Just because it trumps the last one...

Shameless Political Plug!

I know this is a little late in coming, but TODAY (Saturday) is the last day of the second quarter, which means a fundraising deadline for the 2008 presidential candidates (they report by quarters). It's so easy to donate online for my favorite candidate; just click here and then on the Contribute link at the top right. You can do ANY amount (up to $2300 per person max) and another cool thing they have is the option of signing up to donate a small amount monthly, as low as $10.

Click here to read a nice explanation of why fundraising is so important. The higher the candidate's quarter numbers are, the more attention they get from the media; the more Americans become interested in learning more about that candidate... the candidate gains momentum, rises in the polls, wins the primary... Anyway, I just wanted to encourage you to do so; it's easy and it's fun to feel like a part of the political process. Thanks!!

(P.S. Just so you know I'm not a hypocrite; I made a donation last week!)
(P.P.S. At some point I may launch into an explanation as to why I support this candidate, and it's not because of his religion. He's the best candidate for many reasons... I encourage you to study them all!)

Cha-Cha Chevy's Salsa

In my blog's header it says I may post a recipe on occasion, and in the 3 months since its inception (it seems longer than that!) I've yet to do so. So here you go, the inagural Happy Life recipe!

Salsa (I'm told this is like Chevy's salsa but I haven't been to that restaurant in at least 7 years so I don't know how close it is...)


Lots of tomatoes (I use about a dozen Roma)
1/4 of a regular onion
jalepeno peppers... see notes for quantity (it varies)
2 cloves garlic
2-3 Tbs fresh cilantro
2 1/2 Tbs white vinegar
2 1/2 tsp salt
vegetable oil
Equipment needed: BBQ, blender, knife, tortilla chips

Like all recipes I use, I have modified this one slightly to my liking, and like any recipe that involves spices, it will not turn out exactly the same each time. Jalepenos: the last time I made this I only used about 1 1/2 jalepenos and it was plenty hot; a bit too hot for me in fact. However, my brothers-in-law in Utah who make this same recipe, always use at least 3. As everyone knows, things get spicier the further south & closer to Mexico you go! Hence, Arizona peppers are hotter than Utah peppers, apparently. I heard that the official Chevy's recipe calls for 10, or something ridiculous like that. I would recommend buying 3 or 4, depending on where you live, and adding 1/2 at a time until it's hot enough for you.

Step one: coat the tomatoes and jalepenos with oil; cook them on the grill. Turn them occasionally & cook until the peppers blacken and the tomato skins are baggy & look like they'll come off easily.

Step two: peel your two garlic cloves (may use more or less; I like two), chop them in half, and chop your 1/4 onion in large chunks (to make sure it blends evenly). Likewise, do a rough chop on the cilantro.

Step three (once tomatoes & jalepenos are cool enough to handle): cut the very tops off the tomatoes and peel the skins off; if they don't come right off, you didn't grill them long enough. Chop the tops off the peppers & cut them in half so you can add half at a time if you want. Don't peel them.

Step four: put everything in the blender! (Don't forget about the salt & vinegar.) I like to sort of layer the tomatoes with the other ingredients to ensure that it mixes evenly. Do a medium-low speed and blend until it's an even consistency; no big chunks. It will look similar to the photo above. When I use the amount of ingredients listed, it fill up my blender to the very top!

Step five: eat with chips; yummy yummy!

Tips: have extra tomatoes so you can add them at the end if it's too spicy. However, don't put raw tomatoes in; that will slighly wreck the yummy grilled flavor. Also, you don't have to use Romas; any old tomatoes will do. But since Romas are small, you won't need as many if you're using a larger variety. Chevy's, and my brothers-in-law, use liquid smoke as a final ingredient. I don't use it & don't prefer it & I don't know how much they put in.

And finally... on a different subject. A little while ago I overheard Molly say the following, and I have no idea what the context was: "A lot of things in this world are not perfect. But the whole entire earth IS perfect." What a nice thought!

Chewy

Click here for a ridiculous story!

I guess in order to strike it rich, I shouldn't have microwaved (for 5-10 seconds, as directed) that Big Hunk bar I ate tonight...

