow from a distance.

31. You don't put too much effort into hairstyles due to wind and weather.

32. There's a tornado warning and the whole town is outside watching for it.

33. The local gas station sells live bait.

34. Your radio buttons and preset buttons are country.

from tara's facebook page

Death Watch: Luciano Pavarotti - Nessun Dorma

Here is a little music with your dinner, a tribute to the late, great Pavarotti.

Summer Bounty

No, that's not a new line of paper towels, it's what we have been harvesting from our garden. We planted 2 patches of basil - one in a planter under a tree near the garden, and another on the ground where Monkey dumped the seeds. Both have been very prolific, let me tell you! We've been making pesto a couple times every week, and I will be making some batches to freeze soon. Here's how we do it. This is a very precise recipe, please follow exactly!

OK, you ready?

Take a couple cloves of garlic, peeled, and toss them in the blender or food processor.

Grind them up a little til minced. Then add a lot of basil. The more the merrier!

Let the basil and garlic get nice and cozy together, while adding some of this:

That, my friends is Pure Olive Oil - not the whimpy EVOO kind.

Then you add some of these to taste. I like nuts, either a small handful of walnuts, pinenuts if you're a little on the wild side, or, like I used tonight, already ground almonds, because I found them really cheap after the holidays and put them in the freezer. If you can't tell with my shoddy photography skills, that's salt and pepper hiding behind the ammonds (as my Ag teacher in high school used to call them.)

Grind them all up together, as fine or as coarse as you would like. This batch was a little on the coarser side, but a blender will give you a smoother, creamier pesto.

Now, this is my dish after I started eating. I just couldn't help myself! The pasta is sprinkled liberally with plain old grated parmesan, which gives it a nice salty flavor to go with the pesto. I prefer to garnish with the cheese rather than mix it into the pesto itself, since the warm pasta will melt the cheese and make a big gooey mess on the serving spoon and pot or dish. This was served with yummy, homegrown Roma tomatoes sliced with red onion and drizzled with homemade red wine vinegar (smuggled from California in the back of a range rover) more of that pure olive oil and more salt and pepper.

Here is Farmgirl's recipe, which is similar, and her yummy Tomato Pesto Pie.

We've also made homemade pizza with pesto, cheese, red onion and tomatoes.

Habits? What habits?

Scriptures with the kids not going well, we need a better schedule with school going.

Relief Society lesson and Ensign Habit.

Chores for the kids another hit and miss.

Paperwork I would rather do anything, even clean the bathroom with a toothbrush, than work on anything that I really SHOULD be doing.