Jennifer Apodaca's Blog, page 30

Friday Five!

TGIF! We all know what that means — it’s time to share five random things about our week. Here’s mine:

Under stupid stuff I do: Wizard was in what we laughingly call our media room (it’s such a joke, we have a small, 25 year old TV in there that we stream stuff on.) I went in to ask him a question, and I faked annoyance at his answer. I said, “This is me stomping out!” Wizard laughed and said, “Let’s see what you’ve got.” So I flung my hair dramatically, turned and stomped right into the doorjamb. Sigh… To his credit, Wizard didn’t laugh, but I did because how could I not?So before we moved, I carefully packed my laptop. Then once we starting unpacking, I couldn’t find it. We were so busy, I didn’t worry about it, but I kept trying to remember if we’d discarded it or not. It bugged me, but weirdly, I don’t think I ever told Wizard I couldn’t find it. But yesterday, like 15 months after we moved in, I found it! I was in the hall closet, looked up and noticed all our computer bags lined up on the shelf. It hit me that I’d packed it safely in it’s travel bag. I think Wizard moved it over himself, and put it in the closet out of the way of the movers to keep it safe. It was so safe, I lost it for 15 months! But I found it eventually! Then once I charged it, I started it up and realized it was still password protected. Long story short, it took wizard and I all day to remember the password we were 100% sure we’d never forget!Trying to bake zucchini bread in my oven is like trying to bake it in a Susie Bake Oven. It doesn’t matter what I did to adjust that recipe I used for decades, including squeezing every gram of water out of the zucchini I could. Also, why do I keep trying the same recipe I know has consistently failed in my oversized Susie Bake Oven? But whatever, the baking goes on, and so far, my oven is working well enough. So my guess is the oven has a grudge against zucchini bread. So far, I’ve made cranberry orange break (it is fine), a new to me recipe of gluten and dairy free red velvet cookies — they seem okay but I’m not a red velvet fan so we’ll see, and I made the dough for white chocolate macadamia nut cookies and dairy and gluten free chocolate chip cookies. I’ll bake those two today. Still on my to do list is: Lemon cookies, pistachio nut cookies, chocolate mocha cookies, and thumbprint cookies. I also have an appetizer, roasted potatoes, Mexican rice and two desserts to make for various parties. I should probably make a nice Christmas dinner for Wizard and I too, but we’ll see.One night this week, Wizard went to bed and Maggie thought she heard someone at our door. She quiet-barked the information to me, and then suggested I hurry up and check. To Maggie, this means I put her in a sit, open the door and check. But it was dark and I wasn’t expecting a delivery so I put her in a sit and checked through the peep hole. As I suspected, it was just a delivery truck stopped right in front of our house, but it wasn’t for us. I turned and told her no one was there. She tilted her head at me in the doggy version of: “You can’t see through doors human, you must open it.” Finally she just huffed and walked away, clearly concerned for my mental health. In her defense, she doesn’t know I have a peephole in the door since she’s too short to see it. It cracked me up that she was actually annoyed.Tonight, we are going to see Turbo’s school Christmas play. All but middle son are going, which is awesome. The play is at 3:30 and middle son has a work obligation. After the play, we’re all going to dinner after too. It’s great that we all think the 5 year old child in the family matters enough to stop the stressful holiday prep and enjoy some family time. It’ll be good for us. Also today, I guess I have to finally send out the Christmas cards too since Wizard printed all the labels to help me. I appreciate it even if I didn’t want to send the cars, LOL!

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone is able to find some time this weekend for some downtime or do something that helps you relax and regroup. Enjoy the weekend! And remember to stay safe, especially if you’re on the road as there will likely be holiday parties this weekend, some of which will serve alcohol.

The post Friday Five! first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Hi guys, it’s me, Maggie! My mom said I could show you wh...

Hi guys, it’s me, Maggie! My mom said I could show you what my friends gave me. Shh…my mom and Wizard think it’s for them, but just look at the very special present we found on our front porch!

It’s a rug with a picture of me!! It’s really me! I posed for a pic to show you how much I look like the dog on the rug! Even if Wizard was all hangry or something and said he needs to add gray to it to make it really look like me. He’s probably just jealous because our neighbors gave me a rug.

What do you think, does it look like me?

It sure is great to have nice neighbors (they are the ones who gave us lemons from their very first crop of their lemon tree), and they have two dogs, so obviously they are wonderful people!

Mom said to tell you all Happy Wednesday!