The BIG 7!

Noah celebrated his 7th birthday on Saturday and we had a little get-together with the cousins. It was a fun afternoon!

There was a little swimmin'

A little slippin' n' slidin'

A little present openin'

Volcano eruptin'

Some wish makin' and candle blowin'

I just can't believe my firstborn is 7! He had a great time and got so many fun gifts, it's been like Christmas around here! Even Aaron & I have been having fun with the new toys; he with the dartgun and me with the Rubix Revolution.

Incidentally, 7 is a big deal for this kid; he's been obsessed with the number 7 for quite some time now... (here's Noah at 19 months; "heva" means "seven"):

Future Olympians

Our most exciting daily activity during the past couple weeks has been swimming lessons. All four kids are enrolled through the city at the local community pool, where they are in classes by age & skill level. This is the first year we've done the city swimming lessons and the kids are having a great time with it!

Zoe & Lucy practicing some kicking.

Molly's the one swimming towards her teacher; she's getting to be a great little swimmer!

Every time I walked close to the kids' classes, they started paying too much attention to the camera & not their teachers so these pictures are all from afar. Noah's fetching a kickboard here; I really thought he was facing the camera when I snapped this!

Noah & Molly won't get in the pool without their goggles!

Today they got "report cards" from their swim teachers and they're all doing great. Their biggest improvement comes from regular use of our pool at home, but they are learning some good skills in the community class and they'll be starting another 2-week session next week.

My Second Date with Sting

Our first date was on March 29, 1991. I was two months shy of 16 and it was the Soul Cages tour. I just looked it up in my journal and here's all I had to say about it: "I went to the Sting concert. It was soooooo cool. Sting is way rad. I found out his real name is Gordon Sumner or something close to that. Yuck, huh? I would change my name too." After which I resumed my normal diatribe of how many conversations I may or may not have had with the 3 or 4 boys I liked that day. "Way rad?" What kind of a concert review is that?

Now that Sting & I have had our second date (last night), I will review the experience properly.

Let me tell you, despite his solo work being largely categorized as "adult contemporary," this man is every ounce a rock star. From the combat boots, tight-ish black pants & sleeveless white t-shirt on his very decent physique (choosing my words carefully) and a voice that sounds every bit as good as when he was 30 (he is now 55)... he is really quite remarkable. Okay who am I kidding? He's totally hot. I've never been one to have crushes on rock stars, but come on. Looks a little like Billy Idol, doesn't he? Sting's yoga regimen and whatever else he's doing is definitely working for him. (Side note: he told us he had hiked Camelback Mountain at 6:00am that day; how would that be to run into Sting on a hike!) He wasn't a rock star with attitude though. His demeanor on stage was friendly & playful, smiling a lot and really seeming to enjoy himself without coming across as egotistical, like other frontmen I've seen.

In contrast, the other members of the Police look like old men who shouldn't be on the stage. Luckily for them, they are the other 2/3 of the band so they actually did belong there. On stage I mean. But Stewart Copeland (on drums) had a very moppy head of gray hair which, partnered with a sweatband and a strange spandex shirt, made him look like a granny who was sweatin' to the oldies. Andy Summers, on guitar, did rock, I'll give him that... but his wobbly old man jowls were a little much to watch when they showed him on the big screen.

As for the music, it was great. I mean way rad. I had heard, and assumed, that the setlist would be exclusively Police radio hits & singles, but when the second song they did was a lesser-known album cut, my heart was all a-flutter. They did around 20 songs, which was a nice long set (including encores) and lasted even longer considering the "jam sessions" on several. Sting seems to like to mix it up and not perform a song the same exact way twice, which makes it hard to sing along to, but I'll forgive him. I'm sure it would get quite boring to do it the same way every time, and they are in the middle of a 100+ show tour. But he did let us (the audience) sing a few lines on favorites like Roxanne. I was feeling mighty reminiscent during tunes like I Can't Stand Losing You and So Lonely, wishing I had my 1990-1991 posse there with me to enjoy the moment. But I did thoroughly enjoy it anyway, and have no regrets about the $100 spent per ticket and having Hubs beside me (I love going to shows with that guy!). Speaking of jam sessions, I've never thought of Sting as a stellar bassist but he really did tear it up on a few tunes last night. I mean, he was no Flea, but I was impressed.

