Last week, the wheelchair lift needed for our good friends Joseph & Marianna Teller’s son Andrew was stolen off their back porch and sold to a scrap yard. Our local news did a story on them last night, but I wanted to pass along the information in the event anyone would like to make a donation to help them. Joseph is a grad student and Marianna works at home. Andrew is 3 and is heavier and taller than Claire who is the same age. With his wheelchair, Marianna cannot get him out of the house on her own.

http://www.wsbt.com/news/local/17030101.html

If you’d like to help, you can send a donation to:

The Andrew Teller Fund
c/o Wheelchair Help
1201 Richmond Street
Elkhart, IN 46516
(574) 295-2230

All donations are tax deductible.

Anne made hummous the other day, which was quite good. Being an experimenter, I made it the next day, but added two chipotle peppers with adobo sauce into the mix. MMMMM, if you can handle spicy food. Recipe follows:

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper
• 3 tablespoons tahini
• 1 can chick peas
• Olive oil (amount to be determined later)
• Salt - to taste
• 1-2 chipotle peppers and 1 teaspoon adobo

Procedure:

1. Put lemon juice, garlic, paprika, red pepper, and tahini in a food processor and pulse about 3 seconds.
2. Add rinsed chick peas and process until smooth, adding olive oil in short bursts as necessary.
3. Add chipotle peppers and adobo, and process until combined and smooth.

Enjoy with pita bread and keep some water / beer / yogurt handy!

I am not sure what to call the following, as I made it myself, but it’s pretty good, and (more importantly) Anne liked it, so I know it’s good. Try it out!

Ingredients:

• 1/8 cup olive oil, or enough to coat the bottom of a heavy saucepan 
• 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon italian seasoning, your choice
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 chicken breasts, sliced thinly
• 1-2 teaspoons prepared horseradish (not cream) - or to taste.
• 1 can artichoke hearts, unmarinated, quartered
• 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 cup shredded italian cheese (I used a blend of Romano, Asiago, and Parmesan)
• 1/8 cup cream or half-and-half.

Procedure:

1. Heal olive oil over medium heat.
2. Add garlic to oil; saute until lightly browned.
3. Add red pepper and italian spices; saute for 10 - 20 seconds.
4. Add chicken, stir fry at medium heat until chicken is cooked through, stirring often.
5. Add lemon juice and artichoke hearts; cook for 30 - 60 seconds or until artichoke hearts are well-heated. (They may fall apart - no problem.)
6. Add horseradish, stir until combined.
7. Remove from or turn off heat, add cheese, stir, then add cream.
8. Taste for seasoning - add salt and black pepper as necessary.
9. Serve over your favorite pasta (I used whole wheat vermicelli.)

Care of a Knitter:

1. If you say, “I don’t understand,” expect a long explanation full of various Greek phrases such as “continental,” “casting off,” “malabrigo” (sp?), among other things. If the knitter is showing you an interesting technique, and you don’t understand, nod and smile.
2. If asked for a (presumably non-technical) opinion, just say, “Oh, honey, it’s beyond me. But the result you’ve gotten is superior to anything I’ve seen in a store.” (Provided such is true.)
3. Make sure she has yarn storage for her “stash.”
4. Large, plastic, salad-spinner bowls make excellent containers for kool-aid (or otherwise) dyeing yarn. If you find such a bowl on the counter, no salad having been consumed, this was its likely purpose.
5. There are many more dangerous objects in the knitter’s armory than non-knitters perceive…not only the standard metal knitting needles (see various slasher movies), but bamboo, plastic, and other materials, as well as double-pointed needles, circular needles (or is it a circular needle with two points?), etc. Beware the death trap of reaching into a disorganized knitting bag without a light….
6. Why is it called “knitting with needles” and not “nitting with kneedles” or “nitting with needles.” I suppose depending on what was being knitted, it could be “knitting with canoodles”….
7. It is truly best to let the knitter watch their own TV show without you in the room. If you try and watch anything together, especially something requiring the knitter’s visual attention, forget it. “Hey did you see that, ha ha ha. That was funny.” Knitter: %$@#$ made me drop a stitch!

-j.

 P.S. In the above post, I have used “she” and “her” for ease of reading. The masculine “he” or “his” or non-gendered pronoun “it” and possessive “its” may be used according to requirements.

Rick Garnett comments on this from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education:

An excerpt from F.I.R.E.:

In a stunning series of events at Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), Keith Sampson, a university employee and student, has been charged with racial harassment for reading a book during his work breaks.

