GREAT Salsa Recipe!

I'm on a roll today with the posting, aren't I?

I'm getting ready to can some Salsa! Here's the recipe for those of you who LOVE Salsa and would like a quick and easy canning recipe for all those x-tra tomatoes that you still have in your gardens!!!


Simple Salsa In A Can
8 cups tomatoes, peeled and chopped
3 cups onions, chopped fine
1 to 2 cups green peppers
1 to 2 cups jalepeno peppers (depending on how “warm” you like your salsa!)
1 cup vinegar
3½ tsp. salt

Boil 30 minutes; put into jars and heat in hot water bath for 15 minutes.

Hope you enjoy it!!

Gettin' ready for FALL!

As I've mentioned before, I absolutely LOVE Fall!!!!

Mark is working today, so while we were watching the Football game and then the boys took their naps, I got out my Fall Decorations and started transforming the house! I can decorate pretty good for Fall and Christmas, but Summer and Spring always get the best of me! We have an orange living room set that we got from one of Mark's cousins back when we moved in 5 years ago. I like the color and the set is still in GREAT shape, but it just doesn't mesh with Spring and Summer decorating!

Of all the things I have to worry about, huh????.........

Anyway.....here's my progress so far!!!

Here's the FRONT Door Wreath!

Here's the Kitchen Door Wreath! (my flower beds are ready for the Mums!)

Here's our Fireplace!

Here's what I do to our dining room windows!

(I do this for Christmas too with evergreen sprigs and glass balls!)

((I need to dust my light!))

Well, the kids are awake and attempting to kill me now.....so I'd better go before they succeed!!

we lost...

We lost pretty bad to LSU...

LSU crushing Appalachian State

BATON ROUGE - LSU leads Appalachian State 31-0 at the start of the third quarter, having already racked up 323 yards of offense, nearly triple the total of the Mountaineers.
Physically, the game is a mismatch, with Appalachian State's defensive line giving up sometimes as much as 100 pounds per player to the Tigers' offensive front. Behind that mammoth line, junior LSU tailback Charles Scott has already rushed for 144 yards and two touchdowns.
On defense, LSU has blitzed repeatedly and with little or no effort to disguise the fact it is coming. Senior safety Curtis Taylor, the only returning starter in the secondary, and his counterpart Harry Coleman have four tackles each.
LSU, as promised, has used both sophomore Andrew Hatch and redshirt freshman Jarrett Lee at quarterback and both have played well overall. Each has a touchdown pass, and each made one poor decision that they got away with when Appalachian State defenders were unable to hang on to potential interceptions.

No upset this time: No. 7 LSU pounds App St. 41-13


Oh me!!!!! That's o.k.! They're still really good!!!! Now.....get home before that hurricane gets you!!

ASU vs. LSU!

I've never been that big into sports of any kind. I was born in Tallahassee, Florida, and my Dad worked on the campus of Florida State University, so the only way I'd ever get excited over any Football would be if FSU was playing, and I wouldn't get too wound up then, either. I'm a Super-Bowl junkie, but not for the Game....for the commercials. Those commercials are too funny!

Anyway....since I've been married and moved into the "High Country", and since Mark went to ASU, and since ASU has won the past 3 years worth of National Championships in their division, and since they beat Michigan last year, I've become a watcher of ASU football! Not a crazed maniac just yet, but they are pretty good!

They get to play LSU tomorrow! Hope that the Hurricane doesn't blow them all away! They're supposed to start earlier than was planned due to the weather, so they'll be starting at 11:00am our time instead of 4 or 5pm.

Check out this "trailer" that was made up for the big game!!!! It's really neat to watch!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kfiay84WcQ

Hope that they do well and WIN!!! I think they aren't expected to win, but you never know! They weren't supposed to beat Michigan either, but they did!

We'll see what happens!

Go Apps!!!

Hurricane Weather!

This is what it looks like here today! Between all day yesterday and some of this morning, we've had over 2" of rain fall so far! I LOVE THIS WEATHER!!!! I think it's GREAT!!! I'm a gloomy-weather type of person! Sunshine is o.k., but gimme a good gloomy day with some rain or snow and I'm good to go!!

The boys (that includes Mark too) and I have still been getting over this crud that we got from somewhere. They are all still proclaimimg that I brought it home from the office. We've all had different symptoms, so I'm holding out on the appologies!!