The post first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Weekend Roundup

It was a nice enough weekend

Friday, we went to the Shelby Museum. We saw some cool cars, but it didn’t have any real energy to it. I suspect this location is more about events than catering to people who pay just to see the cars, but we enjoyed it. We did not, however, enjoy the traffic. A large cargo trailer had overturned on the opposite side of the freeway. Which happens when you try to pull something like that with a regular truck. Anyway it blocked three lanes and created a nightmare on that side, and way too much “lookie loo” traffic on our side. We took an alternate route home and all was well for us. As I understand it, no one was hurt in the accident, and that’s good too.

Saturday was all cleaning, organizing and errands for me. I think I made cookies too. I need a lot of organizing things for my kitchen and pantry, but when I start trying to figure it out, I get overwhelmed and do nothing But I did what I could to semi-prep for baking. The rest I’ll worry about after the holidays.

Sunday, other than running by Youngest’s house for a few minutes, it was quiet. I had a long list of things I wanted to do, but my energy failed and I only got half way through that list :-). However, I’m not complaining! My brain is way too energetic for my body these days, and that’s okay. Better to have the drive and goals rather than do nothing. It just means my body insists on a slower day here and there.

All the major parts of my Christmas shopping is done and wrapped. But we are having back to back events the 23rd through 26th and I’m not sure how to juggle cooking (I’m bringing dishes or in one case, taking an entire dinner plus dessert), and the baking I’d like to do. I’ll figure it all out, and take some short cuts. Either way it’ll work out!

That was my weekend, how was yours?

The post Weekend Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF!! We are already a week into December, this year is racing toward 2024 now. With no time to waste, lets jump right into sharing five random things about our week:

I made dairy and gluten free pumpkin cookies for youngest. He’d mentioned about 7 times he liked them, so I finally took the very subtle hint and made them. Cookies are my favorite things to make for smaller projects. But I miss making cakes and decorating them. I’ll get back to it this next year though, and I keep reminding myself of that.I’m not very happy with the Christmas cards I ordered, but I suspect most of it is user error — in other words, I didn’t design them very well using the vendor program to create the cards. So basically I’m annoyed at myself. I’ll shrug it off though, in the scheme of things we need to worry about, this one doesn’t even count, LOL.We went to a funeral this week and needed to pick up Wizard’s mom and her husband on the way. Traffic made us late, so they were going to drive themselves. We were stressed about that, but in a stroke of great luck, we managed to arrive at their house just as they were getting in the car to leave. That was a huge relief for us! The service was lovely. However, I’m a bit concerned about Wizard’s mom’, but given her age, that worry is pretty normal.Yesterday we went to his brothers (the one who passed) and got all his clothes packed up. It was just too hard for his wife, which is understandable. We took care of that, and as a bonus, I got to see their dog, Bailey! She’s such a sweetie. She and I are good friends now, and when we left, she watched us in the window. It was so cute. I wish I’d taken a picture of her, but I didn’t think of it at the time.Today we are going to try to go to the Shelby Museum in Irvine, CA, unless we’re both just too tired. Other than that, I don’t know exactly what we are doing this weekend. I’m hoping Wizard can go racing Sunday. It’d be good for him to hang out with some friends. I’m going to finish up some Christmas stuff and maybe plan out a fun holiday cake (per #1 above) if time and energy allows me to focus on it. This week was a bit of a drain, and it’d do us both good to slow down for a day or two and catch our breath a bit. On the other hand, life has a way of changing plans that keeps us hopping so we’ll see.

That’s my five — one of my New Years Hopes is to be less boring in blogs and life in general Now I’d love to hear your five! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Wednesday Reading

I just finished listening to a nonfiction audiobook that I didn’t much care for, so I’ll ignore that one. Instead let’s talk about book I’m reading on Kindle and loving! It’s a fantasy called FOURTH WING by Rebecca Yarros. I tried to start it while camping, but my eyes wouldn’t cooperate so I set it aside. Then the other morning, I started reading it again and was hooked. I’m a bit more than half way through and wishing I had more time to read! (I have a reasonable amount of time — usually an hour in the morning and at night when I can read, so I’m just being greedy, LOL)

What I love about this book is that it’s about a group of young adults training to become dragon riders which catches my interest right away. The pacing is fast, the world building makes sense to me without being too detailed and cumbersome, but most of all I love the main character, and many of the secondary characters. I also hate the characters I’m supposed to hate in this story too, which makes it a more intense read. So far, the story is told is told in 1st person present tense, which I don’t usually care for, but it works here, at least for me.

