Thai Coconut

My friend and I were walking around the grocery store last night when I saw a Thai Coconut. She and I had the same question: what's the difference? Well, they look a lot different on the outside. This website has a picture of the coconut in question, as well as pictures of the inside. Here's a pic of my attempt:



Notice the bandaides from my coconut battle wound. I didn't have a cleaver or a machete so I settled for a 12" chef's knife and a very sharp bread knife to saw a starter line. The wound is from the bread knife. Princess has a hard time with blood and ran from the room when I showed her.

Anyway, I was surprised at what I found inside. There was a ton of water with a very mild, kind of earthier flavor than the other coconuts I've tried. The flesh is so soft that I could scoop it out with my fingers. Apparently this means that my Thai coconut was quite young. The flesh has an texture very much like crab meat but more fibrous so even though it's slimy and very flexible, it holds together really well. It might be interesting to use mini cookie cutters on it for decorations on a piña colada cake. It certainly wouldn't shred very well at this texture.

Princess has declared that it tastes gross. Honestly, there isn't a whole lot of taste to the flesh. Even the water had a stronger flavor to it. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the flesh, really, since I don't have a blender. Maybe this is a good reason to buy one.

A "Man, I'm going to run and buy a blender."

M "What for?"

A "So this coconut won't go to waste."

M "Wait, wait. You want to go spend $30-40 on a blender so your $1 coconut won't go to waste?"

A "... sure."

M "..."

A "Oh, come on, it's better than some of the reasons I've made up over the years to get a kitchen gadget. Give me some credit for extraordinary effort."

M "..."

A "Would you like me to get you some ice cream while I'm out?"

Anyway, the above was merely speculative fabrication. In reality I'm sure he'll just say "sure, have fun, make sure you get a nice sturdy one that'll last." It's that German mentality he picked up with the language.

[laughing] [pause] [sigh]

So, coconut. Yeah, a smoothie sounds good.

Mr. Easter Egg Face

Tag decided to wanted to wear makeup like mom, so he used some of his stamps to create the following effect:



Princess: Mom, I like Easter. When are we going to have it again?
Me: In a year.
P: How long is that?
M: 364 days from today.
P: [pause] Can you count that for me? That's a big number.

We did that with 71 for some reason. She thought it was funny to see her mom try to count to 71 in under 30 seconds. I think 364 might knock me out.

Coming Clean

This blog started out as just a way of updating the masses on the various activities of almost a year ago when we started on a new journey as a family. It has become a journal of sorts, a place where I bleed a little, fly a little, and share pictures of my kids. I avoided a lot of obviously spiritual things since I know that there are several people who read this who aren't necessarily into my religion. However, my spiritual beliefs are such a huge part of my life and how I learn that I've decided to no longer keep that sort of thing out of here. Not that this is going to turn into a huge Mormon pamphlet or anything. It's still all about me, and that's what matters, right? Just kidding.

With that said, someone shared an experience with several of her friends that really got me thinking about my own prideful heart and how I view my failures. She spoke of how she was invited to sing at church and felt as if she had failed because she cried so hard that she couldn't sing the song. Easter and Christmas are such emotional times for me that I really couldn't blame her at all. So off I run at the mouth about how a display of emotion doesn't necessarily negate the impact of what someone has to share, as well as the following statement:

It's far too easy to assume that because it didn't go how we wanted it to, that it went "wrong" somehow. God doesn't ask us to be perfect, He merely asks us to do our best. You prayed for strength, you practiced, and prepared, and then you got up there and did your best. You did precisely what God would have you do, and that's good enough for Him. Besides, when we look at it as a *gift to God* instead of a display in God's name, it really changes things. It gives us the freedom to forgive our shortcomings b/c we know that God will forgive us, as well as the freedom to give so much more when we know that we're safe in God's hands. At that point you become an instrument in His hands and His Spirit works through you, setting your song and testimony on fire.

I found myself rereading it for typos and it hit me like a ton of bricks that here I was encouraging someone to not take her failures personally when, just days ago, I wrote a whole post about all of my failures that day!! Talk about being hypocritical. I read something amazing in an advice column a couple of months ago. Someone wrote in with the usual sob about a pretty sick relationship, and the columnist replied that all she could say is, what would you tell someone in your same situation? What sort of wisdom is inside of you that you keep penned up when your pride gets in the way?

Much food for thought for me. Time to make the world a better place and go shower.

Veggie Tales + Harry Potter

Ok, this is just about the silliest interpretation of this song that I can possibly imagine. I happen to really like Veggie Tales and Harry Potter so this is just a treat.

