Snow ! & icy roads!

O the weather outside is frightful... But the fire is so delightful.... But as long as you love me so.. let it snow let it snow let it snow.... well maybe a little snow.. not to much...lol

Well it has snowed here a good bit already this year. The last few winters have been pretty good not getting much snow and frigid temps till January.. But a little just to let you know its winter. This year it has already snowed multiple times and has been so so cold..!!! Last night we received a few inches of snow. But our roads were not treated at all. They were awful . Plus it snowed a little more this morning. So John called off from work. Which he never does! Around noon today there was one clear spot on the road in front of our house. Just where the sun was beating down on it. But a car lost control and flipped!!!! I called 911... and the guy was not seriously injured luckily. About 20 feet behind this car the road was still covered with snow and ice. O yeah..It took them forever to find a tow truck driver to come out because of the road conditions. Alot of them just said the road were to bad for them to bring out there flat beds... I mean.. So that car laid in the road for over an hour. Then it took almost a half hour for them to flip the car and get it situated. They did at least cause less damage flipping his car over then they did ours when John flipped it.

There was also another wreck this morning up above our house right out of town. Another Subaru rolled over the hill about the time John was wanting to leave this morning to go to work. I heard the fire whistle and then asked him to stay home till the roads cleared. The lady they pulled out of that car as far as I know is ok. The car went over the hill so far they had to put ladders down the hill to pull her up to the road where the ambulance was waiting. The same cop and fire crew was at that accident.

But here is a couple pictures. I also have video of the car being flipped back over and loaded up. If I can figure out how to up load it.lol...
Anyways. The snow was gorgeous laying out there this morning. I wish I would have gotten some shots of that. But I was to lazy to. I don't like the winter over all. Cold & Wet... yuck!!! And John works Sunday thru Wednesday and when school is canceled or it is the week end. The state road does not treat the roads early in the morning. So John drives to work pretty often on ice covered roads. Which really scares me. He normally leaves early early.. so.. Anyways... I like this time of year. Just not the weather. I guess its not the same without it though. Just wish the roads would stay clear.

Black Friday- pictures to post later

Black Friday here in Morgantown went over without a hitch. I actually had a pretty good day. But I was very upset to find out that there was a Walmart employee killed in New York by a crowd of people. How bad do you want sales? Bad enough to trample someone to death. That is disgusting and I think all the people who was part of that should have charges put against them. I give my prayers & sympathy to his family and friends.

As I was aying. Black Friday here was worse then normally. Most of the Walmart employees were in a bad mood. I showed up there at 3:30am. Yes I know.. CRAZY right? lol. I stood in line for over and hour for one particular item and I was 3rd in line. When Walmart cut the plastic off it was a mess. People were mad because others were skipping line and everything turned into a huge mess. I did get most of the stuff I was looking for a Walmart though. I went to Target next and and waited outside in the cold for 45min till 6am. For a stupid Black & decker rechargeable broom which doesn't work good anyways and I am taking it back. People again skipped line out side and they had an employee outside trying to make piece. There was people yelling and screaming at each other. But when the doors opened it was a riot. It was awful. I am surprised no one there was hurt. Then I drove clear to Clarksburg. To go a Joann Fabrics for there clay, quilting, pattern, and material sale. I was there forever. The mall had a sea of cars. It was crazy. I waited in line to have material cut for around a half hour then another 30 to 40 minutes to check out. Plus I had been walking around for an hour or so. So it was around 9am when we finally left. Then I went to Circuit city which I had pre-orded online for pick up.. I loved that. Although we did walk around for a while to see what was left and ended up with some extra movies. It was around 11 am when we left there. we stopped by the walmart in Fairmont to pick up a couple grocery's (lettuce, tomatoes, & croutons). So we made it home around 12:30pm. And I crashed because I had not slept the night before. So here is my running list of the day:

Walmart
Movie- The Omen 2 pack- My pick $2.00
Movie- Borat w/ t- shirt - Johns pick... $2.00
Movie- Robots w/ soundtrack- $2.00
V Rocker game seat- John- $30.00
Some electronics stuff which I can't list because of Christmas.

Target
Black & Decker Rechargeable Broom- $30.00(has now been returned to the store. It sucked...well it really didn't... it really didn't have enough suction at all)

Joann Fabrics
Polymer clay 2oz packs- $.99 each was over $2 each
4 sewing patterns- $.99 each normally over $15 each
3 yards of natural cotton quilt lining for $5.50 yard normally $10 something.
5 yards of fabric at $1.50 yard normally $4.99 and $5.99 a yard
A quilters square for $7.49 which was half off.

Circuit city
2 Sony 4 GB MP3 players w/ a card for 20 songs each from emusic downloads- $50 each- normally around $130 plus the music. - I love this MP3 player. It is very easy to use! Sounds great. But only comes with 3.5 GB free when you get it. Plus it will not let you delete this music and movie trailer it includes. But it works great and is very user friendly. I have like 60 podcasts on it right now and still have about 1.2 Gb left. But I keep cycling out podcasts too. I use it primarily for podcasts.
Wii dance mat- $12.99 normally $20
100 DVD/R- $10.00 normally $50
100 CD/R- $10.00 normally $25
2- 4MB SD memory cards- $10.00 each- work great. Holds about 1800 pictures with a 7 mp camera.
Wii Game party- $10.00 normally $20- its an ok game. I am glad it was only 10 dollars though. I wouldn't want to spend anymore than that on it.
and we purchased a couple movies as well.