And did I mention dragons? I love dragons

So that’s what I’m reading, how about you?

The post Wednesday Reading first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Weekend Roundup

So…this weekend happened. I can’t remember the exact order, but it went something like this:

— File boxes arrive. We’d ordered one set of four, and two of them came without latches. Sigh…but stuff happens, so we exchanged them and the company sent us a new set of four with NO latches. I’m done with them. One time is irritating but also understandable. But twice? Nope.

— In positive news: We got our Christmas tree up, I made sourdough bread, went for a hike in my new hiking boots and went to lunch with my friend which was awesome. I also got more shopping done, Christmas cards ordered, and I set up a wrapping station in one of our bedrooms to make it easier for Wizard and me.

–Two of my kids are in a “Who has the best outdoor Christmas Decorations” and is sending pics to our family test loop. I’m waiting to see what Middle Son does, he may ignore it or he’ll light up his entire city with decorations to win. It could go either way with him!

–Lastly here is Maggie (on her new blanket!) helping me open delivery boxes of Christmas gifts.

She loves tearing paper for about 15 seconds, then she’s done. She spits out all the paper out in a little pile. I never claimed she was normal!

But interspaced in all this we got some less than great news about a few people we love. One I think will be fine once the the cause is figured out, but it’s a little scary; one is worrisome but could still turn out okay; and the last was the mom of Wizard’s friend passing away. We’ll be going to that funeral on Wednesday.

That said, I’m grateful for all the good things in the weekend! I’m also grateful for the dairy-free chocolate I may or may not be stress eating, LOL!

How was your weekend?

The post Weekend Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five

TGIF!! Is time going faster? This week just blew by! Okay time to share five random things about out week. Here’s mine:

I have a chunk of Christmas shopping done! I still have one major person to buy for, and odds and ends. It’s a good start. However my brain is nagging the crap out of me to get it all done. I need to plan what holiday baking I can manage. I still haven’t found the magic elixir for energy I want to do.My walking app recorded over 49 miles for dedicated walking this month. That does not include six days when I either forgot to turn the app on, or we were traveling. Even if I do dedicated walks while traveling, I don’t turn on the app. So I’m happy with those numbers as long as my joints are tolerating it.For Cyber Monday, I bought Maggie a new uber fluffy sherpa blanket. She loves it! I really wanted to get a picture but this week has been a whirlwind. But it was so cool to see her so happy. Now if I could just get time to wash it and tame the fuzzies coming off it.Our neighbor brought us over some lemons off his lemon tree. They are the first crop from the trees he planted last Spring so it’s really cool. I made some gluten and dairy free lemon cookies I’m happy with using those lemons! Oh and I roll them in lemon sugar before baking (I made it using white sugar and fresh lemon zest pulsed it in my blender.). I like the effect though next time I’ll use less of the lemon sugar, I think I piled it on a bit thick Yesterday I saw my sister for coffee and some shopping (I got some Christmas plates I’m using for gifts), and Sunday I’m finally seeing a friend for lunch. Both my friend and I had to cancel for illnesses and then deaths in the family a few times now, so fingers crossed this lunch happens!

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a great weekend and isn’t too overwhelmed by the looming holiday and the crazy expectations we sometimes put on ourselves!

The post Friday Five first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Some Christmas Questions

If you celebrate Christmas, I have questions! I’ll ask the question in bold, then write my answer next to it. You can answer as you like!

Do you put up a tree? Yes. We did real trees for decades and now have a fake tree. We need a new one, but every time I price them, I like my old one just fine.

Do you send out holiday cards? Usually. I’m less motivated each year, mainly because both my RA and neck issues make it a painful process.

Do you watch Christmas movies? Love them, hate them or don’t care? I watch some. Love a few, including Chevy Chase’s Christmas Vacation and Christmas With The Kranks.  A lot of the Hallmark Christmas Movies bore me. Sorry to all of you who love them!

Listen to Christmas Music? Yes but sparingly. The one that made me laugh the hardest is “Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer” because the first time I heard it, the kids were young and we were all packed in our van on our way to my mom’s house on Christmas Eve. I thought it was hilarious but I have a weird sense of humor. Overall, I don’t know what my favorite song is, I like many of them. By the way, I found out I can’t sing in grade school when I sang “Silver Bells” in a tryout for the choir! They put me in somewhere in the back, then build a sound proof room around me to protect the audience, LOL. I’m only exaggerating a little, I truly can’t sing. I have just enough of an ear to hear how bad I am but can’t figure out how to fix it. It’s pretty funny!

