Clover Lane

For those that are interested, here is the link to a blog (Clover Lane) where I found a tutorial to  Increase your picture size  on your blog.  Kennon will provide back up support if you should need it.

She's a Catholic Mother of 5 who regularly blogs about the joy of motherhood and her thoughts on living a good Christ centered life. At least that's my take on her. I like her.

A coconut recipe . . and maybe an announcement

I took a short blogging break and enjoyed counting up all my friends. Well. . . blogging friends. It's pretty clear I have more blogging friends than real friends. So many friends emailing or leaving a message that they wanted to continue the friendship. But no one wanting to meet for lunch :( 

As far as lunch goes, it just hasn't been the same since I moved away from my favorite lunch spot. My mom, sisters and I never argued when Mom took us to lunch because we all agreed.  It was always -The Emerald of Siam- right next to the ancient Uptown Cinema in Richland, WA.  It serves a simple buffet of only four or five entrees with rice but it's the best $6.95 splurge I ever took. Alainna used to go just for the chicken wings, and we would count up how many bones she stacked up. She'd call in first to make sure that they would be on the menu so she wouldn't have to settle for a large pan of shrimp crackers instead. But my favorite was the Coconut Curry Stir Fry. Meat and veggies in curried coconut milk. Mom found out the owner  had a cook book, bought it, and after that we started making up our own Thai curry. 

Coconut milk is probably one my favorite ingredients ever. It's a little more difficult to keep stocked up on it though. They don't sell it at Aldi, and I definitely won't buy it at Top's. The last time I checked there it was $2.69 a can.  Better to buy it at the little oriental store on the corner that reeks of  fish. The coconut milk is $.99 there, and they don't carry lite.  In that case just ride your bike to the store like I did last week with my backpack. It was a couple miles away and I figured the bike ride justified non-lite coconut milk. We only have a month till we move so I just bought 5 cans. I also buy my Jasmine rice, won tons, and fish sauce there. The thai red curry I buy at Wegman's. If I have these things on hand I can recreate the Thai lunch buffet at my house any day of the week.

I took off on my bike right before dinner last Monday night when I discovered we were running low on coconut milk and I just had to make  

Avocado Mango Salsa with Coconut Rice 

 to celebrate Brent's homecoming from a weekend camping out in our van and making a decision where we are headed. 

Sound interesting? Recipe first.

It's my new favorite and even better than Thai coconut curry, so I am posting this one instead of the Thai recipe I have been going on about.

Avocado Mango Salsa:

Dice one avocado, 1-2 roma tomatoes, and one mango

1/3 cup chopped cilantro

1/4 c. onion, diced

Juice of one lime (or lemon juice if that's what you have)

Several dashes Frank's Red Hot sauce (all the rage around here)

salt and garlic salt to taste

I sort of made it up. I hate store bought mango salsa, But this stuff. . . I could eat the WHOLE BOWL. . .

 

Myself. 

Especially with this Coconut Rice to go with it.

Coconut Rice

1 1/2 cups rice (Jasmine is best)

1 3/4 cup water

1 can Coconut Milk

1 tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. sugar

more chopped cilantro leaves

 Bring to boil and simmer for 20 minutes.

Serve with it up with Black Beans and Tortilla chips on the side. And if you really want to feast. . .

Grill up some Pineapple and Teryiaki Chicken Kabobs too. 

I am a big sweet and salty fan and for me this meal is as good as it gets.

OK, now here it is.

Hidden carefully in the recipe section of this blog. 

Brent and I, after VERY extensive consideration have decided that we want to 

Purchase a practice in ALTOONA, PA. 

Remember the near fainting spell in the office post. This is the very one. 

We just can't find anything we like better. And we have looked. Oh, my have we looked. 

And we have prayed. So very hard. 

And after all this we keep coming back to central Pennsylvania. 

And I guess Georgia, and Tennessee, New Hampshire, and almost Wisconsin. That was our next venture on the radar. So yes, we have been bouncing all over the place. But this is THE ONE we just can't let go of and it feels as close to right as anything can when you are making a huge leap like this. 