I've been working more at home (in the evenings and on the weekends) these past few weeks (when I've not been dying from this mess), so my blogging entries have suffered some.

I'll try to fill in a little bit more!

2 weekends ago, (just before I got really sick), we got the notion to hop in the car on a Friday morning and have Mack and Dorothy follow us down to Pigeon Forge again for the night. We had a really good time at Dollywood and that evening took Nana & Pa-paw to the TRACK for some go-cart fun!!

Nana, Mackie, and I watched from the sidelines! (That was fine with me....)

We did some shopping the next day, then came home! We're hoping to go back down sometime in the end of September or early October for Mark's Birthday so we can all ride the train in Bryson City! http://www.gsmr.com/ They have a 4 1/2 hour round-trip ride that would be so pretty in the fall! Hope we can make that happen!

Mark worked this past Sunday, so that afternoon, I took the boys to the park in Banner Elk! It really is a beautiful park and there is so much to do there if you have kids!

It would be so great if we could get a park like this in our area! We have to drive off the mountain to let the kids play if School is in Session...there is a fairly new playground at the local elementary school, & we hate to "hang around" if school's in. The school is scheduled to be closing sometime in the near future, so I'm hoping that they will leave the playground and possibly turn the school into a fully-functioning community center with even more playground equipment! Hate to see the school go, but maybe something good can come out of it.

Let's see......what else has happened????? Oh!!! I know.......

Nana got a new kitten!

It found it's way to Nana and Papaw's yard and has stayed ever since!!! Creston saw it and it came to Creston and Creston said "It loves me!" Nana asked Creston what they could name it and he said "Hmmmmm......TRACTOR!". So...................now Nana and Papaw have a pet Tractor living at their house!!!

Well, I guess that's it for now.....there will be plenty more to type about later!

Finally....I'm posting again!!!

Hey everyone!!

I took a Loooonnnngggg break from posting, didn't I?

We've all had the crud.....a LOT of CRUD!!! I got it first from the Good Lord only knows where, and then I gave it to Creston, then to Mackie, then to Mark, then to Dorothy........PaPaw Mack is the only one well at the moment, and I'm not holding my breath on that one! I, myself, am on day 9 of the happy mess! Hope it goes away soon!

Sooooo...................I'll lump a bunch of things together in this post!!

Lets see......... around the first of the month, Mark's Aunt Jean's kids gave her a surprise 80th birthday party at her Church's Fellowship hall!!! She was VERY surprised and almost didn't come!! She called Patsy's cell phone and told her that she didn't think that she would go with them to "eat lunch for her birthday", not sure of the reason......Patsy promptly sent out troops to get her and bring her in!!

Then........as most of you know, Mom and Ron drive a Semi all over the country. Her 60+ birthday was July 31st, and since she wasn't home then, we ran down for a few minutes when she was home and celebrated with her for a little bit!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!!

Mom and Ron threw a ball to Creston and Mackie before we left.

ALSO on this visit, Mom gave me HER Daewoo since she had just purchased a Brand New Kia Sorento! (Don't have a picture of the Green Daewoo Nubira just yet.....been tooo sick to do much of anything lately!)

Crystal.....if you're reading, never fear.....I will post pictures of our newst car soon! (She likes to make fun of me for my "Article" I posted earlier about getting the New Ford!!!)

Yes, yes, yes,.......we now have an official Car Lot on our hands...........don't question it, just allow us to assess our multitude of vehicles and go from there! :o) All I can say is that the Daewoo's will remain in mint condition until the boys start driving!!!! YES....I WOULD do that to my child! Boys, get READY to be picked on when you turn 16!

And finally.........here are a few pictures of our garden.....and Mackie screaming his little guts out!

I'm kinda proud of it this year......I know, I know.....it looks overgrown.....but if you had seen our garden the last few years, you'd be proud of us too! We've actually had to use a weed-eater in the past to get through the thing! This year, we broke down and bought a tiller, and things have been much better. The Onions didn't do so well, and I pretty much killed our cucumber plants and most of the tomatoe vines with Rot-Stop stuff...........We're still getting a truck-load of tomatoes off the remaining vines, though, so I didn't do all that bad!!!

That's all for now!!!!

Hope that everyone is doing well in your neck of the woods!

My Uncle Gary and Aunt Hazel are going through the Hurricane (Tropical Storm Fran or faye, or whatever it's called) at the moment, so let's all pray that everyone is safe down that way and that Florida doesn't float off into the Ocean!