Do you bake cookies or treats? Um…have you met me? LOLOL! Yes. Cookies and cakes. I’ll make a pie if someone requests it, but generally find pies boring. My kids grew up with me baking, and we always had Christmas cookies. We would let them decorate sugar cookies and they had a blast. They loved it.

Do you have a special Christmas Meal? Not really. When I married Wizard, I learned that tamales for Christmas was a real thing. I had no idea, and now we often do that. This year, my daughter-in-law is making a stuffed flank steak with prosciutto and blue cheese (I think — she told me but I can’t find the message) that I’m excited to try! We vary it every year. But we love it when my gourmet daughter-in-law is cooking! As far as food traditions with me personally, the two things I get asked the most to make is deviled eggs or sour cream/cream cheese potatoes — which some of my nieces and nephews call “Aunt Jennifer’s Potatoes.”

Okay that’s enough questions. Feel free to ask your own if you like! Happy Wednesday!

The post Some Christmas Questions first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Weekend +Thanksgiving Roundup

Hi! Man I’m tired on Sunday night as I’m writing this, but it’s been a fun Thanksgiving and weekend! So let’s see if I can do this in short form rather than writing a novel

First Thanksgiving: It was wonderful! So it was Middle son, daughter in law, and us. And then they were camping with friends that consisted of a family of parents, two kids and one set of grandparents. The campsite was truly in the middle of the desert. Not a campground, but a desert on public lands. All they need to camp there is offroad permits for their vehicles, so there’s no pads and hookups. We loved it, the weather was mostly perfect, slightly warm during the sunny hours and cold at night. But the winds kicked up Thanksgiving afternoon. No worries, we moved it into Middle Son’s trailer. This is a huge 5th wheel, and we were able to seat 10 people at a long table setup in the toy hauler section of the fifth wheel (which has it’s own bathroom and TV, as well as couches that can convert into queen bed) and a porch. For 10 people, we had two turkeys, a ham, tons of amazing side dishes and desserts. No one went hungry! And there were leftovers for everyone to enjoy. It was lovely, and we really enjoyed it. Another daughter in law asked me if we’d do it again — we said absolutely. But if we can get all the family together by keeping it at home, then we’d choose that first. So depending on the circumstances, YES we would.

Maggie stuff: Maggie loved camping! Because this is isolated, she was off leash and loving the freedom of camping life! At first she was a bit worried about the bigger dogs here:

That’s Charger on the left, a 160 pound Great Dane who is a sweetheart, and then Middles son’s two dogs, Jett (in the middle, he’s also big but looks smallish next to Charger) and Hazel on the right. They were all great with Maggie. And soon she was fine with them. She especially likes to run with Hazel on walks. She doesn’t play with her in a rough way like the other dogs, but trusts her enough to follow her and likes being with her. Overall she did great. Here I am at night with a roaring fire and two dogs at my feet. Jett stole Maggie’s blanket, but she found another one and made herself comfortable.

All the talking and the smoke from the fire haven’t been great for my throat, but I didn’t care Also I’m not sure you can tell, but that fire is safe.  It’s a pit, with several layers of rock stacked around it. The fire was completely out when the winds came (they check the weather, and prepare — in the desert like this, conditions can turn dangerous on a dime.) By that evening, the winds were gone.

Maggie was fine at the hotel too. This is what surprised us. Far as we could tell, when we left her in the hotel room to get breakfast downstairs or run to a store, she never barked or cried. And while she was happy when we returned, she didn’t seem overly stressed. She was really interested in the elevator (we were on the third floor), especially when it beeped at each floor,making her do that funny head tilt dogs do. I don’t recall her going on an elevator in the years we’ve had her, but she goes where I go without any hesitation so she was fine. She also went potty outside in the rocks around the hotel without any problems. Other guests evidently were having trouble with that, but Maggie’s used to being outdoors on leash with me, so it probably seemed normal to her. My shy and timid dog has turned into a social butterfly, but she had pretty good manners overall, and I was very proud of her.

