Kentucky Grilled - ha! - Chicken

I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and often went to the Colonel's Lady (Claudia Sanders) restaurant over in Shelbyville, KY. I love their biscuits, their homecooked serving-tray lunches, and the only cooked spinach I will ever eat is served as creamed spinach there at that restaurant. My family would get KY-Fried once every couple of months when I was going out, and it was always a real treat.

So... I was elated when Kentucky Fried Chicken came out with grilled chicken this past Monday. My Tween son has a huge adverse reaction to wheat so we like finding grilled chicken we can get as fast food. Tween got so excited, now that he could have KY-Fried/Grilled! So, because he was being so very wonderful today, did all of his schoolwork in a timely manner, and helped with chores, I said we could go for a late lunch. We left around 2 p.m. and stopped in at the Northglenn (CO - on Washington) where we used to go about once every 2 months or so.

Up to the counter I strode. "Excuse me", I said to Angie the counter girl, "could you please tell me if your new grilled chicken has wheat in it?"

"No." She turned away.

"Uh, excuse me, but I need to know for the health of my son here."

"No. How should I know?"

Needless to say, this ninny was being a complete jerk. I said a bit more strongly, "My son would like the grilled chicken but I need to know if it has wheat in it ... first!"

"Go get a pamphlet." She pointed in the general direction (towards the back of the store!), turned away again and pretended to clean a counter.

I was pretty ticked by this time, but went to the back and picked up the pamphlet, where, to my complete non-surprise, gave no ingredient information, just calories, protein, etc. I went back to the counter. "Excuse me", I said in a very syrupy almost-had-enough voice, "it doesn't give any ingredient information. Would you please look?"

She looked straight at me. "No."

Okay, I needed to cool down, so we left, went to the post office and came back. I requested Tween to stay in the car this time, and marched back into the KFC, where that little ninny rolled her eyes when she saw me coming. I said, "I've been thinking, and your response is completely unacceptable. I want to talk with a manager." "Who?" "Any manager."

She turned, giggling almost, and in a sing-song voice, called "Sa-ra!" Sara, a manager, came over, listened to my calm rant, apologized for the Angie twit (my words, not hers) and went in the back to get a box that had the ingredients listed on a label. Wheat was on there. Lots of it. I thank her, she apologized for Angie again, and we left.

That's all I wanted.... information.

What is wrong with people? That girl Angie should have apologized, not the manager. Doesn't anybody care about manners or customer service any more?

p.s. Wouldn't you think that a grilled chicken patty would be gluten-free? No wheat? Hmmm...

Another Monday

Today was busy.

I finally finished re-working Weslee's school curriculum, so he got started on that today with math, reading, language arts and writing. Check out his paragraph on friendship: http://kid-whispers.blogspot.com/2008/11/from-weslee-what-is-friendship.html. He also snuck and read a book that he doesn't think I know about.

Meanwhile, I did research for our other blogs so Doug and I can write today's entry(s) together. And used a bread machine. And prepped chickpeas for tomorrow's soup experiment. And finished drying a batch of tomatoes. And took pictures of various things for future blogs.

Doug had a very busy day at his job, coming home and after helping with the blog postings, immediately got busy on his work's laptop. He came down to help with dinner, and went right back up. My goodness, I like overtime.

However, my carpal tunnel and leg problems are compounded with the beginning of a migraine so I'm calling it quits for today.

Beautiful Monday to you all!

Vikki
http://www.newviewgroupllc.com/

Getting Ready for Winter

After 3 days of Weslee's birthday celebration (family fun time), Saturday and today were spent doing chores, and getting ready for the Winter.

A definite chill is in the air, and it's not just outside. We have leaks at the bottom of our front door, our screen door, and a couple of windows in our bedrooms. Plus we think the door leading to the garage from the house has enough clearance for a little field mouse to get through. So Doug has been working on those projects.

Saturday I tore down the sunflowers in the front yard (pictures to come soon). I placed the heads where they could finish drying out so we could eat the seeds this Winter. Doug and Weslee finished breaking off the sunflower stalks at the ground, and then Weslee attacked the corn and sunflower stalks still in the backyard corn patch.