My only negative comments (aside from ripping the appearance of the non-Sting band members):There were a couple songs where the band seemed a little out of synch with each other, not rhythmically but tonally. I attribute this to Sting's talent & creativity which the other two cannot match. But they sounded a little "off" from each other a couple times. And, there were two cheesey moments, both involving the video screens: during Wrapped Around Your Finger they kept showing a closeup of Sting's wedding ring on his finger as he played (way too corny), and during Invisible Sun they showed a confusing collection of images of poverty (sad-faced foreign children, huts, etc) with a few shots of apparently U.S. military helicopters & troops. I did not get the point of that; it didn't seem to be entirely anti-war so I'm not sure what their point was. Of course there were a couple songs I would love to have heard that they didn't play, but they did play a nice long time & didn't stop until 10:45pm so I can't complain about that.

The opening act was a band called FictionPlane, fronted by Sting's 30-yr-old son. They were okay; it's hard to really judge a band when you hear them for the first time in a venue like that (US Airways center; maximim capacity of around 19,000), but the drummer was amazing. Our seats were up behind & to the right of the stage, and it was fun to watch that drummer at work from our vantage point. (In 1991 on our first date, Concrete Blonde was the opening act!)

All in all a terrific bit of entertainment, really. I kind of feel like I was a part of history or something, this being the Police's big reunion tour & first tour in 25 years. So it was a big deal... I can't even imagine the amount of money they are making on this gig but I'm glad to have contributed! In 1991 I had hoped Sting would do more Police songs, but he was there to promote his fourth solo album. Our second date was more enjoyable than our first because this was ALL Police tunes. Which I totally dig.

(ps... i have added to this since originally posting it... there's just so much to say! as i sat (stood) through the show i kept thinking of ideas of things to report about it on the blog... and as the morning has gone on, i'm recalling more of what i wanted to tell you about it.)

Sizzlin'

Come on all you non-AZ types; you know you wish you were here!

Neato!

This is copied/stolen/borrowed from another blog but I think most of you wouldn't have seen it; if I could figure out how to do this it would be a great time-saver! Okay not really a time-saver but at least a cool trick to show at dinner parties. Or laundry parties, if those exist.

I am having a very hard time getting the video embedded so you'll have to click here.

Words to live by

As many of you know, I will be teaching piano lessons again in the fall. I'm going to try a "new way" of teaching that involves not only the piano but a computer for the kids to use some interactive theory & ear training software, and a "listening station" where they will listen to selections from certain composers they will learn about, and a keyboard with headphones for kids who need extra practice before they come see me at the piano. There will be 3 students at my house at a time, rotating through three "stations" for one hour total and I'm very excited about this. However, all of this will take place in the front two rooms of my house, the living room and dining room, where furniture is quite sparse. I've gone online and selected some charming furniture, including an entry table, a desk, and some chairs to allow my students some place to sit at the aforementioned stations.

The trick is, I don't have any "for sure" students signed up yet, having only made my formal email announcement this morning. (Although I'm excited because I've had a couple people say they're interested & it's only been a couple hours!) But Hubs, being the practical man he is, when I announced my idea of spending several hundred dollars on furniture to facilitate my plans, said, "How about if you buy this stuff AFTER we have the money to pay for it?" (meaning piano lesson income) And I said, "but my motto is: If you build it, they will come." His reply: "Hm. My motto is: Don't count your chickens before they're hatched."

Our compromise (isn't marriage great?) is that I will buy the furniture once I have a reasonable number of definite students signed up. I think this is a fair & logical solution. But it got me thinking about mottos & creeds. Got any good ones?

