Caricature

This is a caricature that Wyatt drew of me standing next to him. For the best view, click on the jpeg for a bigger image.



What do you think?

Note the "Gotta Have More Cowbell" T-Shirt (I got it at a Rays game in '07).

These kids are sharp, I'll tell ya!

Our new home

I have been wanting to take some pictures of our new home in Satsuma, but I just haven't had time. Things are busy! But I will get on that, because I am excited about sharing our new digs with you. We moved in with my Mom, Dad, and nephew Wyatt to share their house in Satsuma. Besides having a wonderful dream kitchen in their mobile home, they have room to house Angelina in Wyatt's room. Mama was wonderful enough to share her camper; we had it parked on the lot close to the house but far enough away to get some privacy. Alicia and I camp out there, and we are really starting to enjoy it. It is a 300-square feet flat with a small kitchen, a bathroom, and an upstairs "bedroom" that you'll just have to see to believe! Is it cramped up there? Sure, but we only sleep there... we don't spend a lot of time in there doing anything else. Right now as I type, I am sitting in our little office with all the speakers hooked up to my computer. That is how I am listening to Collective Soul and LOVING LIFE! You'll have to give me patience on the pictures--I want to put them on there as bad as you want to see them, so believe me when I say that they are coming soon. It really is quite cozy here, and we are in the process of organizing all of our "stuff" (and you KNOW how much of that there can be that accumulates). I have a habit of being a storage junkie, but I am trying to let go of the stuff that is just not that important.

Collective Soul

I am lovin' this! I have always enjoyed listening to music from Collective Soul, but I have not been keeping up with them over the last few years. Apparently, they haven't been idle. In 2007, they released "Afterwords," which I am listening to right now as I work. If I have time (hmm...I don't know about that... I MADE myself write this entry, promising myself that I would have to keep it short), I will write up a full review, but for now, suffice it to say that it is GOOD. Vintage Soul.

You can get the songs at www.collectivesoul.com, if you don't already have a place to get them from. I use Zune Marketplace.

I also found out that they are touring, and they are coming to Lake Buena Vista on July 14. Shibby!

Another CD they have is called "Home," and it is one of those nifty CD/DVD combos that gives you a good reason to actually go out to a store and buy a hard copy. I am putting it on my Christmas List now!

Time of Your Life (Good Riddance)

Just wanted to post this metube video of my performance at Deseret Academy's 2009 graduation, held this past Friday, May 15 at the Ravine Gardens in Palatka, FL. Enjoy!

¡Viva la Verde!

Some of you may already know--we have started our own organic produce business! It is called ¡Viva la Verde!, and we are going to be at the Jacksonville Farmers Market (1810 W. Beaver Street) each Saturday from 8:30 A.M. to about 2:00 P.M.

We have created a newsletter that we going to distribute before this weekend, and I wanted to see if you are interested in receiving it each week. Just reply with a comment if you want it every week, and you will get it--either from this address or that of my Mom. You can always opt-out, but I thought you would want to at least check it out. It has a price list for the week, plus other fun stuff that I know you will enjoy reading.

Mono Meals

Today for lunch, we had a mono-meal. In case you don't know, that means eating just one thing until you are full. It can be very satisfying, and the meal is very easy to digest, because your stomach only has to work to digest one type of food, with all of its various nutrients.

At the farmers market this week, we bought some watermelons on the cheap. Mom blogged about our picnic lunch yesterday, and we ate the leftovers from that today, along with one of the smaller watermelons that we bought for $4. I asked the guy that sold them to us if they get any cheaper over the summer, and he said that pretty soon, they would be so abundant that he would eventually lower the price to $1! That means this meal is going to be repeated in our family A LOT this summer!

So anyway, to today's watermelon, we added some Himalayan salt and some Mexican Fiesta seasoning, and it was delicious AGAIN! Not as sweet as yesterday's though, and the small one we ate today was seedless. I am kind of liking the flavor of watermelon seeds, even though it is something I have never really eaten in the past. They also add a nice crunch to the melon, and I have heard they are good for you. Does nyone know if that is true and why?

Farmer's Market

So we've decided what the next big step is for our family. We are going to start selling our raw creations at Farmer's Markets, starting with the Jacksonville Farmer's Market on Beaver Street. I am REALLY excited, and I know that I have been given this opportunity to excel at doing something that I love. Yes, I was let go by my job last week, but it has been an amazing week. I have not been sad, depressed, or discouraged. I know that Heavenly Father is preparing the way for us to do something great, and this will be another step towards launching the DT foundation and also our first raw restaurant.

We found out that we may not be able to do smoothies, juices, or ice creams on the spot as that could be in violation of the health code, but we CAN do pre-packaged foods. So we are going to experiment with our best raw creations and see what people like the most.

I hope you will support us in this endeavor, but even more than that, I am excited to see which of our creations YOU enjoy the most!

Stay tuned...

PB&J!

For breakfast today, we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, RAW-style!

It is a really easy meal to make. We just sliced up a few apples, spread some almond butter on the top of each slice, put some medjool date slices (and a few sliced-up deglet dates for variety) on each piece of "bread," and added a few dashes of salt. Mom taught us how to make this a few weeks ago, and I have been wanting to make it for all of us, because I knew Angelina would love it. And of course, she did!

Keeping up with DT

There are 2 new ways to keep up with me, if you are interested in that sort of thing.

The first is twitter. I don't know how regularly I'll "twitter", but I am on there at least. My page is:

https://twitter.com/trunkybeat .

The other is a cool thing I've learned to do with my RSS feeds. Feed-readers are an amazing thing, and now you can keep up with some of my favorite news articles, blog entries, sports stories, or life commentaries. Check it out, and I hope everyone starts doing this. It is a neat way to share interesting, thoughtful, or personal things without having to email a link to everyone you know. My feed reader of choice is google, and the link to my shared feeds is:

http://www.google.com/reader/shared/02053383542510281468

Let me know which stories are more interesting to you!

Raw Treats

Alicia's birthday was this month, and I made a few special raw treats for her on that special day. I made some almond mylk, which we don't make that often, either because it is messy, or because we don't have enough almonds in the house. The made some sweet milk (almond milk + agave nector) and chocolate smoothies, which were wonderful. I didn't take any pictures of the chocolate, because I think we drank 'em up too fast. That is SO good! But I did take a picture of some of the leftover almond mylk:

Almond Mylk

Now when one makes almond mylk, one doesn't want to throw away the leftover pulp, because raw unpasteurized almonds are a bit expensive. So one tries to find things to make out of this pulp. I decided to make some dehydrated almond cookies. They were pretty good, but I will make them better next time. The problem was they were too thin. That is, when I put them in the Excalibur to dehydrate, they broke apart when I pulled them out the next morning. I drizzled some agave on them, and I think we added some big slices of banana to eat with them to moisten them up. I gave the big one to Alicia. This was pre-dehydrate, and that is them sitting on the dehydrator tray:

Almond Cookies

I also made some banana chips. They were perfect--much better than my last batch a few months ago, which were cut too thin and stuck to the tray when dried!

Banana Chips

See how thick they are cut? That is the key.

So the chocolate mylk was the favorite treat, but I must say--drinking some sweet mylk with the dry cookies and some banana was VERY satisfying.

I am not a raw chef every day, but when I am I really enjoy it. And I treat my ladies right!