Love you all!!!

Martha

The 2008 Beijing Olympics!

The 2008 Summer Beijing Olympics start today! The opening ceremonies were really spectacular (what I got to see of them!). Mark isn't into watching "stuff like that", and neither boy wanted to spend all night watching Chinese people dance all over a giant TV screen, so Cartoons won out and we all went to bed.

Here's the "official" website for the Olympics.

http://en.beijing2008.cn/

I think it will show everything that you could possibly need to know about the games and winners. Check it out if this is "your thing"!

He did it!

Creston did a GREAT job today!

This is him getting out of the car to go in to the Dentist's office...

This is Creston playing while waiting to be seen...

This is Creston being fitted with his appliance before the doctor glued it in...

This is Creston in perfect condition, at McDonald's eating and drinking like before...

This is what the appliance looks like...

I'm not really sure how it works, because to me...it looks like a flimsy piece of metal with a spring in the middle...doesn't look strong enough to spread apart his upper palate, but I'm no dentist. All I know is that he didn't cry, didn't fight us over it, and has done well with it so far. He calls it "My rings". He'll say "My rings hurts, mama....get them OUT!". I'd sy that they are a bit sore on his back gums where they had to cement them on. He's going to have to learn how to talk around it too...he's got a bit more of a lisp today than usual, but we can work with that just fine! He keeps asking when we can take it off. I just tell him that he'll have to wear it for a good long while. The doc. yest. said that he may have to wear it for up to a year depending on how fast the adjustment takes place. That's a long time! We'll do it, though. Poor little guy! Apparently, this is a pretty common thing for kids his age.

We'll see how well he does with it!

Creston and his Crossbite!

This is a picture of Creston's FIRST cleaning! He had actually bee a couple of times before for a particualr reason, but this was his actual very first cleaning!

Now...Not sure if you can tell or not...his smile is a bit crooked on one side. This is due to a crossbite that he has developed. The Dentist said that a pacifier could have caused it. Mark believes whole-heartedly that it HAD to have been a pacifier. (this is because I allowed him to suck on the thing until he was 2 1/2).

Anyway, his upper set of teeth meet behind the lower ones on one side. The Dentist has been watching it, and it's not gotten any better, so tomorrow morning at 9:10, we are going to go have an appliance put on his upper teeth to help push his teeth outward and to help mold his upper pallate. (Hope that I spelled that right!) He'll have to wear the whole shebang for about 6 months total. We have been told that it is better to do this when they are young and their teeth aren't set quite yet. It's not supposed to hurt so much this way. I really hope so. I hate for him to hurt, but I'd hate for his mouth to be deformed later on too.

So, hopefully, by this time tomorrow, the metal mess will be in, Creston will think that it's COOL, and mashed potatoes and applesauce will be eaten by all!!!

I had braces....I know the diet well.

I feel a milkshake stop will be occuring tomorrow on Creston's and Daddy's way home.

Sunday, August 3, 2008

It’s been another pretty good Sunday. Mark went in to work at 6:15, so the boys and I got to sleep in a little bit until it was time to go to church @ 10:00. We went with Mack and Dorothy this morning to Dorothy’s home church (Forrest Home). They were having their homecoming service today. It’s a really cute little church smack dab in the middle of the woods. They had the entire sanctuary pretty much filled to capacity. They opened the front doors and people were even sitting outside on the front steps!

This evening, we went again with Mack and Dorothy to Mack’s sister Jean’s church (Elk Valley). Her church has a Sunday evening service (many in the area do not). We got to hear a lot of good singing, and the crowd got to hear a lot of Mackie screaming!!! (Give and take, you know!)

As some of you know, Mark and I have not been attending our church since this time last year. As it happens all too often, due to some unfortunate circumstances, we felt it best to look for somewhere else to go.

Mark and I both grew up going to church every time the doors were opened, so this bout of not going anywhere regularly has taken its toll on us. We want to take our boys somewhere where we can let them get involved, but at the same time, let us remain uninvolved for the time being. That sounds horrible, doesn’t it? Just know that we have been visiting a very nice church (the next county over) that a few of our friends attend and have really liked it so far. Just pray for us in our search and pray that we will find the right fit for our family and circumstances at this time in our lives.

As for right now, sleep is the immediate issue at hand. Both boys are in bed (may not be sleeping, but they ARE in bed!!), and I’m heading that way myself! I hope that you all had a great weekend and that you will all have a great week to come!