Rebecca Homecca

I optimistically purchased a bag of candy yesterday thinking that the neighbor girl might at least coming treating.

But she didn’t.

So I guess hubs and I will have to eat the entire bag our selves.

And yes I realize I purchased an entire bag for the hopes of one child coming, so in effect we would be eating the entire bag  anyway, less a few pieces. I would be generous for our one treater. She does not know what she missed.

I did have a deer making a treat out of our new grass. So I ran out and said

“Hey you kids get off my lawn!”

Happy Halloween!

Why can’t anyone come up with an original idea and why is Hollywood insisting on ruining my childhood?

Now they are remaking Footloose. And they are making into an actual musical with new songs.

So really it’s totally different. They should rename it something else like “Here’s a good idea we ruined”.

I’m guessing the conversation in the Movie Exec’s office went something like this:

“Get Zac Effron in a movie asap while we can still make money on him and before he gets hooked on pain killers and has to go to rehab”.

“We probably can’t make High School Musical 12, The Wedding!, can we?”

“No, but it should have dancing. And singing if we can work it in.”

“Let’s make Fooloose into a musical! We’ll have to write new songs though. Zac’s no Kenny Loggins.”

“True, True.”

He’s finally done!

Been very busy painting doors and trying to get some other things done before winter sets in. Not to mention the standard dishes, cleaning, laundry, blah, blah…lost interest at dishes…

The doors will take forever. I can only do one at a time. So I paint one side, wait for it to dry, paint that side again, wait, turn it over, repeat.

TEDIOUS.

I have one done and 3 more to go. Then we order the next batch of 3, then I think there is 2 left after that. I am going to be painting doors until summer.

My friend Pam is counting down to Memorial Day instead of Christmas. 208 days to go.

In other news…I’m excited for studio tomorrow because I will hopefully be finishing my fish painting (is it possible it finished itself over the week??) and then start a new project. I have an idea in mind. It’s another big one, but it’s a different method. It will take some time to do. I intend to blog it’s process, permitting I remember the camera!

So that’s something to look forward to. I know you can hardly stand it.

Not too much else going on. I tried to buy some new school clothes yesterday. It did not go well. We will leave it at that.

Not only did I not have success in shopping, but it made me late for bowling! It worked out though because I bowled a 140-something. For me, that is very impressive. We won’t mention the 88 in the third game(I am very consistent).

I learned tonight on the biggest loser that a whole wheat bagel with lite cream cheese is worse than a ham, egg, and cheese muffin. Now I am depressed because I know we have bagels coming to work tomorrow. And yet still happy, because I do enjoy a good egg muffin. I am a roller coaster of emotion over this.

Speaking of being the biggest loser, (not a good segway there…) I started doing Pilates in the morning and it hurts to laugh. or breathe. If you’ve never done Pilates, don’t.

Oh, I kid. I love Pilates. But it hurts a whole bunch at first. It makes my back hurt less over time though, and that I really like!!

Well, I guess that is enough randomness for now.

Having boat loads of Pot Pie guts left over, I had to think of something to do with them other than put them on biscuits. We already had that twice, and we are not much into leftover around here.

A while ago I found a recipe for empanadas that use refridgerated pie crusts. Basically you lay one out, divide it into 4 triangles. You put filling in and then lay the other crust on top. Cut through both crusts and use water & a fork to seal the edges. I normally use leftover taco fixins or fajita stuff for my filling.

On my way home from work I had an epiphany about the Pot Pie guts.

That’s right you guessed it! Pot Pie Empanadas!

I had a pie crust in the freezer so it worked out awesome!

Once you have them filled and sealed bake at 475 for about 15 minutes. You can eat them right then. However, I put mine in the fridge (2 in the freezer) and warmed them in the microwave for 1 1/2 minutes or so for lunch.

They are awesome. And so easy for lunch!

I have a fabulous recipe to use up some left over chicken. I call it Open Face Chicken Pot Pie (I think it is actually just called Chicken and Biscuits, but what fun is that?).

I halve the recipe and still have tons of leftovers (which will be re-seen in part duex). I will give you the full recipe as listed, you can decide how much your family eats.

It starts with biscuits, I like the Grands! kind, but any will do.

1 can (49 1/2 oz) Chicken broth (I did not even know they made cans that big. Maybe the boxes?? I used 2 regular cans) *reserve about 1 cup

1 1/2 pounds cut up chicken (I just use how much ever I have around)

5 medium carrots (or in my case 2) sliced

2 celery ribs sliced

1/2 cup chopped onion (I used 1/2 an onion I had left in the fridge)

1/2 cup frozen corn (I just toss in handfulls)

You can add whatever veggies you like, sometimes I put in green beans.

3 teaspoons dried basil (I read that wrong when I made it. I thought it said tablespoons. Oh well, I just guessed anyway)

1/4 teaspoon pepper

1 cup flour

Throw everything (except the flour and cup of broth) into a large pot.

Bring to a boil, reduce heat, simmer about 10 minutes until veggies are tender.

In a separate bowl combine flour and reserved broth. Pour into the pot and stir. Cook an additional 2-3 minutes until thickened.

Split biscuits and spoon over top. The perfect comfort food!

Tomorrow part 2-What to do with 10 tons of leftovers.

We have had a couple of new people join our Wednesday night studio group and it has helped to bring a new energy to the group. It was very lively tonight and a lot of good art was going on.

We had a lady come by tonight to check it out and see if she might want to join.

She is a retired art teacher. We REALLY want her to join.

She was giving some great advice and critiques. She also knows a lot about technique, which we are lacking sometimes.

