I don’t wanna be buried in a pet sematary

Aynaria 4 Comments

I believe this would have been appropriate for my Halloween post.

 

Pet Sematary was probably the fourth or fifth book I read by Stephen King. Yes, the name is spelled incorrectly. The sign was made by children.  I was either thirteen (or going on thirteen) when this book was published. By that time I was already a die hard Stephen King junkie consuming anything that was released by him.  I loved the story line for this book and often wondered if it would be released into a movie.

Well it was… Of course, I watched Pet Sematary shortly after it was released in the movie theater. Thanks to the movie, I was introduced to an awesome band.

 

Happy Halloween

Aynaria 2 Comments

Well, my daughter is looking forward to this evening. She will be going Trick or Treating. It’s the first time for her. She’s going with her best friend, O.

I’ll be tagging along. I still have to sew a Halloween bag to hold all the goodies that she receives, but that can be easily whipped up on one of my Brother sewing machines.

Halloween has an interesting history and has been around for hundreds of years. As a child, I remember doing a bit of research to see how Halloween originated.

Happy Halloween

During my research, I discovered it was a combination of more than the Samhain holiday. It received influence from Catholic Hallowmas period of All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. Also bits of the  Roman festival of Feralia is sprinkled into our modern day Halloween.

This will be the first year that my daughter participates in Halloween. Some Christians, don’t celebrate this occasion, because of its “pagan roots.” Interestingly enough, some of the same people that feel this way, have no issues celebrating Christmas or having the “Wedding March,” played at their wedding. Yeah… those have “pagan roots” too.

 

Keeping it simple: Sauteed vegetables; Broccoli, cabbage, green beans, parsnips and mushrooms

Aynaria 4 Comments

Those that know me, or have seen my food posts, know that I make almost all my meals. I eat mainly whole foods and rarely used processed items to add to the meals I prepare.

Sauteed veggies.10.30.13_2
Sauteed vegetable

 

Yesterday morning, I prepared this meal.  It’s a simple sauteed dish to which I added a few herbs and spices that I’d ground in my mortar and pestle. I didn’t add too much, because I wanted the flavors of the vegetables used to shine, and they did. I sauteed the vegetables for about four minutes, which wasn’t long and left a lot of the crunch one receives from eating fresh vegetables.

All the vegetables, with the exception of the parsnips, are something we eat constantly.  Last week, I purchased parsnips at our local farm. The parsnips I recently purchased, have been mainly been using them them in my vegetable juices, but yesterday they played a starring role in this dish. I will most likely use them again this weekend, when I make a oven roasted root vegetable dish.

How do I find time to write almost daily? I schedule posts in advance…

Aynaria 4 Comments

Book plannerA few of my friends, that read my personal blog, ask me how I manage to stay on top of my posts. They know how active I am with my daughter, work, and the various Lutheran outreach ministries that I’m involved with and some used to wonder how found the time to write almost daily.

The answer is simple, I take advantage of scheduling my posts in advance. I love this, since it means that I’m not writing daily, even though it might appear that way.

In 2003, when I decided to have more than just websites (I started websites in 1997) and start actively blogging, this lovely feature wasn’t available. It didn’t take long for one of the creative folks, behind these amazing Word Press Plugins that many of us enjoy, would come up with an Advance Post Plug in.

Because of this plug in,  I can schedule my posts in advance. Some days I write a lot of articles.  When that happens, I don’t just toss them all up on the same day. If a person is as active as myself, they most likely would not have the time to read through all that anyway. Personally, I think it’s much better to space those posts over a period of several days.  In doing so, I still have something new appearing on my site even on the days when I don’t have time to write.

Currently I have a months worth of posts sitting in my Pending Queue.  There were times when I had over six months of scheduled posts. I’m slowly adding to my ‘Pending Post’ pile, so eventually I’ll have that amount of posts scheduled in advance.

 

 

Vegan (Eggless) Eggrolls and honey ginger sauce…

Aynaria 8 Comments

My daughter loves when I prepare eggrolls.

Now that I think about it, they really aren’t “eggrolls.” I make my own wrappers and don’t add eggs to them. So they’re “eggless eggrolls,” right?

Veggie Eggrolls.10.5.13_1

Regardless, these vegan eggless eggrolls turned out really well. Let’s see cabbage was in them, carrots, sprouts, beans and some other veggies.

My daughter was extra proud because she helped fill the wrappers with a variety of vegetables and once it was time to cook them, she took over.  I normally bake our eggless eggrolls but on this day they, she pan fried them in a skillet.

Veggie Eggrolls.10.5.13_2

After they were finished, she proudly arranged them in one of my glass pyrex storage dishes. She was a bit disappointed that some were “too brown,” but I assured her that they were fine.

I also showed her how to make a honey ginger sauce that could be used as a dipping sauce for the eggrolls. Chock full of vegetables and a few spices, these rolls are quite flavorful on their own, but she was determined to make a sauce with them.

This wasn’t a recent dish, these were made at the beginning of this month. They were made a few days after my birthday. Looking at the timestamp, on the picture, these were made on 10/5/13. I’m just getting around to posting them now. Yeah… this has been a busy month and the next few months will be even busier with everything that’s happening. However, I’m managing to find that balance.

Praying Mantis and honeybees…

Aynaria 8 Comments

A little over week ago, I saw this female praying mantis hiding amongst the daisies.

Praying Mantis_2.10.18.13
Praying Mantis on Daisy

I watched her for several minutes. Initially she appeared to be sleeping and then she awakened. She seemed intensely curious with all the activity that the daisies attracted. I guess she was looking for a feast.

Honeybee on Daisy.10.18.13

She moved to a position close to all the insects; Bumblebees, honeybees, wasps, and flies were in abundance gorging themselves on nectar. I watched as the honeybees buzzed away, legs heavily laden with pollen. I imagined some of them returning to their hive, crops full of nectar ready to dump their precious load in preparation for cooler months.I must say that I breathed a sigh of relief that the praying mantis did not pounce on them, at least the ones I saw.