Jackson Square

 Jackson Square is in the French Quarter.  In the day there are artists, balloon artists, people dressed up in all sorts of costumes.  At night the palm readers, taro cards readers, etc. come out.

 This building is a Catholic church that still holds mass.

 Many horse drawn carriages line the outside of Jackson Square.  To the left of this photo would performances throughout the day, with theater style seating.  The smell of cigarettes, coffee and horses fill the area.  The sound of people, carriage drivers calling for riders, dance music, horses breathing, and various styles of music are heard here.

 (from internet) Here you can get an idea of how the artists set up along Jackson Square.

The French Quarter in gold/tan.  Our hotel was at the very bottom the the gold.  Most of everything you'd want to go to is in the gold box.

I've moved

Due to technical difficulties and I don't want to pay to keep my blog going, I have moved it to another server.
I am still working out the bugs and learning how it all works.  I don't like these kind of things.
I have been with Blogger for YEARS and feel so comfortable here.
Yet their latest changes have me baffled.

So, please come and visit me on my new blog.
http://pressed24petals.blog.com/

What's up with Blogspot?

Okay, since my last blog post something about Blogspot has changed. 
I can't even upload one photo without having to pay for an upgrade? 
And what is with the Picasa account...how do I access my supposed account?

Anyone else having this problem?

Halloweenish Catch Up

For those of you who may not know, we don't really do Halloween.
But here are some Halloween photos for you...

Son did this all on his own...pretty good.

The kids went to a late after Halloween Halloween Party.  I had fun with son's make-up.

The Morning After Confessions (not as juicy as it sounds)

(This is a pretty random post, and yet it is all related.)

Okay, well, two mornings after.
I have to confess that I went to bed a bit heavyhearted the night of the elections.
I got up the next morning and decided that Obama may be stealing getting more of our money but he isn't going to steal my joy!  I had a great time reading my bible and praying.
Then it was off for my pre-breakfast, pre-kids waking up, pre-...well you get the idea walk/jog.  It felt great.  I felt great all day.

Something happened that night when I went to bed, reading about how a woman with a learning disability changed her brain...good read.  Something got resparked (is that even a word?).  Don't know what clicked, but I got re-energized for homeschooling again.

I confess, I was feeling pretty burned out from teaching.  High school kicks my butt!  Most home schooled high schoolers can pretty  much school themselves at this point.  (How's that for fitting in as many "school" words in as possible?)  Well, not so in our house.  I was this close (can you see my fingers?) to sending him back to public school...this close.  He was not a happy camper.  Alas, I have come up with a new plan.  We are sticking with the current distance learning, and I am adding a heap of work onto his day and mine.  We have just begun this and I am already behind on my "chores".  Why oh why does this happen every time I regroup?

So, at the end of this journey, our homeschool journey, our journey with four more years with Obama, both of our kids will be graduated and able to vote.  Me, I may be starting all over with our "new" kids.  Anybody got an few extra brain cells I could have...maybe that's covered in Obamacare.

2012 Down Syndrome Buddy Walk

This past Sat. My mom, step-dad, hubby, son and I went to Las Cruces for the annual Buddy Walk.  I had missed last years and so wanted to go to this one.
We got side tracked with traffic and had to drive around in a few circles before we got parked.  We got there and signed up just in time. 

Little did we know we were in the parade!

It was slow moving so I had plenty of time to get a few photos in.

This is the best shot I could get of our son.

There were a lot of people, a lot of young kids with Down syndrome.  I was prepared to see cute kids, but I didn't expect to get teary-eyed watching them.  The day when we get our little one can't come soon enough.

My Everyday Smoothie

This is really for my mom, but you can enjoy too!
For a few months now I have been drinking this for lunch (sometimes dinner).
You have heard me talk about it a few times.
It is really a create your own smoothie kind of thing.
Which I love.
Here are the goodies I put into my shake.  (Sometimes the fruits vary.)

Here's the basic goodies for the smoothie-yogurt, milk, banana, kale (or spinach).

I don't measure, ever.

It will all blend better done in this order.  The fruit weighs down the kale.

I cut up my own papaya and any other fruit about to over ripen.  I LOVE blueberries on here too.

It usually makes more then this.  I usually completely top of the cup.

Some tips/notes:
Mangos make the smoothie thick.
Apples, grapes and skinned fruit don't get all of the way smooth.
You can add vanilla extract if you need to sweeten it up.  (I use unsweetened yogurt.)
Depending on the fruit you may need to add more milk.
Spinach blend smoother.
Kale tastes more "green".

Tim's Place

Last week hubby had to travel to Albuquerque for work.
I quickly reminded him about Tim's Place.  "You need to go.  Take the camera."  I quickly fired off.
He did go, but Tim wasn't there.  (insert a big AHHHH....MAN!)
Here are the shots he did get of the restaurant.  See the small red vehicle in the center-ish of the photo?  That's where Tim's Place is.)

