Decorate Your Soul

Yum! Yum! Add this one to you summer rotation. Only 254 calories per serving.

Thai Chicken Stir-Fry

courtesy Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook

Ingredients:

3 tbsp. dry sherry

2 tbsp. soy sauce

1 tbsp. fish sauce (optional)

1 tbsp. water

1 tsp. cornstarch

½ tsp. crushed red pepper

12 oz. skinless, boneless chicken breast halves

1 tbsp. cooking oil

1 tsp. grated gingerroot

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup biased-sliced carrots

1 large yellow or red bell pepper, sliced (optional)

2 cups fresh pea pods, tips, strings, removed, or one 6-ouncepackage frozen pea pods thawed

4 green onions, bias-sliced into 1-inch pieces (1 cup)

1/3 cup dried roasted peanuts

Hot cooked rice

1. For sauce, in a small bowl stir together sherry, soy sauce, fish sauce, water, cornstarch, and red pepper. Set sauce aside.
2. Rinse chicken; pat dry. Cut chicken into 1-inch pieces; set aside.
3. Pour cooking oil into a wok or large skillet. (Add more oil as necessary while cooking.) Preheat over medium-high heat. Stir fry gingerroot and garlic in hot oil for 15 seconds. Add carrots; stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add pea pods, bell peppers & green onions; stir-fry for 2-3 minutes or till crisp-tender. Remove vegetables from wok or skillet.
4. Add chicken to hot wok. Stir-fry for 3-4 minutes or till chicken is no longer pink. Push chicken from center of wok. Stir sauce; add to center of the wok. Cook and stir till thickened and bubbly. Return vegetables to wok. Add peanuts. Stir all ingredients together to coat with sauce. Cook and stir 1-2 minutes more or until heated through. If desired, serve at once with rice. Makes 4 servings.

On a cool, breezy, Friday morning, I wonder where did the last week of July go?

I will just go ahead and say it. Andy has a bad sense of direction- well, only when we are together he says. One morning last weekend, we set out to go looking at houses for rent in the San Diego area. We searched rental listings, found 4 that were in the likability range (we have a grossly snobbish list of non-negotiables to look for in a house- Lord help us when we eventually do buy a house!) and Andy saved the directions from Google maps to the desktop (er, on the laptop, that is)- so we thought…

Once we were on the road, not going in anyone direction, we learned that you cannot get to the Google map when you are not connected online. This has apparently worked for Andy before (I wonder what he was doing driving and looking at the laptop- more frightening than anyone on the cell!)- but not today. So, he had a solution, one he had been thinking about for quite some time… "We need to find a Best Buy," announced husbandly.

I am no fool, he has about as good excuse to visit an electronic store as I do for needing a trip to the scrapbook store… We were already on La Jolla Village Drive going toward the mall, circled around (mind you, a large circle!) to the 5 North, realized we needed to turn around and go back to the mall where an electronic store MUST be, exited Scripps Parkway to turn around, wound up in a hospital parking lot where there was seemingly NO EXIT! Circled around, dead ended, Andy frustrated (if he had been a cartoon character, he surely would have had steam blowing from his ears!), finally reached the 5 FWY again to go south.

Exited La Jolla Village Dr.- back to Regents where the mall is, and NO SIGN of an electronics store. We kept going south on Regents which turns into this windy road going south until you hit the 52 FWY- going West. Back to the 5 FWY where we went north. This is where I exhibited no self control- "Where on earth are you going?"

You see, the only Best Buy that I know of happened to be south of us, where we could have easily gone to in the first place. But Andy knew of one off the 56 FWY and the 15 FWY. Question. Do you see those 2 freeways on my map? Nope. They are not close.

Finally, finally, we reach a Best Buy, where Andy purchased a GPS road navigation software and life was grand. He installed it at Panera Bread where we ate lunch, fed the girls, reenergized and found ourselves on the map. This little program is quite handy, and better than any old paper map (I will admit now that I’m a map kinda gal and like the small streets that you can follow with your finger and don’t need any charged batteries to make it work!). You connect this little cable thingie (I know, very technical vocabulary here) to your window and it lets you know your exact location as you are driving on the laptop. Very cool.

We found all of the houses we had previously done a search for and had no problem making our way to each of them- except the one that didn’t exist.

True art is characterized by an irresistible urge in the creative artist.
                                                                                         Albert Einstein

One of the reasons I didn’t want to teach kindergarten for a second year was because of all the painting we planned for the five-year-olds to partake in (I still have green paint on my "all" white Adidas’). With 20 of them to plan for, it kinda got, well, messy. Needless to say, I had some reservations about getting the paint out for my Sarah, certain I would regret it, but knowing she would love it.

And love it she did.

I think we will invest in an easel soon and let her have her own little spot to nurture her creativity. After all, isn’t that what being a kid is all about?

New photo albums have been added for the grandma’s and family and well, anyone else that wants to peek. I’m really working on lighting and adjusting the camera settings and such. It seems that I am pretty good at taking overexposed pictures… oh, and pictures that could be great if they were in focus. Anyway, here you go.

Bean Ops     Ashleigh at play

And have a wonderful weekend everyone! We’ll be in San Diego on holiday

I thought I would share a favorite poem of mine. This used to hang on the wall of my high school chemistry teacher’s classroom (and like most veteran teachers’ classrooms, it is probably still there in the same space, where the Benfield’s and the Butler’s sit). Not much interest in the area of periodic elements here, but the literature, I breathe in. Enjoy.

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

-Max Ehrmann