So 2 years in a row yes we have found really great deals. But overspent terribly. Next year lets say debt diet...! :)

A Vegan Organic Thanksgiving Dinner

This year I made an all organic vegan Thanksgiving dinner. It turned out really good and it was easy. First course was Sweet potato soup, 2nd was tofurkey, roasted veggies ( carrots, fingerling potatoes, green beans) tofurkey gravy, mashed potatoes, wheat roles, and baked apples for dessert. I made the vegan pumpkin pie from Sinfully Vegan but I didn't like it. So it went straight into the garbage. And yes I had let it sit all night in the fridge. J & I had dinner the day before Thanksgiving. I surprised him that night when he came home from work. I normally don't fix a whole dinner. But I really liked doing it for us. It was awesome. We had a nice family evening just the 2 of us.

Roasted Veggies

I used:
Green Beans
Carrots
Lil Tomatoes
Fingerling Potatoes

But you can use almost anything you want.

Try to cut the carrots to match the size of the green beans so they cook evenly. Cut the fingerling potatoes in to. Put a little oil and salt on the veggies. Enough to coat them all. Bake for 10 minutes take out and turn them. Put back in for another 10 minutes.

Creamy Sweet Potato Soup- I have never had this kind of soup so I hope this taste ok. J liked it. I ate a little maybe it will grow on me. I would like regular beg soup more although I like creamy soups. This recipe was converted from a recipe at www.elise.com.

2 T- Veg Butter or Oil
1 Cup chopped onion
2 small celery stalks- I added more then this and there was a strong celery flavor.. oops
1 Medium leek (white and light green part)
1 1/2 pds sweet potatoes, cut up
4 cups- No chick broth or other veg broth
1 large clove of garlic
1 cinnamon stick or 2tsp
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 1/2 cup soy milk
2 Tbsp maple syrup

Melt Butter in a large pan over medium heat. Add Veggies which should be be chopped. Saute about 10 minutes. Do not burn. Add garlic saute 2 min.

Add sweet potatoes, veg stock, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Bring to boil. Boil uncovered for about 20 minutes.

Take batches and put into food processor. Puree then put back into pot. Add soy milk & maple syrup. Warm to a good eating temp and serve. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Chey's 7th B-day

"C"s B-day party went very well this year. She had 3 friends & some family over. The kids spent the day running through the house like the cats do when I am trying to sleep. All the time screaming and laughing. So she had a very good day. I did make a vegan birthday cake but I didn't have enough powder sugar to make icing. So I had to ruin it with store bought icing.... oops. Then I melted down some chocolate and spelled out everything with it. Not one of my favorite cakes... But thats ok. The kids liked to pick off the chocolate and eat it. We also had pizza for dinner. No not vegan sadly. I did use the pizza crust recipe from Vegan with a vengeance though. It always turns out really good. But here are some pictures.

1st Grade Halloween Party

A Few days ago we had my little sisters 1st grade Halloween party. It was fun. I had put together some cool games for the kids that went over really well. So I thought I would post them.

First they ate. Cupcakes (which I made pictured to your left, which came from "Vegan cupcakes take over the world"), Peanut butter bone cut out sammies, cookies, veggies, some animal products, ect. ( I didn't schedule this part of the day)

2nd we had an ewwy... gewwy... witches cauldron relay

In this game I had 4 icky bowls for the teams of kids to collect stuff from different areas around the yard. I gave them each a "recipe" card with 3 pictures. They would go collect 1 item at a time and put into the cauldron. Then run out and collect the 2nd then the 3rd. Then the next team member would go. After all the team had gone they had to run over and pick up a role of Toilet paper and wrap one kid up like a mummy. The first team done would win.

Spider webs- sticky spaghetti
Brains- a brain made out of instant oatmeal & water
Pumpkin insides
monsters drool- Corn starch with water dyed blue. I don't know what I did with the picture to it.( if you have never mixed it together it is really need. It feels hard to the touch and stays solid for a couple seconds after you pick it up. Then it turns to liquid..)

The kids loved this game. They let out tons of energy and really had a blast. I took cheap gloves so that the kids who didn't want messy could use them. I was surprised to find that most of the girls didn't want them and most of the boys did..hahaha so cute... But they did have trouble with the toilet paper. It kept breaking apart. So maybe the toilet paper is a better idea for an older group. Even the parents had fun watching them though. It was cool.

Next game we played was the Cluck Cluck Hunt Game.

I had thrown out some old candy corn into the grass before the kids had come outside. I gave 1 kid in each team a paper cup. That kid was the rooster. When I said go all the other players would run to a piece of corn and cluck like a chicken..till the rooster came to get the corn. The first cup to be filled won. This game although cute and fun. The kids didn't play to well. All the kids were picking up the candy corn and everything turned into a mess. But they still had fun.