Today they finished tearing down the tomato plants and "plowing" them under, they spread peat moss on the strawberry and raspberry plants. The plastic and blankets that protected them are in the basement, and the tomato cages are still waiting to go into the shed.

I've sliced up another dehydrator-full of varous tomatoes (ripe and unripe) and they are drying right now. Our indoor tomato plants are thriving under the grow lights and Weslee's regular watering, although he did kinda flood them yesterday.

Gotta get back to fixing dinner - taco meat and refried beans in quesadillas, and freshly harvested carrots! YUM!!!

Vikki
www.newviewgroupllc.com

11/03: A Visiting Stray Dog

Weslee and I had big plans for today. The 3rd or 4th of each month is my big shopping day: dollar store, thrift store, Wal-Mart, health food store, and Sam's.

We left about on time - 9:15, but as I left our street and turned onto the adjacent, we saw a stray dog. I stopped the car, motor running, and walked back to our street where the dog had turned. I recognized her as living 2 streets over (the owner and I pass each other from time to time as we walk our dogs in the mornings). I called to the dog and she came right up to me. I got her in the car and drove to the neighbor's house but she wasn't there, so we turned towards our home.

As Weslee walked down a note to tape to the owner's door, I fed and watered the dog (tied up to our front porch, of course). Spirit (our Chihuahua in Weslee's arms) and the stray (a welsh terrier mix) got along ok. Did what dogs do.

The owner got my note and called around 12:45, and picked her up by 1:00. She was very thankful - brought us a bag of candy!

Hopefully I'll get to errands by Wednesday. Meanwhile, we did what we hope anyone else would do for our dog: if Spirit gets loose, we hope someone would try to return her.

Vikki
http://www.newviewgroupllc.com/

10/29: Spirit, the Chihuahua

We love our little chihuahua that we got from the humane society on Oct 3 2008. She quickly has become a big part of our family.

Above: Spirit for her close-up!

Above: Here is Spirit playing "tug-rope" with Doug, and Weslee is giggling as he watches. We get it away from her and throw it up the stairs. She chases after it, positions it in her mouth just-so (she's quite particular) and brings it back. Usually to whoever threw it. She only likes to play this once every day or two days.

Above: Here's Spirit, waiting anxiously for Doug to prepare her dinner. She gets so excited, ears up, tail wagging, eyes fixed firmly on Doug (or sometimes me) mixing a bit of wet food with her dry. We've tried desparately to get her up on her hind legs as the bowl is placed on the floor, but the camera is too slow and she's too fast. Doug and I take turns preparing her meal because the food-bearer becomes her favorite person for the rest of the day.

Vikki
http://www.newviewgroupllc.com/

10/25: Weslee's Ingrown Toenail (ugh)

Kid Whispers:
As you may have read in an earlier post, Weslee had his ingrown toenail surgery on Thursday. The phys assist injected him with a numbing agent 3 times but because the toe was so infected, the shots didn't really take. The p.a. had to work on the toe anyway, so she took off part of his toenail and part of the infected part, wrapped him up and put him in a post-op shoe. My brave boy.

Weslee is recuperating nicely, although he won't stop walking around. I'm about to tie him down to the bed.

In between soaking the toe in warm water 15-20 minutes, 4 times a day, we're trying to keep him occupied with newly-purchased magazines, and we just watched a Netflix: "Nim's Island" (also pretty good). Scheduled for tomorrow are: "Journey to the Center of the Earth" and "Spiderwick Chronicles" plus "Greatest Presidents of the United States" (history lesson).

To get his mind off of the boredom, early this afternoon we took him to see "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" at the theater. This was the first time we've been to a movie in a theater in ages. The theater was newly opened, called Cinebarr. Movie tickets were cheap but the food was waitressed, and very expensive. The movie was good, though. Hilarious!

Thankfully Weslee is very healthy, with a great immune system. I attribute it mostly to his diet (lots of fruits and veggies, nuts and seeds, and tons of water). Thus, he should heal quickly. He hopes to be able to trick-or-treat for Halloween.

Weslee says: "Thanks to all for the good healing thoughts."