Nothing is a done deal yet, because Brent now needs to spend hours in the office going through patient files, etc and making sure that we are really getting what we are paying for. And of course securing a fat loan will need to happen first. But we have signed a letter of intent and are in the process of making it happen. So unless something comes to light that makes us run in the opposite direction we will soon be locating in a mountain town of 50,000 in the heart of Pennsylvania. 

It's funny but of all the places I have ventured to tell people we are investigating, hands down Pennsylvania gets the worst reviews. The best thing I have heard about it is that "It's Beautiful" (Oh, it is). . . but that opinion is always inserted in the middle of stronger opinions like, "Bunch of old mining towns", "Isn't the whole state about dead", "Nothing going on in Pennsylvania"  "People are really different there" "Well, if you can stand to live there". . . kind of stuff. 

So hopefully these people are all uninformed speculators and have no idea what they are mumbling about.

So what do you think? Do you wanna follow the blog from Pennsylvania?

Privatizing our blog soon

I just looked at the calendar and realized we are down to less than two weeks of school for Brent. And then we will have a full fledged Dr. in the family soon after.  This really is the end of a very fun era for us.

Unfortunately the whole premise of this blog may not be the best image to broadcast to the world as Brent begins his professional career. Living in the hood, sponge baths in the back of the van. . . .  do you really want to hear these kind of details about your dentist? No.

So instead of censoring our adventures,  I am privatizing the blog.

Something I never wanted to do and hated when others did.

But really, I am totally okay with this. The adventures will continue right here. No toning down at all.

So, Please leave me an email address if you would like to be included and you will receive a personal invite. This will be happening sometime in the next couple weeks.

(If you don't want to leave your address you can always email me. My email is on the left. So sorry about the hassle.)

Our River

We have a surprise for Daddy when he comes back from his long weekend. 

Hopefully Dad likes it because Marcus and all of his sisters are mad at me. "I want my hair back."  the kid said after looking in the mirror. Sorry, Buzz it's gone.

"Can I have some more?" 

He worked on this stuff for a whole year ( I buzzed it last April) and finally had enough for a great mohawk and now it's all gone. Sorry, but I just couldn't handle how wispy it was and just got out the clippers when all the kids were glued on the computer or TV and no one was looking. And we got a jump start on the summer.

Yes, my pictures suddenly got bigger! Kennon convinced me it was the way to go. But this is also a really big hill, especially for these parts. We have a hard time finding any hills around town and so we were really excited when we ran into this one today. 

It is on Squaw Island. We walked over a train bridge about a mile from our house and. . .  Voila! There it was. Now we are just sad that we didn't explore this island earlier. We had biked down there a couple months after moving in and planned to come back all the time and then never made it that far again.  It's so much better than the river walk by our house which is adjacent to the freeway and so noisy you can't even carry on a conversation. This island is separated from the freeway by a canal and is nice and peaceful. 

I keep thinking, "Have we taken full advantage of this river we live on?" We have sailed it, swam it (from the boat) and walked, biked, roller-bladed by it a dozens of times but it's just so great and it seems like somehow we should have enjoyed it more. I am a little crazy when it comes to living by water. My favorite would be a large pond for canoeing in my backyard but I will settle for the Niagara in the meantime. Luckily, waterfront property came pretty cheap in Buffalo.

This whole excursion came about because I told the girls I was going for a long walk and would see them in an hour. It's the first day of Spring Break and after a long weekend without Brent around I was ready for MY break. But they all insisted on coming along. We are racing along near the Peace Bridge to Canada here.

 

Wow! He is looking really bald again isn't he?

I love it!
Maybe you grow confused after living with a bald man for so many years.

We stopped too often to smell the flowers and never made it to our goal- the Peace Bridge.

Squaw Island! Who would've known?

I almost forgot to post the update on what my husband has been up to lately. Early Saturday morning he made off with our van, a couple cushions off the couch, Savannah's infamous sleeping bag, and my kitchen pot. He also threw in his torch.

??

