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Well the time has come Vox. The tensions been building for a while now. I can't go on pretending. I'm breaking up with you. and I'm taking the kids Anyone wno wants to come with me can find me here http://ecruzefamily.blogspot.com/
This beautiful cookbook was written and published by some dear friends ours. They both now live in The Salt Lake City area but have many family ties here in east Tennessee. As a result many of the recipes are southern in nature, all are delicious. They are easy to follow and good for both the beginner and expert alike. I like the simplicity of this no fuss cook book with good basic recipes. Be sure to check out the cooking helps section where you'll find, among other things, a menu planner, shopping list, a glossary of cooking terms, even tips on recycling left overs, and cleaning and organizing your kitchen.
I've been a big fan for a while now. As a matter of fact I bought my copy out of the trunk of a car, while attending a baby shower. You can gets yours at Barnes and Noble or go to www.idocook.com/
live at five did a cooking spot about the book. Because of a conflicting promotional spot on KSL in Salt Lake, Celia and Judy's (the authors) sister Lorna asked if I would mind filling in on WBIR in Koxville.
It was a lot of fun check it out
I know. I'm in the middle of really great book and have been spending every spare minuet reading. What can I say? Sorry blog, I really love books. The Feel of the paper in my hands. The smell of a brand new book. It stirs my soul. A 900+ page epic novel makes me swoon with desire (to read). So, for another 122 pages am afraid I won't be much good to anyone. I'll let you know how it turns out.
I did not grow up here but, I did spend a lot of summers in Tennessee. The whole family would come to visit my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. When it came time to leave I was never ready to go and could usually persuade my Mom and Dad to let me stay on in the care of my aunt Pat. I would in effect become a Finstad for the remainder of the summer. So when I say, Tennessee is a fun place to grow up, I say it with fond memories of my own childhood. My parents moved to Knoxville in '97. Having no where else to call home in the middle of a health crisis, we all realized Tennessee was the closest thing we had ever had to home in years and soon followed their lead. Now all of my siblings but one live here and three of the six children have married Tennesseeans (Two remain unmarried).
Why the walk down memory lane, you might ask. Well I often wish I lived some where else, some where more exciting, exotic, important (Hawaii, New York, Austrailia, NewZeland, Tahiti, California, Spain). But sometimes I just can't help but reflect on how good we have it right here in East
Tennessee. Especially when your a kid. What else do you want besides room to run, cousins to play with. When I think about my kids growing up here my hope is, there childhood will be full of fond memories. where ever there lives might take them, hopefully they'll look back and know they always have a home in Tennessee.
I love to grow things. There is something very calming to me about growing and caring for things that don't talk back to you. In the last few years I have found the most satisfaction from growing herbs. They look beautiful, smell wonderful, less maintenance than veggies and when fresh they greatly enhance the quality of your food.
Right now I am in love with this particular variety of lavender, Otto Quast (pictured left). This Spanish variety of lavender, although not as fragrant as it's English cousin, when in bloom is covered in these unusually blossoms that attract bees buy the droves. It still has the same medicinal properties and is beautiful in the garden.
I also have the more common English lavender and a rare miniature variety, thumbelina leigh. Neither have bloomed yet but booth look promising.
Usually Sundays feels more like a mommy marathon than the Sabbath. Every once in a while there is an exception. This was my exception, so I documented. We where early for church for the first time in, well lets just say a long time and leave it at that. When we walked into the chapel Kekoa started to cry "the sacrament is over" he said. Since we are rarely at church on time let alone early he mistook the pre-sacrament confusion (which can get pretty rowdy in our ward) for the post sacrament confusion. Eldon has been asked to attending church at a small branch (about an hour from where we live) to translate for the spanish members there. He doesn't get to participate. I know same old story. I'm not the first and I won't be the last to be denied help in my sacrament hour of need. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right. It's for my own good, right.