And the fun moments — the amazing dinner, spending time with my daughter-in-law while she cooked (I helped clean up, and I brought cookies and sourdough bread), and going in my son’s offroad vehicle with him. He went really fast, but I trust him so it doesn’t bother me. Plus I’m wearing a special helmet with communication system so I could tell him if I was scared, and I know my son upgraded and installed the harness and rollbars. Accidents do happen and those vehicles can roll, and if it happens, there are ways to keep as safe as possible. I listen carefully when they tell me. And son and daughter in law check my work every time I put on the helmet or harness. And while I’m the mom and part of me thinks this is funny, I keep my mouth shut and listen to them, because they reality is they know more than I do about their equipment and safety. But the amazing thing for me was riding along and seeing my middle son living the life he wanted so much from the time he was very small. And he works hard for it. So does my daughter in law. They have earned this dream and I love it for them. I also love that they want to share it with us (and our two other sons).

We left Friday morning, got home early enough to unload and do tons on laundry. Saturday we cleaned house and I prep cooked some things for me. Sunday I had more things to do, then we went out to see Turbo and family. That was so nice. It was a beautiful day and we took the Mustang (it’s all fixed! or we hope so anyway). We visited for a couple house, then came home and I played with a slightly creamy lemon shrimp noodle recipe I had been working on in my head. I used gluten free noodles that exceeded our expectations. Even better, I mentioned to Wizard that I didn’t have any white wine to deglaze the pan and reduce as the base for a lemon sauce and planned to use chicken broth for that. Wizard jumped up and opened a “good” bottle of white. That is not something we normally do. We guard our good wine for special occasions, but Wizard wanted to help me play with this recipe. Man that wine elevated the sauce! Once I cooked that down a bit with the seasoning I had from cooking the shrimp and tomatoes, I added lemon juice, lemon zest, a bit of coconut cream from a can of coconut milk, then added the noodles and finished with parmesan cheese. We loved it! It’s the first gluten and dairy free (aside from the parm, which I can eat as long as it’s aged) that I truly enjoyed! Plus I was making it up as I went along, something I like to do now and again. I’ve had some spectacular fails that way, LOL. And when I have recipes I like, I usually forget to write down what I did so replicating them is dicey

Okay it looks like I did write a novel! If you made it this far, I’d love to hear about your weekend and whatever else you’d like to share! Happy Monday!

The post Weekend +Thanksgiving Roundup first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.

Friday Five!

TGIF! I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I’m sure we did too, but since I’m writing this post early in the week since we’re traveling, I can’t tell you about it :-). But I should be able to answer this Friday evening or Saturday. Here’s my 5:

Packing is a pain, and I never know what I’m going to need or want. Also I never wake up young, slim and beautiful with an amazing wardrobe in my closet, which is always a bit disappointing. To compensate, I overpacked and probably still took all the wrong things. In the end, none of it will matter and we’ll have fun. I’m excited to see how Maggie does too. It’ll be a whole new experience for her.I bought some very inexpensive outdoor/hiking boots. I’m not sure my wonky ankle can handle the boots because I have a permanently swollen joint that can get prickly when anything presses on it wrong. When that joint gets mad, it’s painful and looks uglier than usual. So these are my test pair. If I can break them in around my ankle and use them more than two or three times a year, then I’ll consider investing into a better pair. But I’m excited to try! I won’t use them for daily walking, but for going on offroad trails where I need more protection and stability than running shoes.I made taquitos in my air fryer last night, and Wizard loved them. They are still a multi-step pain to make, but much less greasy in the air fryer and I enjoy making them. I like my air fryer. It’s fun and useful at times, but I still believe it’s not an essential tool like I consider my crock pot to be.And talking about cooking reminds me, we had a guy out to finally align a few cabinets in the kitchen ( more than a year after we moved in!). To do that, he was opening the cabinets and drawers. When he came to my spice drawer, he looked up. “So you’re a chef.” That cracked me up. I’m so not even close. I’m an average cook on my best day, and I’m not being modest. I know I can bake — see not modest there! But I have more time to try things now, and I enjoy being in the kitchen. That spice drawer really brings me joy, and I was jazzed that someone noticed it.The Mustang is at the dealer. Wizard has suspected something was off with the fuel tanks (the Mustang has two fuel tanks), and his suspicion was confirmed when he ran out of gas not even a block from the gas station. He called Triple A because our policy with them includes bringing us gas if we run out. The driver was at that very gas station filling up, and could actually see Wizard. Talk about weird and funny coincidence! The problem with the Mustang has been diagnosed and will be fixed. But dang, I didn’t realize how protective the two of us are about that car. Both of us are uneasy when it’s not in our sight or secured in our garage. That will get better with time, of course. But we’re kind of laughing at ourselves over it.

So that’s my five and now I really want to hear yours! I will answer Friday evening or Saturday. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

The post Friday Five! first appeared on Jennifer Lyon.