 He only planned to visit a couple practices this trip, but they weren't exactly in the same direction. After spending the day in Pennsylvania with a dentist ready and hoping to turn things over to Brent,  he left late Saturday night in the direction of Dover NH.
Brent was loving it I am sure. No family hollering in the back seat for McDonalds. No need to stop at a hotel.  He had a sweet set up in the back seat when Mountain Dew wouldn't do the trick any longer.  This is the way this man likes to roll and would everytime if we would put up with it.

And where do the pot and torch come in? You can't expect him to show up at a quality interview without a good sponge bath in the back seat. Thank goodness for tinted windows. Aye, yi, yi.


And "technically" he spent the night at the Comfort Inn. . . in the parking lot. You have to be prepared to give honest answers during your interview and that one always comes up, "So where are you staying?"

Brent please stop giving out my blog address to your prospective employers. This is my blog and as you can see I refuse to censor it. 

These are the Fielding girls in July of last year. Mother, 4 daughters and two daughters in law. Four out of six of these women were pregnant earlier this week. The other two sisters Candice and I will definitely not be joining the fun of 2010, though I think we are both a little jealous. Candice had one just last year though, so she has an excuse.



I don't know what mine is though. My youngest is almost, practically, just about, soon to be potty trained.

As you know, Ciana,



had a baby in her car earlier one week ago today. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how that all goes down and what you actually do once you pull up at the hospital. . . and what you wear into the hospital, etc.

Then, Alainna surprised us and went into labor 2 weeks early yesterday. She had plenty of time to make it to the hospital and had one of those boring old sterile deliveries in a hospital bed.

Just the day before the early labor started she got this homemade quilt in the mail for baby Johnathon. Talk about perfect timing. I made it several weeks ago, but it was so pretty I had a hard time giving it up once I finished it, and briefly contemplated making a new one since this one went so well, at the bottom of my bed.



Congratulations to Alainna and Stephen and Welcome to Jonathon 8 lbs. 2 oz!

Only kidding about the boring part Alainna. Believe me after 5 I know that each time I visit the hospital it is anything but boring. Ciana was just a tough act to follow, wasn't she?

And how is the van clean up coming along Ciana and Dave?

I just keep thinking about our van last summer and the bloody beef that almost finished it off.

Baking soda. Lots and lots of baking soda.

A very exciting birth

My sister, Ciana who lives in California just called me at 5:30 a.m. her time. She is the sister who coached me through my last labor encouraging me to stay home as long as possible, so you don't have to sit around the hospital too long waiting. Much more exciting to just have a mad dash. I listened to her and stayed home until I could no longer stand it. As a result I had the most scary painful labor ever. I think Marcus would've been born at least an hour earlier if I had got some medical attention and saved myself that last hour of agony. No hard feelings Ciana. It's over now.

She called me before 6 a.m. this morning because she had just had her baby 12 days early and. . . IN HER CAR on the way to the hospital. They pulled over because she could no longer obey her husband's instructions to stop pushing. He pulled over just in time. The baby was out in no time, and they then continued their drive to the hospital with her new son in her arms.

Oh, my! I can't even imagine.

So mad dashes are not all they are cracked up to be. Having a slow, careful, boring old labor in the hospital may just be the way to go after all. (Ciana is as tough as they come though. She told me this morning that it wasn't that bad.)

Congratulations to Ciana and Dave and their new son! She now has 5 like I do.

Now, Good luck to Alainna! She is my other sister having a baby this month.

Marcus earns a marshmallow

Marcus just ate a half a pack of gum, that he found in my purse, in two minutes flat. I picked up the empty pack and stared down at him long and hard. He knew he was caught.

He gulped the large wad down in guilt and looked me right in the eyes and said,

"It was an accident, Mom"


It reminded me of yesterday evening when Brent taught the family home evening lesson. He used a marshmallow demonstration that he picked up at the Priestbood session of General Conference last weekend.

He got two marshmallows out of a bag then sat Marcus down at the table. One marshmallow was placed in front of his son and then he carefully explained to him that Dad didn't want him to eat the marshmallow for one minute. If he waited then he would give him the other one in his hand and he could eat both.

The time began and I made Brent a bet that he would never make it. It didn't take long for him start squeezing it and then lifting it part way to his open mouth. It really was a hard thing Dad was asking of him. Finally 9 seconds short of the minute he could no longer stand it and it disappeared between his lips.

