In My Kitchen

Spring, yes, it came early for us this year. I love it when my family can enjoy the outdoor after winter. I sent out picture of my whole family to those who I haven't seen or have never seen relatives of ours. I think it is a delightful gesture to remember us by. I wish I can send them gourmet baskets from www.gourmetgiftbaskets.com , but my fund is limited. I used to send something like above when I was still working. My sitter to my oldest son got the most of it. I wanted to give her gratification because my son spent more time with her than me. I wanted to show her that I am particularly thankful for what she was doing. In the end I hope she realized it. I did asked my son if he was treated nice, and his answer was yes. You can never be too careful with other people. The horror stories other parents encounter, I saw one on television when we still have cable. I can't put my children through that. It's not worth the money. I rather die not having things I wanted, remembe...

My family is a big milk drinker. When DH and I bought our second and third child to have a bio-magnetic therapy done, they were forbidden to consume milk or milk products and process food. That was fun, because they are very picky eater. Furthermore, I have to read every ingredients on things I am preparing. One of them will never touch shrimp with no melted butter as a dip. The other one was a little easier even though there is not much to choose from. I had to buy rice chocolate milk. They liked it the most. I even tried giving them the very nutritious & healthy hemp chocolate milk (which by the way very expensive) but they settle with the rice. During this time, DH and I had to pick and drop-off my oldest son. Well, we don't have time to set in a nice restaurant when traveling and we got our food from a fast food chain. There is not much non-process food on those places. If they only eat salad, everything will be find, but of course a big fat NO. While at home, I can find so...

Post contributed by Alfredo Gaines When my brother told me that he and his wife were moving to Phoenix, Arizona, to be closer to their only child and her family, I was sad. I have always been very close to my brother and now that we are both older and our children have flown the coop, so to speak, we sometimes gather for coffee in the morning or cocktails in the evening and talk and stay connected. When we were younger, and I was a single mom raising two daughters, he did all the handy man jobs around my house, including my yard work on the outside. I do not know what I would have done without him. I don’t know what I will do now. I will be lonely and miss our weekly brother-sister chats. But I certainly understand their reason for moving. Arizona is absolutely gorgeous too. I visited my niece and her family once. My sister-in-law talked with her daughter about helping them get settled into the home they had purchased out there a few weeks earlier. She checked out www.tvbydirect.com t...

I am looking for plenty of canning to do when fall comes...hopefully. Most of my fruit trees survived winter. The only ones that has no flowers as of yet are the apples. The peaches are doing very well and the very first ones to flowers. Then there are plums, and one of the pear. I wish for the bees to pollinate them. The weather is pretty nice and should (I hope) continue to next week. That's plenty of time for the bees to wake up and start sucking nectar from the flowers. I am crossing my fingers. I need to buy more jars and collect some recipes for the fruit trees on how to preserve (or the best way) them.