Lemon Bar Disaster

Today I went to the doctor for a well check and a Tetanus shot.  I had a little "incident" last Friday night, and my Mom really wanted me to get the shot and you've gotta do what your Momma says right?  Plus it's been almost twelve years since I fell down the basement stairs, landed on a nail and got the last one.  Oops.  As far as "the incident", Mike and I had been invited to one of his co-worker's homes Friday evening.  I made a batch of lemon bars to take and as I opened a bottom cabinet to look for a platter to arrange them on, a 2 quart baking dish came sliding out, hit the tile floor, and exploded into what seemed like a million pieces.  The pieces bounced up into the air and when I looked down, there was blood running down my leg.  If you don't like the word blood, I recommend you stop reading now.  I hadn't even felt anything hit my leg.  Now here's where things started to get bad.  I've had two babies, dealt with kids' broken arms and legs, and numerous other bruises, scrapes, illnesses, and just general grossness of raising children.  This is why I can't understand why my body responded the way it did.  I immediately yelled out "I'm bleeding" and covered my eyes.  Mike's 21 year old brother James is living with us right now and he and Mike came to check things out.  Then Mike ran off to the bathroom to look for first aid supplies.  James was just standing there as I was leaning on the counter so I said "Put some pressure on it James!"  He did, although I'm sure he was thinking he did not sign up for holding pressure on his sister in law's bleeding, probably in need of a shaving, injured leg when he moved in.  It seemed like it was taking Mike FOREVER and I could feel the blood pooling under my foot.  Luckily, Mike had asked James to remove my shoe as he was heading toward the bathroom.  Some blood had already reached the shoe unfortunately.  Finally Mike returned with of all things, a round eye makeup remover pad to hold on the wound.  Apparently he missed the large box labeled "First Aid Supplies" in the bottom drawer.  By this time I was feeling very, very bad.  I was nauseated and my head was spinning. Then he says "Hmmm, it won't stop bleeding."  Not the right thing to say at this point honey.  I said "I'm gonna pass out, somebody better get me a chair." Poor James went for the chair.  He wasn't fast enough for me, so I said "I'm telling you I'm gonna pass out, I need a chair!"  He brought the chair.  I sat down.  Didn't help.  I was feeling worse.  The girls were witnessing all of this excitement, as they had been sitting at the kitchen table eating their dinner.  I got a little taste of my own medicine.  When they get hurt, I hug them, put on a bandage, and say you're fine.  I don't let them drag out the drama.  Who wants to be around a kid like that right?  Well, here's the sympathy I got out of them.  "That's a lot of blood."  "Who's gonna clean up all this blood?" "Does this mean you're not going to that thing?"  They were really concerned about me as you can tell.  Anyway, I was doing everything I could think of to NOT pass out.  I just didn't want to.  I asked Mike to get me a wet rag to put on the back of my neck.  He did and I bent over with my head between my knees and the rag on my neck.  It did nothing.  He used one of those dish towels that don't absorb very well so I didn't feel a thing on my neck.  I said "Get me an ice pack!"  We have at least 6 or 7 ice packs in the freezer because I use them in the girls' lunchboxes.  But he didn't bring me an ice pack.  He brought me a bag of Tuscan Style frozen vegetables.  I put that bag on my neck, my face, my eyes.  It wasn't helping.  I finally said, "You'd better get me to the bed, I'm passing out."  He helped me up, my right eye went black and I knew I wasn't going to make it to the bedroom.  I crumpled to the floor in the dining room and kept the veggies on my head.  I laid there and he and James (bless his heart) cleaned up the mess in the kitchen.  I honestly didn't know a shin injury would bleed that much.  After awhile, I was able to get up and we decided to go on to his friend's place.  So much for the lemon bars being arranged nicely on a platter.  He just grabbed the 9 x 13 pan they were in and didn't even cover it!  And without my knowledge, he had snapped a photo of me as I lay sprawled on the floor, one shoe off,  with the bag of Tuscan Style veggies on my head.  The first thing he did when we reached our destination was pull out his phone and show the picture to his co-workers that were there.  Lovely.  He told me later, he really wanted to draw a chalk outline around me.  When you've been married 18 years, that's what happens. I really do love him though.  He's a good guy.  Thanks for not slapping me to my senses during all this honey! (I know he wanted to).  This has been a long post but I thought I'd end it on a good note with the Lemon Bar recipe.   It's from Paula Deen's cookbook, The Lady & Sons, Too!  I've made it many times and it has never failed me.  Also, I wanted to leave you with a tip.  The shoes I had been wearing were a Land's End cloth strap sandal.  I soaked the blood stained one in Oxiclean and it got the blood out!  Woo Hoo!

Lemon Bars

Crust

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup confectioner's sugar

Pinch of salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature

Filling

4 eggs

2 cups granulated sugar

6 tablespoons all-purpose flour

6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

For the crust, combine the flour, confectioner's sugar, and salt in a large bowl.  Cut in the butter to make a crumbly mixture.  Press the mixture into the prepared pan. Bake in a preheated oven for 20 minutes at 350.  While it's baking, make the filling.  Mix the eggs, granulated sugar, flour, and lemon juice.  Pour this over the baked crust and bake for 25 minutes longer.  Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar when they are done.

And there's no pretty picture of the bars because, well, you know.....