Vikki
http://www.newviewgroupllc.com/

10/23: Weslee's Ingrown Toenail, Mexican X-Top

Health:
Warning: Gross-ness follows.

Weslee's ingrown toenail - the one we've been fighting since mid-Summer - had gotten worse. It was purple and swollen. Definitely infected. So... I made an appointment for Weslee in the Kaiser trauma center for this morning. I didn't give Weslee all of the info as to what would happen, because he tends to obssess about things.

Considering he had three injections in his toe, and none of them took, he was quite brave. Squeezed my hands while she cut off half of his toenail and the infected part.

We're home now. He's trying to take a nap while hugging Spirit, our Chihuahua. (What a comfort). He will stay upstairs for a few days while the worse of it heals, but won't be fully recovered for a few weeks.

Please send good healing thoughts to Weslee, my almost-12 year old baby boy.

Backyard Grocery:
As you may know, we grew several Mexican X-Top winter squashes this Summer. Just before our frost last week, we brought in all of them, ripe or not (I mean, we're not sure how to tell if they are ripe anyway!). We stored them in the basement where our laundry is. I went down to do a load of clothes the other day and glanced at the squashes. The littlest one looked like it started to rot. We were upset, but it provided an opportunity to cut into one.

I should have taken a picture. Maybe the next one. The flesh is creme-colored, with seeds dispursed. We tasted the squash raw and it's kinda bland which might kinda work considering only Doug actually likes squash. Weslee accepted the taste ok, and so did I, so we'll have to cook some up for Doug to see if he likes it.

Vikki www.newviewgroupllc.com

10/19: Bits and Pieces

High Def TV:
HDTV is a joke. We bought the converter boxes and installed one of them. More than half the time we want to watch something, the signal is bad. Distorted. Or doesn't come in at all.

We hope that when February 19 2009 comes around, the TV stations have fixed the problems with their signals. That's the middle of Winter, and if we get snowbound and want to watch a fav show, we'll be ticked if there's a bad signal!

Flea Market:
It was time for our first outing as a family: Doug, me (Vikki), Weslee and the chi, Spirit. On our way to the flea market, we stopped at Wal-Mart to buy a big enough tote to hold the dog (none of my purses were big enough). Found a beach tote marked down to $2.00! It took a little for Spirit to get used to being hauled around in the bag, but by the time we were sitting on a bench to rest our feet, she was an old pro.

Found a big box of invention encyclopedias for $15 and a solar system workbook for 50 cents. We also stopped at a couple of booths with fresh produce: bought pears, bananas and avocados which we can't grow here at home. Plus we got a little exercise. Good day at the flea market.

Backyard Grocery:
On our way out the door to the flea market, we picked a couple of black cherry tomatoes from the front porch and popped them into our mouths! Yum!

I didn't feel much like dinner tonight but Doug and Weslee had a salad among other things. Doug picked some yellow pear tomatoes from our inside front window and grabbed a few radishes I harvested the other day.

It's a good feeling to KNOW that I can help provide for my family.

Our next home: we will have enough room to plant LOTS of fruit trees: apples, pears, apricot and whatever else we can get to grow at our elevation and climate. And nut trees: walnuts and almonds. Wonder if we can get pinion pines; I just love pine nuts?!? And hopefully we'll have a sunroom where we can successfully grow bananas and avocadoes - I could eat one of each daily!

Vikki http://www.newviewgroupllc.com/

10/18: Bits and Pieces

Backyard Grocery:
We got a late start today, but accomplished a lot. When we pulled the dried-up gourd vines from the front yard, we discovered a pumpkin and a birdhouse gourd that were hiding. Then Weslee used our push-mower to cut down our very tall grass (WAY against town rules). We also pruned the rose bushes and tomato plants, and Weslee watered them. Doug picked more string beans from the dead corn patch; amazing how the beans survived last week's hard frost.

Didn't get to the apples. Bummer.

Kid Whispers:
Weslee made us so proud today, doing a great job on the lawn. He also was very sweet and loving. When Spirit (our dog) indicated she wanted to play with her frayed rope, we called to Weslee to pause his movie (Star Wars) and he ran up to the living room. We played hard for about 20 minutes until Spirit plopped down, dead tired.