No sooner was that one gone and he was reaching out for the second one Dad was holding. He was pretty sad when he was reminded that he couldn't get it because he didn't wait.

Caroline also loves marshmallows AND ATTENTION so she wanted to try next. She had no problem and he even made her wait for 3 minutes. Marcus watched the whole thing unfold and the second marshmallow rewarded, and was determined to have another go.

Okay, he would get that chance, but this time his Dad wanted him to wait for two minutes. So we started in. Every 15 seconds he would lose his resolve and start lifting the marshmallow off the table. We had all been instructed to be silent and not coach him either way, but Caroline, across the table, couldn't help herself. She kept one finger in front of her, and each time the marshmallow started to go in, she starting wagging her finger at him. Small enough that Dad off to the side could hardly see, but Marcus took note of Caroline's warning. Finally the two minutes passed and we exploded in congratulations. As soon as he heard our cheers, he popped that thing into his mouth so fast we hardly saw it happen.

After this we had a lesson on the fact that good things come to those who wait. Dad taught us that we should never give into immediate gratification and loose out on the blessings of waiting until the right time. That can apply to a lot of things don't you think?

I really felt like we were being taught from the Master. Any 40 year old who is willing to sport his mother's 17 year old buick around during the prime years of his life is the perfect person to teach us this lesson.

A Happy Easter

We love our Egg hunts around here. And with the 70 degree weather we had a real one. . .Outside. We have been snowed in way too many Easters and I think eggs are so much more fun to find in tree houses and bushes than couch cushions and bookcases.



Marcus insists on being either a cowboy or a farmer boy (He wore overalls for the Egg hunt) every day lately. He has some red boots, and horse but no cowboy can ride without a cowboy hat. A couple times a day he goes looking for his cowboy hat. He tells me, on his way down the basement stairs, "Mom, I'm looking for my cowboy hat." Then a couple minutes later after scavenging, he hollers up the stairs, "I can't find my cowboy hat". Somebody please buy that cowboy a hat. He must have dreamed he had one.



Once all the eggs were found the younger ones sat down at the table and devoured all of the contents in one sitting. One of my kids favorite egg fillers is goldfish. My children eat it like candy so I just treat it as such and give it to them for special occasions.

Kennon got the best Easter surprise. When I dumped out our plastic eggs from the Easter Tub that has been sitting in my basement for the last year her ipod tumbled out. So we hid it along with the rest of the loot. Later in the day I spied her cellphone in her Easter basket among her eggs. Will she ever learn?



Before we had an egg hunt we had a morning devotional and sang Easter hymns together. We are becoming quite the choir now that we have a piano accompanist and can do three part harmony. I have so many memories of standing around the piano singing with my family while my mother played. A few years ago I was so worried that my family would never have that. . . But thanks to Kennon's diligence. . . WE DO. (I still don't feel like I can legally say I am a piano player even though I accompany the primary every week. I was hoping to be so much better by now) After singing Brent told the kids the Real Easter story. They went to bed way too excited about an Easter Bunny. We don't do anything but a plastic egg hunt but like I said it is pretty exciting for these goldfish deprived children.


We had plenty of time for egg hunts because there would be no running off early morning to church meetings as it was General Conference Weekend and we have a Salt Lake Broadcast instead of regular local meetings. Here on the East Coast the 4 hour broadcast doesn't even start till noon Saturday and Sunday. Our Conference weekends have just gotten better and better as our children have gotten older and gotten used to the tradition. Now our three older children sit, snuggle up with us and listen to all 8 hours with us. It really is an amazing thing to me. They can hardly sit through an hour of Sacrament meeting talks every Sunday yet they are able to sit and listen for two straight hours at a time without complaint! And if you can get them to sit and listen, they begin to love it as much as you do. It is so wonderful to hear so many powerful testimonies of Jesus Christ. We had zero fights in our home this weekend as a result and that NEVER happens. After listening, I am determined to be a better Christian to my friends, neighbors, ward members and especially my family. Listening to our Prophet and apostles has left me completely filled with joy and peace.