What's in the box Wednesday

Addie's lunch has half an avocado, pop chips, a mixture of smokehouse style and low sodium almonds, and a smoothie.  She LOVES avocado and I read a tip somewhere recently of using lemon slices to keep them from turning brown in a lunchbox.  I didn't have lemons, so I used limes.  The smoothie is in the green tube on the right.  I read about this idea at 100 Days of Real Food.  I actually found these Silicone Ice Pop Makers at Ozark Natural Foods.  I made a smoothie similar to what she suggests on her website with non-fat Greek yogurt, a frozen berry mix, banana, and spinach.  Then I poured them into the molds, froze overnight, and placed them in the lunchbox.  By lunch time, they will be thawed back to smoothie consistency.  I tested it yesterday before trying in the lunchbox today, and it worked fine.  Here's a picture of the box of molds I found at ONF.

Caroline's lunch has "Triscuit sandwiches" with ham and cheese, the other half of Addie's bag of pop chips, and grapes.  I will have to adjust the smoothie recipe before I put it in her lunchbox.  She's not a fan of the tangy taste of Greek yogurt, and I put quite a bit in this batch.  Addie liked it, but I was pretty sure Caroline wouldn't have and I didn't want spilled smoothie all over the inside of the lunch bag.  I wasn't really happy with the lack of color in her lunchbox today, but once I get the smoothie recipe worked out, I'll be able to hide that spinach in there!

*AFTER SCHOOL UPDATE*  The pop maker lid came off before lunch and the smoothie got all over the inside of the lunchbag. :(  Luckily, the Lunchbot kept the rest of her lunch safe.  I will try again tomorrow with a rubber band holding the lid on longways and we'll see.  I'm really glad that I didn't put one in Caroline's lunch yet!

*NEXT DAY UPDATE*  I used the rubber band and placed the pop maker in a baggie and the lid did not come off!  Success!

Patriot's Day

In Honor and Memoriam.

The Many Faces of Caro

Has anyone else found the camera roll on their phone filled with pictures like this?

 For some reason, this one reminds me of that Bat Boy picture they used to put on the cover of The National Enquirer. 

And here's the Crazy Eyes.

She must have been singing in this one.

 A close up of the singing. No cavities!

 If you were at Sam's this weekend, you may or may not have seen one similar to this as the wallpaper on one of the display iPad's.

 And in closing, all of these mug shots reminded me of this little blast from the past.  She and the babysitter used to come to work with me when I worked in downtown Tulsa (yes, I had the best boss in the entire world, oh and my current boss comes in at a close 2nd). She liked to come around and visit me and my co-workers throughout the day and press her face against my office window.  This still makes me crack up.  Enjoy your Monday everybody!

Sew Messy

My friend commented that she liked the "keeping it real" phrase in my tagline.  So here's a keeping it real photo for your Thursday viewing pleasure.  I finally unpacked Addie's Babylock sewing machine she received at the B-Sew Inn camp she attended this summer.  I was a little lazy getting around to doing that and she was just using mine.  I picked up some clearance fabric remnants at JoAnn's for her to play with and as you can see, she's been busy.  Mike is tired of the mess (and so am I), so he told her to have it cleaned up tonight or the door to the craft room will be locked.  Da Da Da Dum.  Are all creative types this messy??  Bless her heart.

What's in the box Wednesday

Addie's lunch had homemade hummus (store-bought works also), baked pita chips, strawberries, mini sweet pickles, and a cheese stick.  I like this Hummus recipe I adapted from Bob Harper's The Skinny Rules book because it contains no oil.  He has a lot of good tips and recipes in his book.  Find it here.

Hummus

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
15 oz can low-sodium Garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1/2 clove garlic
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup low-sodium chicken broth

Just put all these ingredients in your blender or food processor and whirl away.  So easy!

Caroline's box is basically the same except she has fat-free refried beans instead of Hummus and no pickles.  She has a separate snack time, which I send in her backpack, and Addie doesn't, plus she's a smaller kid, so sometimes I don't send her as much food.  Yes, my kids eat beans.  We've tried to make a habit of not serving them separate "kid-friendly" meals.  We've always offered them a variety of foods so we don't end up with picky eaters.  I will say that Addie will eat more things than Caroline, but hopefully she'll get there one day.  This is the first time I've tried refried beans in the lunchbox, so we'll see if she'll eat them cold.

Labor Day Weekend in Northwest Arkansas

We had a nice Labor Day Weekend.  How about you?  I usually run/walk with my friend Angie on Saturday mornings on one of the many local trails in Fayetteville or Springdale.  This Saturday, we had this beautiful double rainbow to look at while we exercised.  I love our trail system.  It's so nice, and this beautiful view made it even better.  By the way, I invited Angie to start walking/running with me months and months ago and she has completely surpassed my abilities!  She ran a 10K on Labor day in 57 minutes!  Woo Hoo Angie!  Thanks for still keeping me as an exercise partner.

 Mike bought a new (to him) truck this weekend.  We've been tossing around the idea of something with 4 wheel drive that we can treat a little rougher than the mini-van, take camping, haul bikes and stuff, etc.  He found what he was looking for in Tulsa and drove over and bought it Saturday night.  Caroline really wanted to have a picnic in the back of the new truck, so we drove over to Devil's Den on Labor day and made it happen!  We also let the girls wade around in the creek for awhile before we went home.  They were very happy that Daddy pulled into Shake's Custard as a surprise on the way home.  Instead of keeping ice cream in the freezer, we take them out for treats every once in awhile.  That way, we're not eating it everyday.  Cause if it's in the freezer, I'm gonna eat it!