He's a good kid. We'll find our way.

Other:
Didn't get much down with anything else. Walked the dog. Tidied the house a bit. Ate chocolate chip pancakes for brunch. Met our new neighbors (house foreclosed just last month). And made our front yard look pretty good. Doug researched a few things for our next house, and made some reservations on Netflix.

Wow. Not too much for a Saturday.

Vikki http://www.newviewgroupllc.com/

10/17: Bits and Pieces

Here's just a few thoughts:

New View Group:
See: http://newviewgroupllc.lefora.com/forum/category/all/page1/

We finally got our forum's topics all set up; looks good, doesn't it!! For those interested in having a "backyard grocery", there's the gardening topics, like pests, container gardening, and companion planting. And for those who want to help the new kids of today, there's the "kids" topics like labels, "planet protectors", education, and special gifts. Please feel free to check out our forum, and contribute to or start a discussion!

Backyard Grocery:
Our across-the-street neighbor has a couple of apple trees in his back yard. Doug and I noticed them as we were walking our dog, Spirit, past his house last week. A day later, Doug walked over and asked the owner if he would trade some of his apples (yellow and red) for some of our tomatoes. The neighbor said we could have as many as we want; he hadn't sprayed them this year and they were full of worms. We took over 2 plastic crates, but found only enough decent apples to cover the bottom of each. Unfortunately we had to leave many because they had squirrel bites or worms or were rotten. (In exchange, we took over a gallon-size baggie of tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, etc.)

We've dehydrated some (yum - with cinnamon), and plan to dry some more tomorrow (Saturday). It's a time consuming process because of all of the rotten and wormy areas. Then once the dehydrator is loaded again, we'll use the rest to make homemade applesauce. First time!

I walked outside today to check on the front yard sunflowers, and was amazed. A butterfly had alighted on the biggest sunflower. For a good 5 minutes I watched it go from one bit to another, went inside for the camera, and since it was still there, I snapped a few pictures of it. I'll post them when I can get a moment to download them.

Kid Whispers:
Weslee continues to amaze me. He's terrified of spiders but he sweetly and efficiently waters our tomato plants, indoor and out. He must have said "thank you" to me a hundred times today.

When do children outgrow their love for the cartoons they loved when they were preschoolers?

Thanks for reading! Vikki... http://www.newviewgroupllc.com/

10/09: Family Time

I wish someone could hear what I hear. I'm sitting in the living room, our dog curled up beside me while I work on our webpage for money advice (www.newviewgroupllc.com/money.html). I can't help but overhear.

Doug is upstairs with Weslee (almost 12), repairing the toilet, and explaining to Weslee what he's doing. Step by step. Asking questions and answering them. Even letting him help a little.

Interesting.

This is good for our little mingled-family.

Vikki www.newviewgroupllc.com

10/07: Bits and Pieces

Weather:
We had our first "freeze" last night. Temp was around 38 when we got up. Since we're moving in the Spring, we decided to not cover the strawberries, et al. It was a bit warmer today than expected but we're expecting night temps in the mid 20's this weekend.

Harvest:
We did, however, harvest everything we could last weekend: about 2 gallon bags of various tomatoes, 3 heads of celery, 2 zucchini, 20 corn cobs that we left to dry on the stalk (but finished drying in our 150 degree oven), 6 Mexican X-Top winter squash, 3 butternut squash, 3 cross-pollinated squashes that we have no clue about, 3 pumpkins, several small green-striped gourds, 2 birdhouse gourds, 1 dipper gourd, and several other things like eggplant. We picked the rest of the melons also (several crenshaw muskmelons, sugar baby watermelons and tam dew honeydew). YUM!

Weslee:
With the change in the weather, brought the change of clothing. He tried on all of his pants today, and found that he'd outgrown most of them. Guess we'll be hitting Wal-Mart and the thrift store again next week.

He's having a bit of trouble concentrating on schoolwork now that we have a new member to our family, so I've decided to give him a partial two-weeks off. He'll continue with his reading assignments (he's reading "The Red Badge of Courage" now) and listening to his math rap CD's.