Feeling Domestic

Yesterday I was feeling pretty domestic.

I made my own vegetable stock and pesto.  

Here they are, frozen.  Don't they look like jars of honey.

I use the fresh basil right outside our door.  This plant started as a seed.  I had originally planted it in the garden on the backyard.  It wasn't doing good, so I moved to it to the front and went wild.

The basil totally over shadows the lemon thyme.

Here's the Vegetable Stock Recipe:

(from fresh and fast vegan cook book)

2 Tbl olive oil

3 medium onions, roughly chopped

4 carrots,  roughly chopped

2 leeks,  roughly chopped

1 celery stick,  roughly chopped

1 small green lettuce

1/2 head of broccoli, cut into florets

1 bay leaf

4 black peppercorns

pinch of sea salt

handful of fresh parsley, roughly chopped

12 cups (6 pints) water

*Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan.  Add the onions, carrots, leeks, celery, lettuce, and broccoli, and sweat the vegies over low heat for 20 min.  Add the bay leaf, peppercorns, salt, parsley and water.  Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 1 1/4 hours over a very low heat-it is important that the liquid only just bubbles.  Every now and then you will need to skim the form from the top of the liquid with a large spoon.

*Strain the stock, making sure you don't push any of the vegies through the sieve.

*Let it cool, and refrigerate (or freeze) until needed.

Makes approx. 2 qts

prep time: 20 min.

cooking time: 1 1/4 hours

Big News...Designing Wise

I am going to be retiring at the end of October. I have thought LONG and HARD about this and tried to put it off as long as possible. However, it is time.

 See, my family and I are going to be adopting children with special needs, namely Downs Syndrome.  (If you are a regular reader of this blog you knew that. ;) ) With the two teenagers that I homeschool and ordering my life as well as I can (before we get a child placed with us), designing is one of those time consumers that I need to cut out now. While I have no idea when we'll get placed with a child, I don't want to have my teens thinking, "Mom, quit just because of the new kid." if you catch my drift. I am sorry to let any of you down. I really have enjoyed my time designing and getting to know some of you. Please, please follow me and our adventure on my here. Especially when we get our little one. You never know I may even create a kit here and there.

Again, I want to thank each and everyone of you who have said lovely comments, bought my products and made me enjoy designing. A very special thanks goes out to my wonderful CT; Hilly, Landi, Star, San, & Becca. They have been my backbone. One special lady deserves a special thank...Andi. She really was my right hand-gal. She helped make Alamama's Pressed Petals possible. Also, I will be around the digi-forums, I will always be a digi-scrapper first.

This Close

So, we just had our homestudy  a little over a week ago.  We thought we'd have the bathroom done in plenty of time.  Well, here's what our house looked like the morning of.  (This is clean compared to what it had looked like for days!)

The kitchen table...

Walk in and turn right and this is what you'd run into.

Outside the front door!

We did though.  Hubby was literally cleaning off the table when the contractor walked in!!  She totally understood and was cool with it. 

Misty Morning

The other day we woke up to a pretty misty, foggy morning.  Doesn't happen too often here.

A New Favorite

I have a new favorite coffee.

 I found it in a WalMart ad of all places!

Holiday Au Lait Recipe (modified)

It honestly tastes better than it looks.

Holiday Au Lait Recipe (modified)
Ingredients:
2 cups hot brewed coffee
2 cups milk, heated
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp. ground nutmeg (or less)

Instructions:
Combine all ingredients in a container, mix, and serve.
DO NOT put back into coffee carafe whi e the machine is still on.
Taste much better warm.

Houston We Have a Bathroom

We finally did.  We finally remodeled our main bathroom.  It needed it SOOO bad too.

 Hubby and one of his friends gutted it.  Totally.  From the ceiling to the floor.

We had a plumber come in and update our OLD pipes and help set the tub.

 Son and I cleaned everything that came out.  Soaked, scrubbed, shined everything until shine-y new!

New water/mold proof walls and ceiling  went up.  

There is really so much more that got done under what you see.

And after about a week plus a few days, MANY, MANY  hours on hubby's part we had our bathroom!

Gone is ALL of the blue.  It's not even allowed in the bathroom anymore!  heehee!

Gone is the old, falling out, moldy blue tiles.  Hello clean, shiny goodness!

So easy to clean now! 

Hello fresh!  We only have a few touch ups left.

I can't even tell you how many hours hubby put into this.  I am so proud of him.  We all LOVE it!

catching up a bit

Every year we have a hot air balloon festival.  Normally, like every year, there is a bunch that fly over town, over our house, etc.  This year, to my dismay, they fly over another part of town.  This is all we got.

I want to make one of these.  I saw it on Pintrest, and here.

I did make these.  Tonight actually.  The lady makes them look SOO tasty.  I have to tell you they ended up in our composter.  They were super strong tasting.  Hubby didn't mind it too much.

We are done with our part of the adoption process thus far.

Now we wait for our approval letter to come in the mail.