4th game was a Skeletal hunt. I bought cheap plastic skeletons in 3 collors at the dollar store. I had John pop them apart and then we throw all of the pieces out in the yard. The kids had to collect 10 pieces of the right colored skeleton. Then put it together. The kids had fun and did a great job with this game. And really did put the skeletons together pretty quickly.

Because there was also a costume parade that day that was all the games we played. But it was a really good day. They also got huge gift bags.

Art or Animal Abuse- Guillermo Habacuc Vargas

The vulgarity of this situation is over whelming. This will never be art! I consider myself an artist and I am disgusted to see this "person" be considered as an artist and be put in the winners circle for doing no work at all. A being was MADE to give up its life for this. But for what? His article stated he was doing it for the dogs that were starving and that the dog would have died anyways. But yet he could not find a solution through compassion he caused more suffering. Ask yourself, Do we really want an "artist" causing more suffering in this world? Because we already have more than enough suffering to go around.

" It is a matter of taking the side of the weak against the strong. Something the best people have always done" Harriet Beecher Stowe.

So choose to take the side of the weak. Choose to stand up and help those less fortunate beings. Be it human or animal. We all breath, we all feel, an we all can suffer. Do not help create suffering. Help abolish suffering. Even if it takes one being at a time. Do what you can!


This "man" and I use the term lightly. Wants to do this again.
Please Sign this petition to help. Click the link or here is the URL: petitiononline.com/ea6gk/petition.com

Just a quicky

You know blogging really helps when you are forgetful. I forget all the time where my favorite recipes come from. And then all I have to do is look over my old blog entries and they are all there. Recipes or where I found them. Along with the yummy pictures to rush me into cooking it.

White bean chili & Oatmeal Cookies

A few days ago I found a new wed Site Called Sparkpeople.com. It is a "dieting" website that does a lot of cool stuff. You can track your calories and activities. You can read tons of informational articles and do tons of more stuff. Anyways. I have been tracking my calories, fat, protein, & carbs on there web site. And working with some of there meal plans. But since you can enter in your own food options I kinds stray but stay in my calorie realm. The other day I made there White bean chili recipe which turned out to be really good. But its not chili to me. It has some spices like chili but its just more like a white bean soup. Very easy and good.

Other recipes. The only other thing I am going to post a picture of are no bake cookies. They are easy and quick. Everyone knows what the are. Lots of fat, high in calories & carbs, but has a good amount of protein.

1/4 Cup cocoa
1/2 Cup soy milk
1 tsp Vanilla extract
2 Cups Sugar
1/2 Cup Vegan Marg ( I use smart balance light)
1/2 Cup Peanut butter ( You can use 1 whole cup though I like them better w/ a whole cup)
3 cups oats.

Put everything except oats and peanut butter in pan. Bring to boil. Let boil for 5 minutes. Take off heat add peanut butter mix well. Add oats and then put on cookie sheet to harden enough to pick up. Enjoy.

I also have a corn flake no bake cookie recipe that I will post one day. They are really good too.

I finally received my new juicer in the mail. But I have not taken it out of the box to use it yet. I can't wait but my kitchen is a disaster. Breville Ikon Juicer here I come. Very soon. I will post a review and recipes soon. I hope.

Next on my list. I have mentioned that I have an addiction to books in the past but now its to buying them off ebay, half.com, and amazons used section. I have purchased 9 or 10 in the last 2 week. Its crazy.....
My garden is dieing. the summer is coming to a close. Which I really don't mind at all. But my garden is being attacked by zucchini bugs. And bugs just freak me out. Yuck. So I am very sad to say although I am still getting tomatoes everything else has pretty much died. But its kinda our faults. It hasn't rained and I have yet to get J to help me carry out counters of water.
I know this is every where today. Sorry. Maybe it will be better next time.

My 23rd B-day

(Can you say recipe overload? lol)

My 23rd Birthday was really nice. J and I went out and ate and did some shopping. I came back that night to my parents and J having a little b-day celebration for me. My mom had fixed my Grandma F's Black Berry Cobbler. (That was my cake request for the year. :) ) And of course presents.... ! lol. J & My parents ordered me the Breville Ikon 900 watt Juicer I had been wanting. So it is supposed to be delivered Wed. I can't wait! They also got my a bunch of books, horror flicks ( I like getting the originals from like the 1980s.), and a HEATH LEDGER movie, some moppines, purse, & shoes... I had a really nice B-day.

A Quicky- Produce Bags

I am sure all of you, as I was tired of using those stupid plastic produce bags. And if you don't shop at whole foods people just are not as nice to you bringing up apples to role all over the counter. I know there are many options including making your own. But I have found these knifty little bags. I never really thought about using them for produce when I ran into them in the car section at Walmart. But the other day I was at a dollar store and found them for 1 dollar. So I opened them and they were nice and light so not to add to the cost of produce. So I bought 3 sets to use as produce bags.