I'm sure he's benefiting from taking Spirit out a few times a day. While our block isn't big, it's a lot of territory for tiny dog legs and Weslee is learning responsibility while getting some fresh air and exercise.

Business:
We stopped our association with vTribes as of today. We didn't get what we expected and paid for, so they've accepted our cancellation. We're working now on getting things going on our website (address below).

That's it for now. Have a great week! Vikki www.newviewgroupllc.com

9/12/08: Pic Catchup: Family

8/14/08: Here's my goofy Weslee posing with his last assigned paragraph he wrote before we broke for a 2-week summer break in Aug. He wrote about the Titanic, one of his favorite subjects.

8/20/08: Here's Doug posing with the first sunflower that opened (in our "corn patch"). It's the smallest sunflower (odd) as you can see in the forefront a very tall one that is about 10 or 11 feet tall. Unfortunately, as of 9/11/08, with the constriction of the bindweed, it's bent almost to the ground. Bummer.

Vikki www.newviewgroupllc.com

9/12/08: Bits and Pieces

Weather:
We woke up to rain this morning (near Denver, Colorado), and snow in the Eisenhower Tunnel (up in the Rocky Mountains). We're supposed to get a high of around 62 degrees today, then 70's and 80's over the next 7 days. Hoping the garden survives today's cold weather so that it can thrive again in the warmer weather to come.

Politics:
Not going to say much about politics today but ... according to this link: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/maverick, here's what they say about "maverick": Etymology (Samuel A. Maverick died 1870 American pioneer who did not brand his calves, 1867)

Definitions:
1: an unbranded range animal; especially : a motherless calf
2: an independent individual who does not go along with a group or party
Who's a maverick? Does he/she know the definition? What's so independent?

Garden:
We picked another sugar baby watermelon last night - it had been hiding in its vines so when we spotted it with it's very yellow bottom, we thought it would be probably past ripe. We cut it open and were surprised to find it light pink - barely beyond white. It tasted ripe so we ate it, but are still puzzled. AND it had more seeds than any other watermelon we've ever seen. Odd.

Weslee had a freshly-picked raw corn yesterday for lunch. Last night I picked two ears of corn for Doug's lunch today. Shucked, silked and placed in a baggie (we eat corn raw - yum). He also picked a green bean that he saw in the corn bed, and I snagged three radishes that had "popped up" - done!

We also saw some cucumbers and tomatoes so those are sitting on the kitchen counter ready for washing and preserving.

With today's rain, guess I won't get out there to plant more carrots, beets, radishes and onions. Bummer. Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the weather report!

Health:
Doug is still having a bit of problems with his sinuses but at least the ringing is gone. His head still massively hurts. Guess we'll sleep in tomorrow.

Weslee's as healthy as a horse. Only rarely has he come down with a cold or virus, usually from direct contact with someone with a communicable germ. He willingly eats the carrots fresh from the garden, and sometimes I catch him "sneaking" green beans from the garden. I strongly believe his good health is due to his excellent eating habits.

Too bad I don't have the same. I'm now in the 36th hour of major heart palpitations. Doug and I were so concerned last night that the last thing I said as he drifted off to sleep was "If I die tonight, make sure Weslee knows I love him." P.S. I just looked at the bottle of Excedrin Migraine that I've been using for a few days, and it has CAFFEINE!! No wonder I'm having palpitations - I haven't tolerated caffeine since 1982! Geez.

Still, I'm concerned about my weight. (I can't believe I'm blogging about this, but it's a big part of my life.) My situation possibly could be because I've gained so much weight over the last 6 months but it doesn't matter. I HAVE to do something so that I can go to sleep at night knowing I'll be getting up in the morning, and so I can go up and down our stairs without getting winded. Guess today really is the first day of the rest of my life.