Leile smashed her thumb on Tuesday and it looked pretty bad but not broken. We decided just to watch and see how it went. By Thursday it was still swollen so I made an appointment for her to see the doctor. The good news is her thumb was fine. The bad news she had pneumonia. i could I not know she had pneumonia? Well let me tell you. She was looking a little under the weather Thursday morning and had been up crying the night before but no temperature, no runny nose, no pulling at the ears, led me to assume she was maybe teething. By the time we got to the doctor she was running a low grade fever with still no other symptoms. Fortunately for us we have great doctors that knew something wasn't right. they check for flu and ran a CBC. Her CBC came back showing elevated levels. Her white blood cell count was double what it should be, which meant there was an infection some where in her body. With thoese results in hand the next thing to do was find out where the infetion was. They did every test you could think of, gave her two shots of antibiotic in her legs and sent us home with orders to come back tommorrow. The shots helped. Her fever subsided and never returned but she did develop a runny nose and a cough over night. At the second doctors visit they agreed she looked better but after listening to her breath said she has developed pnemonia. So they gave her two more shots of the strong stuff, prescribed augmenten for over the weekend and asked us to come back on Monday. It's the mildest case of pneumonia I've ever seen. We're giving her breathing treatments, which she really needed yesterday. Even with treatments every four hours she had a tight cough and was labouring to breath but today she seemes to be over the worst of it. Her breathing has returned almost to normal and her cough has eased and is less fequent. Sorry for all the boring details and for thoese of you who have been diligent and caring enough to stick it out, I do have a point (two actually).
(1) Thank goodness for smashed thumbs.
If she had not smashed her tumb on tuesday we wouldn't have ended up at the doctor on thursday right as she was begining to be symptomatic. Hevenly father has a plan folks. With the rate at wich her white blood cell count was rising, she would have gotten a lot worse before they where able to treat her probably resulting in a hospital stay. I pray every night that Koa and Leile and protected. I thank God that they are health and happy. This week has been a confrimation that God is listening, he loves us and wants the best for us. He won't ask us to endure more than we can bear and in times of your hardest trials he will send you the sweetest gifts.
My second point I will save for some other time. I've written enough for now and need to pay some attention to my family (even if it is Saturday).
Marrying into the Cruze family has it's perks. One, you get to be endless entertained by Katie. Two, there's a possibility that you might get a big chunk of land someday. And three, Cally, a woman of many talents and wisdom. I have recently become the owner of my very own Cally, all purpose, bag. It's all I ever dreamed it would be and more. Take a look for your self
Notice the front pocket (shown right) and slim profile.
The bonus hand bag fits neatly into the interior. It was hard to get a good picture of the inside so let me just tell you about it. lined with Amy Buttlers Fern Wood, the inside of this bag is beautiful and functional with; a side pocket big enough to fit just about anything, cup holder, key chain and handy pen slot. Thanks again Cally.
i was just looking through my pictures and came across this one of my dad during his stay in the hospital right before Christmas and it made me think, I love my Dad. I thought I would share with anyone who might read this all of the reasons why I love my Dad.
1. He can't say No
2. He's never mad (until you make him mad)
3. He knows the words to every song written or recorded before 1967 ( and would love to sing one for you)
4. He loves to sing
5. He always has time for me.
6. He has a poem for every occasion.
7. He's faithful
8. He's diligent
9. He hardly ever complains (to anyone).
10. He's funny
11. He's smart
12. He's trust worthy.
13. I love him because if there is not enough for you he'll
give you his.
14. He humors and indulges my children
15. He can take a lickin and keep on tickin.
16. even though he's old and senile he's still a lot of fun
to be around.
I always Knew I wanted to marry somebody just like my Dad. And in all of the important ways Eldon is. How blessed I feel to have had to such stellar leading men in my life. This list could go on and on so I'll end by saying that I love him because of who he is, my dad, the one and only, and because I love him it makes it a little bit easier to love myself and the small reflections of him I see in myself (if that makes any sense).
I've wanted to get the kids out in the snow for a while. The thing is we never get any and if we do get some it's gone before we can get up and outside. This wednesday was the biggest snow we have had at our house this year so we all put on our snow clothes and went out to see what snow was all about. We had a good time (while it lasted). After we were done playing in the snow Grandma invited us inside for cookies and milk.