Camperoo

We had a big family campout this past weekend, and unfortunately on our camera we ended up with very few decent "people" pictures. So here's a couple of the lay of the land for you. Doesn't it look inviting? We were up on the Mogollon Rim (pronounced mo-ghee-on, not Mogollin' or Mogollian, as I've also heard) where the trees are tall & the air is crisp. Really quite lovely, and only about 2.5 hours from home. We opted to stay at an organized, pay-per-night campground which was a new experience for most of us (does that count as real camping?). Although we had neighbors a stone's throw away instead of just trees as far as the eye could see, it was worth it because we could build a fire in the firepit, something we could not have done if we'd camped elsewhere (due to fire restrictions in the national forests). It was also nice to have restrooms, however primitive (even though the kids thought going in the woods was so cool!), and a nice big picnic table where we could set up shop. To see some great people pics from the trip, click here!

Skillz

I'm SO sorry to have left you for nearly a week with a post about a feather duster. I mean, that's akin to torture. I do not retract my praise for said duster; on the contrary, it has been a source of endless delight in the cleaning department since it arrived on my doorstep last week. Regardless, I apologize for not having updated this a little sooner! (Also, posting has become difficult due to my skittish internet as of late.)

SO today I'm thinking a little bit about SKILLZ. Uh huh, that's spelled right. You know, like nunchuck skills, bowhunting skills, computer hacking skills... That's the only line we ever quote (in this household) from Napoleon Dynamite; we only saw it once but that line cracks me up.

Anyway in RS today we were talking about being prepared & provident living. This is not a boring topic by any stretch. For one thing, I am quite interested in things like Food Storage/Year's Supply, but aside from that, we were talking about things like "What would you do/how would you handle it if the breadwinner in your household were to get laid off/die/become seriously ill/etc?"

One lady commented that each of us, even the SAHM's (stay-at-home-mom's) have some skills; something we can/could do to earn money should the need arise. That got me thinking, what exactly are my skills? (Okay, so I'm done spelling it with a Z) I know I've got 'em; we all do!! Have you ever thought about this?

I'd have to come up with SOME way to support myself and these four turkeys:

It's interesting to think about; to look inside yourself and find those skillz.

My new buddy

I don't like to clean. This is no secret. My house can attest to it. Everyone knows it. I don't let the bathrooms get disgusting or the floors get too sticky; the carpet in the busiest rooms gets vacuumed about once a week and we always have clean laundry... so I'm not a total pig, but I do have a clutter issue. I do have stuff everywhere.

But since I don't like cleaning of any variety, be it "straightening up" or scrubbing bathrooms, I am always a sucker for new & innovative cleaning supplies with the hope that they will make cleaning fun, or at least easy; and I usually buy them within 24 hours of first seeing the commercial. Mr. Clean MagicReach 5-in-1 tool? Check. Shower Shine? Check. Pretty much any Swiffer product? Double-check. I mean come on, Swiffer gives cleaning a whole new meaning! When I bought my first Swiffer duster, I emailed my whole family about it. What an amazing invention. But now my Swiffer duster has been replaced by something better... drumroll please...

It's the FlyLady's Ultimate 26" FLY duster!! I'm serious. I have been signed up to recieve FlyLady's helpful "how to clean and organize your house" emails for about 5 months now, and although I really don't follow her program at all, it is still helpful to be reminded to do my dishes on occasion instead of surfing the internet. Being on FlyLady's list, we also receive countless testimonials for her methods and products. Testimonials for the duster far outnumber any others, so being the sucker I am, I just bought one.

I didn't open the box until late last night, right before I went to bed, but immediately I was hooked. The beauty of this duster (I got the big one) is that the ostrich feathers are long and really seem to take on a life of their own, seeking out dust particles in all kinds of nooks & crannies, with minimal effort on the part of the user. The other beauty is that it will dust around all of my aforementioned stuff... so my house can be dust-free without having to de-clutter first. Having the big one (26"), it's easy to reach ceiling fans, tops of picture frames, etc. with ease. At about midnight last night, I went around dusting my entire downstairs... not even feeling silly about it.

It works. Seriously. And look, they even stuck in a couple purple feathers to make it look prettier.

P.S. FLY stands for Finally Loving Yourself. Check it out.

P.P.S. I would like a few more movie ideas! Keep 'em coming!