Cast:
Bob the Tomato: Harry Potter
Barbara Manatee: Hermione Granger
Bill Manatee: Ron Weasley
Larry the Cucumber: Draco Malfoy

Warning: Link leads to the YouTube website. I'm not responsible for nor do I necessarily endorse anything you find there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxnl1eyQssk

The Egg Hunt Begins

And who knows when it will end. Man firmly believes that egg hunts should be a challenge. Our only criteria this year was to keep it inside. Just to liven things up a bit he went and got a package of super-sneaky, prefilled eggs that have strings, suction cups, and glue dots so you can hide eggs absolutely anywhere. We have them glued under our table, suction cupped in the shower, and hanging from hooks and lines, not to mention the more traditional eggs nestled everywhere. They aren't filled with a whole bunch, but there are plenty of them. Man had a lot of fun hiding them and Tag was so excited that he woke up at 11:30 last night and started looking around. After putting the disappointed little guy back in bed, they woke up at 6:30 this morning and we woke up to squeals of glee and discovery. Princess is really, really good at finding eggs, but she's also really good at hiding things, too. Tag finds eggs and immediately opens them whereas Princess is very focused and just hunts and hunts until she's ready to sit down with her enormous take and paw through it. She's a very sweet girl (not just from the candy) and willingly shares with her brother.

While walking around, toting a ponderously clacking and rattling bag of eggs, Princess declared "this is a good day. I like this day."

Little does she know that the way Man hides eggs, she will likely have other mini-good days for weeks to come.

Pixar

(image owned by Disney Pixar. Don't sue me. I'm giving you free advertising!!)

We absolutely love Pixar movies. Did you know that there is a Toy Story 3 coming out in '10??

Being somewhat of a wistful foodie myself, this next one to come out (Ratatouille) looks mighty interesting.

Here is a link to the latest trailer.

It takes a looooong time to load. It's directed by Brad Bird, who also did The Incredibles! Gosh, this is going to be so cool. It comes out right around our anniversary as well so I'll give you three guesses what we'll be doing that weekend. We might even take the kids with us.

Failures

I should go through my posts and talk about successes as well as failures. Oh, well. Here are my recent failures:

1. I have finally submitted to the inevitability of menu planning. Not just menu planning, sit down every week and plan a menu, menu planning. I'm talking, 14 different dinners which are repeated every two weeks. Lame, boring, pain in the rear. But far less of a pain in the rear than the mental burden of using everything in the fridge in new and creative ways, coming up with a comprehensive list every week, going to all the stores I need to get to when we have only one car to run around in, the additional mental burden of timing everything so that it comes out of the oven at roughly the same time every night, and the emotional burden of something not coming out right b/c I was in a hurry. My family is pretty good about swallowing the hocky puck salmon patties as well as the melt-in-your-mouth garlic-lime pork chops but I'm tired of all of the above cons of weekly menu preparation. In addition to the cons above, I rarely got around to it. So, bi-weekly rotation it is. Subject to change as needed or an amazing sale on an ingredient that isn't featured.

2. I took a bunch of pictures last night and all of them turned out terribly. Blurry, my 360° panoramic is shaped line a sine wave, and it was too cloudy.

3. I have to get the kids to see a dr before I can get them completely registered for child care while I take a class in a few weeks. Due to a hiccup in the system, their primary care manager is a man over 400 miles away from here, so I had to do all sorts of hokey pokey to get them a local dr, and now I wait for the change to go through so I can get them in, hoping that everything gets taken care of before the deadline. Failure to plan appropriately is what that's called.

4. My home is a wreck from all of the errands I've had to walk to and otherwise take care of. Well, maybe not a wreck. I guess it's more like a mild disaster.

5. I'm sitting here whining rather than making my home NOT a wreck. There was a General Conference talk recently all about "quit whining, get off your rear, and live!"

Ok, ok. I blame the fozzle outside (fog+drizzle).

Panoramic pictures

I finally got some photo stitching software and put some pano's together. These are just a couple of mediocre attempts. On our walk tonight, we're going to go a little early to catch the ocean before sunset over on "blue flower hill". We went just after the sun went down last night and now tonight is going to be one huge photo op.

Libera

Man and I love the boys' choir Libera. I first got an album of theirs years ago, their self titled one. After discovering the joys of i-tunes I spent a while looking up every group and name I've ever enjoyed to try and get all of the songs I've left on the shelf b/c I didn't want to shell out for an iffy album when all I wanted was one song. No more!

I've been really grumpy the last couple of days so got Libera's Free and am enjoying it. A particularly beautiful song of theirs is Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep.

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.

(1) I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.

(2) When you wake in the morning hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circling flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there, I do not sleep.
(Do not stand at my grave and cry.
I am not there, I did not die!)

Text by Mary Frye

I'm sure we've all experienced some degree of loss, whether of self or other beloved relationship. This poem touches my heart.

More little flower

My Princess found a little mutant flower. Those tiny flowers in our grass are a pale purple but she found a random orange one and brought it to me. These things are so tiny that the camera has a hard time seeing them in the frame and won't get any closer than 3" even on macro. So... here are some attempts at catching this little guy on film.

I found that when I took pics against a white paper that it made the flower very dark. I then tried it against this sort of polished stone base that Man used to have a pen attached to. Tag took care of that "attached" bit for him. Anyway, it really brightened up the flower... but I didn't notice until after I got the pics on the computer how very dusty it was. The soft focus edges help hide the dust.



So, I wiped it off but the camera couldn't see the flower for the reflection in the stone.



So I went back to paper and just fiddled with the fill light a bit.



Eh. I need to see if I can take a photography class up at the college around the corner.