daily grind

Last Friday was the Girl Scout's Father-Daughter Dance in our area. Dave and Jordan enjoyed their "date" out together. They started at a Japanese steakhouse for a hibachi dinner with a little appetizer of sushi. Then they headed out to the dance. Dave noted that there are not too many years to enjoy daughter dates...apparently there weren't too many older girls there at the dance past middle school age. I think it is a great way to teach a daughter her value and how she should expect respect once dating in her teenage years.

Today we attended the Georgia Music Educators Association District gathering to watch Jordan's elementary chorus perform for an evaluated score. It was amazing to see how crisp and sharp they sounded after months of performance and practice. Even more amazing to see how quickly the group is morphing into "big kids". They performed "O, Deysayo" which is an Angolan folk song and "Al Shlosha" which is a Jewish song. A sound group professionally recorded it so we hope to have a CD of the performance soon.

Valentines day was a big hit around here -- how about for you? Jordan and William wholeheartedly enjoyed the school celebrations and chance to eat candy. Grace got the extras so she was thrilled. She saw the older two creating valentines on Tuesday afternoon and made one for Pop-pop also. Holidays are fun with little ones.

I've been trying all the new recipes that go with Dr. Oz's diet. He has several good ones in the book and more on the website and I've had good luck with most of them. On Monday night I tried to make the Black Bean Soup. It was good, but the journey to complete the meal was rocky. I must have been brain dead Monday night because I forgot every scientific fact I learned in school. At the end of the recipe you need to puree it via a food processor or blender. First I put half the soup in my food processor and as I placed the lid it started oozing out of the bottom of the bowl part from the base of the processor. After a moment's panic I managed to get it back to the main pan. My next thought, as the dinner deadline approached, was to use the blender. I set it up in the blender, put the lid on tightly, and then cut it on. In a moment I created what my kids will forever know as the "Black Bean Incident". The middle part of the lid flew off due to the heat and pressure (remember basic physics?) and the soup completely covered myself and the kitchen corner. It even flew behind my cabinet doors and got onto all my plates and daily china. The kids thought it was really funny...especially since it happened just moments before Dave came in the door. It took hours to clean up. Ya gotta laugh, right?

You know, it's funny that I titled my post with a coffee reference. The only part I've had difficulty with on this "diet" (if you don't count reese's cups - hee) is the affect it has had on my daily coffee. Somehow skim milk tastes like water in the cup and the Splenda I use doesn't quite melt with the coffee flavor like sugar. (BTW, I've discovered that Equal literally turns to formaldehyde in hot liquids so unless you want to start embalming yourself early you might want to switch to any other sweetener than that one.) Anybody got any suggestions to make my home coffee brew taste better?