Sampson is in his early fifties, does janitorial work for the campus facility services at IUPUI, and is ten credits shy of a degree in communication studies. He is also an avid reader who usually brings books with him to work so that he can read in the break room when he is not on the clock. Last year, he began reading a book entitled Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan. The book, which has garnered great reviews in such places as The Indiana Magazine of History and Notre Dame Magazine, discusses the events surrounding two days in May 1924, when a group of Notre Dame students got into a street fight in South Bend with members of the Ku Klux Klan. As an historical account of the students’ response in the face of anti-Catholic prejudice, the book would seem to be a relevant and worthwhile read, both for residents of the state of Indiana and for anyone interested in this chapter of American history.

Madness.

–J.

Wait - The sky is blue?

No permacloud today? Wow.

Too bad it’s still cold.

Over on Catholic Ramblings, I’ve posted a link to a letter to Sen. Obama.

Also, I’ve posted an item on Notre Dame’s choice of Laetare medal winner.

-j.

I need to make 2 different playlists for the triathlon for my iPod.  I need 20 minutes for the bike portion and 15 minutes for the run.

What are you suggestions for songs?  They can be upbeat to very upbeat for the bike but I need more mellow stuff for the run so I don’t go too fast and have my heartrate get out of control.

Gracias in advance!

I’ve posted on my other blog…check it out..comment there.

http://catholicramblings.stblogs.com/2008/02/29/fascinating-and-potentially-very-controversial/

-j.

Seems obvious, does it not? Yet, read this article….

An excerpt:

SCIENTISTS AT CALTECH and Stanford recently published the results of a peculiar wine tasting. They provided people with cabernet sauvignons at various price points, with bottles ranging from $5 to $90. Although the tasters were told that all the wines were different, the scientists were in fact presenting the same wines at different prices.

The subjects consistently reported that the more expensive wines tasted better, even when they were actually identical to cheaper wines.

Well….looks like I’ll be telling everyone that my $3.99 Cabernet is really a $39.99 Cabernet…

-j.

A wonderful magazine, which I recently discovered browsing the stands at Wal-Mart. It’s connected with America’s Test Kitchen. What’s even cooler is this recipe test program, where they send you new recipes to test on a weekly basis. This week’s recipe is called “No Roll Pizza Bianca” and looks delicious.

To sign up for the test recipes, see here.

-j.

We have pretty well-established nicknames for Claire - peanut, goof (”I not a goof!”), fish-breath, diplomat (”I not Uncle Matt!”), Drama Queen or DQ

Madeline, we are still working on, but a few we’ve come up with are:

1) The Hun (Think Attila, not “honey”)

2) The xx-inch (insert height here) Terror

3) Gigantor (From Night at the Museum)

4) Silent Destruction (Silent as in movement, not as in action - “Where’d Mads go off to?” *crash* from the other room.)

5) The Little Sister who is built like a humvee and always thinks things should go her way (HT to Beofish - here)

6) Wait, she can pull a plug cover off?

-j.

Well folks, Christmas has come and gone and you are not imagining it….we have not sent out Christmas cards, or a Christmas picture.  It’s not that we didn’t try — I mean the Christmas letter is written…I may even post it here for the world to see.  However, we have this slight problem that we have one child that will pose for every picture that you ask her and one who runs away from the camera.  These are our best attempts at getting them in the same frame.

Nobody puts baby in a corner (well, except when she’s trying to hide from the rest of us)

And finally….Claire the Fashionista….that’s my Dad’s hat, my mom’s scarf and her WICKED cool sunglasses.  I love them with the kitty PJ’s myself.  She’s quite the style queen!

Yes in fact, I am a princess

I realized recently that I write more on this blog about the adorable things that Claire does and says. I think it’s because her three year old brain comes up with so many freaking adorably cute ideas and hilarious declarations, but Madeline is hilarious and adorable as well in her own right.

So this post is dedicated to Madeline….my adorable 1 year old, who is built like a Humvee and thinks everything should go her way. No really, I mean it, that’s one of the most wonderful things about her personality…she is very determined and knows what she wants! Of course this can be annoying at times since she’s not yet using words to explain “Yes mommy, I would like something to drink”…she just points and wails at the bottle.

Lately she’s become very verbal! Some of her more adorable words are

• OWEEEE (when she drops something)
• UPPPY (when she wants you to pick up the thing she’s dropped)
• HI! (over and over again)
• Mommy & Daddy
• Here — handing us whatever she has in her hand
• UPPY!  (after she’s dropped whatever she had in her hand)
• Sissy
• Kiss (usually she wants you to kiss her stuffed giraffe gigi, not her)
• Apple
• Done
• DUCK! (and she points to any bird that she sees and oddly, miss Ashley at Day Care)

More to come…especially after I pick them up from their Christmas party…oye.  I’m sure Madeline had a MELTDOWN when Santa arrived.

A good laugh for today

Will it Blend? That is the question!

My coworker shared this with me this morning and I’ve been giggling like a teenager all morning!

Watch the glow stick video too!