I think she enjoyed herself, so it sounded like she will be back. She also mentioned her husband recently retired and is kind of driving her crazy. I think she might be looking for an outside activity. She is looking for a creative environment to put some new life into her work. We are very loose and everyone is working on different things (or the same thing, but it looks totally different), and she seemed to like that.

We are trying to plan some field trips to broaden our horizons too. So there is some fun things going on. I was feeling kind of in a rut recently, but that seems to be broken.

I’ve been working on a fish painting for the past four weeks, and with luck, it might finally be done next week. I knew it was going to be quite an undertaking, but I am glad I stuck with it. I have been working on some other small things while it “rests”.

I often let my paintings rest for a while to dry and just hang out. It helps to get away and work on something else for a while. It gives you new perspective when you come back. I really wanted to take my time with this fish (although I had not planned on this much time) to get it just how I wanted.

However, having said that, when you see it you will probably think “It took five weeks to do that?”

See how optimistic I am that I think I will be done next week?

Hopefully there will be pictures next week to back up that optimism.

To be continued…

I promised a how-to about sowing seeds. I had all kinds of intentions of pictures.

Well, here’s the how to, but no pictures. Let’s just say, I got a little ahead of myself.

Last night we learned how to collect seeds from various wild flowers. There are different techniques depending on the type of flower. Some of them you can cut and put in a paper bag, shake, and the seeds will fall into the bottom of the bag. Other ones you put nylon stocking over the bloom and wait for them to fall. However you collect them (or even if you buy them), here is a fun way to get them started, even if you are not sure where to put them yet.

You will need some plastic containers, the ones from the deli counter work best. Rinse them out really well first!

Poke several holes (about the size of a large nail) in the bottom of the container and the lid. There were a lot of options discussed for this process, figure out what works for you.

Next, fill the container with potting soil leaving about 1/2 inch at the top. Then sprinkle your seeds on top and sprinkle with a little more dirt.

Put the lid on the container and set it in another plastic container filled with water over night. Water will soak up into the dirt.

The next day go outside and dig a hole the size of the container. She suggested your garden as a good place since nothing is growing there in the winter and won’t be sprouting in the early spring.

Cover your container with some kind of mulch (pine needles, leaves, whatever).

Now leave it alone until March, then go look at it. If it has good sprouts, remove the lid and replace the mulch.  If not, leave it for a few more weeks and check again.

Once the weather warms enough you can remove the mulch. After the ground warms and the plants are large enough you can transplant them to your beds or share them with your friends! It kind of helps you keep track of what is planted where.

Oh, I almost forgot the most important part! If you do more than one, make sure you label them. Otherwise you have a bunch of containers of mystery. Which could be fun in a different way.

The lady brought in a bunch of seeds she had collected and we were each able to make our own container. I put purple coneflowers in mine. And promptly buried it when I got home tonight, hence the lack of pictures.

I will let you know how it looks come March! It’s a fun experiment if nothing else.

Since we moved out to the woods hubs and I decided we wanted to incorporate native plants into our landscape in order to maintain the natural feel. We have been doing some research and got some books. We’ve become more interested in nature in general. We are learning about plants, birds and (sometimes unfortunately) wildlife.

Tonight we attended our local chapter of Wild Ones, a group dedicated to native plants. We learned some good information and it sounded like they had some good speakers set up for next year. They also have a plant exchange, which could come in handy as we get things established.

Tonight they had a lady come in and talk about propagation of wildflowers. Collecting seeds, storing them, and sowing them. She’s going to come back in April and talk about transplanting. I learned a neat trick about sowing seeds I will share with you later.

So we are thinking we will join the group, even though we aren’t quite the demographic normally represented (old people and old hippies. There was one dude I’m pretty sure saw the Michigan landscape in it’s natural state.)

Some of the people in the group are a little extreme in their dedication to native planting. They would pretty much do away with lawns and just have everything wild (with total disregard to the feelings of their neighbors.) Since we would eventually like to re-sell our house, we don’t intend to be that crazy.

Basically, we still want it to look “landscaped” but co-exist with the nature around us. Natural, but not wild.

The group meets once a month, which is not too much of a time commitment. They also have different community projects they work on, which I thought sounded like fun. They recently helped put in a native garden at one of the schools.

So it seems we’ve taken on another extra-curricular activity.

Becky Says: You don’t have to be a hippie to a hug a tree. Well, maybe you do. I guess you can always just shake it’s hand.

When they first came out with self-check out express lanes, I thought they were awesome. You don’t have to deal with anyone, or wait for them to count change, or whatever. It seemed so much faster and easier.

Having said that, I should also point out my neighbor caught me in an argument with the self-check out computer lady once.

It was around this same time that they took away the baggers and installed the bag carousel and made the cashier do it. I always felt bad when they were short baggers and the cashier had to bag. I would usually stand down in the bagger area and do it myself. Now she always has to do it. And all those baggers lost their jobs. Granted they were all like 16 year old kids, but I still felt bad. Having worked fast food, bagging seemed like a good gig. Also they would often have some sweet old guy in the afternoons. What’s he doing now?

Anyway, back to the self – check out deal. I went to a store I don’t usually shop at one day and they had self-check out lanes that were for any size order, not just express. You scan, pay, and bag all yourself.

They had probably 6 of these lanes open and 1 lane with a real cashier.

Suddenly it hit me. Where were all the cashiers?

That I day I decided to not self-check out anymore. I feel like every time I go to a real cashier, I am helping to keep her employed. I don’t know if it will really make any difference in the long run.

Also, I decided maybe a little human interaction isn’t so bad. I’ve never been caught arguing with a real cashier.