Vikki www.newviewgroupllc.com

8/11: Weslee's Letter: Disney's Atlantis

To: The World

In 997 AD, somewhere off the coast of Iceland, a viking ship was attacked by a huge sea serpent, killing everything on it. It destroyed it and then disappeared. The only thing that didn't get destroyed was a book called "The Shepherd's Journal", the key to finding Atlantis, the Lost Empire. Most of Atlantis is submerged under water. Even more sadder is that most of the people died during the tsunami but the legend that Plato described will live on forever. Maybe you could find it someday.

Weslee Lawrence

08/11/08

Copyright (c) 2008 Weslee Lawrence

Note: Weslee is fascinated with Atlantis and loves Disney's version of what happened. He would love to find the real Atlantis but meanwhile is somewhat content to watch the movie, read books and use his paragraph-writing time to think about it. Vikki

8/08: Weslee's Letter: Teeth

To: The World

You need to take care of these: Your Teeth. Brush for 2 minutes, then floss, and you can use Kid's Anti-Cavity, Inspector Hector and Smart Rinse to keep your teeth extra healthy. Health teeth is more important than having whiter teeth. Take care of your teeth 2 times a day.

Weslee Lawrence

08/08/08

Copyright (c) 2008 Weslee Lawrence

Note: this paragraph was written as part of his schoolwork, assigned by his Mom. Notice by looking at the picture that he prefers Tom's of Maine toothpaste. You can't really see the Wal-Mart glow-in-the-dark flosser in his left hand.

8/08: Harvest and Olympics

Here's a beautiful tomato plant. Errr, I think I put two plants in one pot. There's the red slicer towards the bottom left, and upper, there's what we believe to be Razzle Dazzle Tomatoes (purple). Turns out this isn't the only pot with more than one kind of tomato in it. Next year, I promise, we'll keep unfadeable labels!

This is our harvest for today! Lots of beans (soybeans, we think) - they are washed and waiting for the freezer. Quite a variety of tomatoes (red slicer, red cherry, golden mama, kellog orange breakfast, yellow pear, thai pink egg, and the purple razzle dazzle). Plus the beautiful yellow squash, and two cucumbers. I think we now have enough cucumbers to make up a batch of pickles.

As I type this, the whole family is on our master bed, watching the Olympics Opening Ceremony. We're at Finland in the Parade of Nations. Unfortunately the massive rain in Denver messed up our signal so we missed quite a few parts of the first and second hour. We LOVED the dancing and drumming and everything so far. Excellent job, China.

Ordered the software for the business today through http://www.vtribes.com/. Planning to spend a lot of this weekend working on http://www.kidwhispers.net/ and http://www.backyardgrocery.net/ so they can be up and running next week.

Weslee did his assignment (one paragraph about anything) today but we have lot track of time. Will post his paragraph and accompanying picture tomorrow. Today's topic was: teeth.

I didn't water the garden in hopes that the promised rain for Thornton would come; ha, it didn't materialize up this far. Guess we better water first thing in the morning. Vikki

8/07: Weslee's Letter: Inventions

To: The World

So many inventions have been made: the cart, zipper, wheel and axle, lock, roller skates, elevator, show straps, sandwich, aquagear, frisbee, telescope, level, pulley, wedge, airplanes, hot-air balloons, telegraph, television, radio, phonoraph, telephone, analog computer, holography, and the calculator are inventions. These were all created by the mind. YOU can make your own invention. Just use your imagination.

Weslee Lawrence

08/07/08

Copyright (c) 2008 Weslee Lawrence

8/06: Weslee's Letter: Applesauce

To: The World

Applesauce looks like an apple got squashed. Here's how they make it: 1st they skin an apple. 2nd they core the apple. 3rd they squash the apple, then cook it into applesauce. Package it then sell the squash apples.

Weslee Lawrence
08/06/08

Copyright (c) 2008 Weslee Lawrence

Reminder: 11 yr old Weslee writes these paragraphs as part of schoolwork assigned by Mom.

8/05: Weslee's Letter

To: The World

Milk comes from female mammals. Other animals that aren't mammals don't give milk. Some cow's milk has the drugs that the cows were given. So get organic instead. Goat's milk has just a little bit of the same problem. As I said, milk comes from female mammals!

Weslee Lawrence

8/05/08

Copyright (c) 2008 Weslee Lawrence