It is so crazy to me that although I am definitely anxious I feel no fear of our unknown future. We have NO IDEA where which direction we will be pointing that moving van when we are kicked out of our home in less than 2 months.

I received notice that the inspection had gone well and the buyers are satisfied. Now that is a miracle, yet does create a bit of a problem too. I filled out some paperwork for our lawyer and one question required was New Address??? Brent told me to write HOMELESS. . .so I did.

I might add Unemployed to that also. At this point though we are chuckling about the two terms and they aren't all that worrisome. I do on occasion press Brent on this issue. Like "Where are we gonna go if we are still stewing over this on May 25th?". He just tells me that it's all going to work out. Suitable employment will be found. . . Eventually.

He also reminded me that it will be summer time and we do have a tent. I suggested he start doing Internet searches for large fields next to Wi-fi McDonald's. This sounds like a joke but technically it could work right? I've lived in a trailer, then the hood, now a tent. We'll just call it camping. We all love camping.

April Fools

Our home inspection is tomorrow morning and we are nervous. The buyer is qualified as a first time home buyer and and has an FHA loan. Yesterday we were warned that FHA inspectors are really picky about stuff like mold and peeling paint. It has to be perfect for them to pass it off. And since "we" opted not to pay for an inspection when "we" bought the home . . Who knows what they will find.

So Brent suddenly had a big list this morning. And he's totally willing to do it all himself . . . but he will be in clinic all day and has an elder's quorum visit and basketball this evening.

So it happens to be a sunny 70 degrees outside for the first time in 5 months and Marcus had a easter egg hunt scheduled. . . but I am down in the basement all day painting the walls to hide what may be mold.

One of Marcus's favorite sayings is "April Fools!" He says silly things to us and then says, April Fools so we know that he knows that it's joke. Or sometimes he says it when he is in trouble hoping we are just kidding and he really isn't going to get a spank.

My children LOVE April Fools. Savannah has been on the internet doing research for days in preparation. It is really annoying to have some many saboteurs around the house. Camille is still trying to figure it out. She had worm holes cut in our bowl of apples, messages written on the toilet paper roll, and I caught her dumping salt into orange juice I had just mixed for breakfast. Savannah had been busy starting off the day by smearing vaseline around the bathroom.

By 7:30 a.m. Brent declared that there would be "No more tricks in this house". But just before that Savannah had put a bowl of flour on the table in place of powdered sugar, for sprinkling on our German Pancakes. I decided to let it pass, though I did kindly warn each child when they got the bowl to go easy on the sugar. Savannah took her plate into the kitchen and helped her self to the real powdered sugar. She had just sat down when Kennon came down complaining that there was vaseline all over the faucet. Brent lost it then and sent Savannah upstairs to clean it up.

A minute later, Kennon had piled a couple tablespoons of "powdered sugar" on her breakfast and was just about to dig in. Brent saw Savannah coming down the stairs and suddenly had an idea. He switched Kennon and Savannah's plates and motioned for Kennon to be quiet. Kennon wasn't going along quietly though suspecting that somehow she was being tricked. She kept hollering that she wanted her food back, even as Savannah dug in, and Brent repeatedly tried to give her a signal to hold her tounge.

Meanwhile Savannah ate most of her pancakes while Kennon went on and on about how she wanted her food back now. Somehow Savannah was enjoying her food so much she had no idea that she was involved in this latest trick. Once she had licked up the last of her flour Brent fessed up who had the flour and who had the sugar and Kennon was suddenly laughing with us. Camille and Caroline were enjoying their food and were oblivious to the drama unfolding at our table. Both even had seconds with more flour while we busted up.

So apparently there is no need to put a big scoop of powdered sugar on top of your syrupy pancakes. I am glad that Savannah demonstrated that so well and I will leave it off the table in the future.

I don't think this is very funny for the rest of you, but I just had to include it since it was so much fun for us.

And HA, HA! Brent just now called after choking on a special sandwich I prepared for his lunch today.

It worked awesome and luckily he was eating with friends so they all had a good laugh at his expense and one of them even sent me a picture just now. Thanks Dave for the pic and thank you Michelle in El Paso for the good idea. April Fools :)