A big thank you

We Did It! 100,000 Days of Clean Drinking Water

Thanks to so many of you, my blog has helped generate 100,000 days of clean drinking water through P&G Children's Safe Drinking Water Program (P&G CSDW). We crossed the finish line with hundreds of other bloggers who embedded the P&G Clean Water Blogivation widget on their sites. Every time a reader clicked, P&G committed to make one day (2 liters) of clean drinking water available to someone in need in a developing country.

To help you, our readers, understand the impact you made by pitching in with the Blogivation, check out this video about P&G CSDW's work in Tanzania. It's just one of the many stories about people who P&G CSDW – with the help of partners like World Vision, CARE, Save the Shildren and others – has been able to provide access to clean drinking water.

The PUR packet – developed by P&G in collaboration with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention – is an innovation that quickly turns contaminated water into clean, drinkable water. Every day more than 4,000 children in developing countries die, simply because they don't have clean drinking water, and more than 1 billion people around the world do not have access to clean drinking water

For that reason, I am so excited to have been able to make a positive impact through the P&G Clean Water Blogivation on Changents.com. We hope you will stay involved on the P&G myGIVE Facebook page – for each new "like" and "share" through January 31, P&G will donate an extra day of clean water – and continue supporting extraordinary Change Agents around the world through Changents.com, our partner in helping P&G rally our readers to GIVE a day of water.

Amazing music, have to share!

Ok, I'm usually that mom that only listens to music when the kids are asleep, otherwise in the car we have the dvd player going to keep my sanity. My mother sent me a link to a youtube video of a group called Straight No Chaser, and I'm in love! It's a group of ten men who sing acapella and every time I listen to it I get the goosebumps. I am currently listening to their Christmas music and for the first time this year I am truly in "the spirit"! I even made my labor intensive Christmas sugar cookies and awesome frosting - three hours later I have super yummy cookies and I am humming along with every song :) Hubby put Straight No Chaser holiday into his pandora account and it's been piping into our kitchen all evening! YAY!!

I love this part of the holidays, this is what makes me personally smile. The last few days before the big day - giving that woman in line behind you the five dollar coupon you didn't use just for the heck of it, making holiday cookies with my family, listening to acapella holiday music, and knowing how big my family's smiles will be in a few mornings when we start to open presents!

Ok, here's my fuss for the month

I know it's December, and I should be happy about everything right now, and for the most part I am! However, I just read a post in a "community" on southern savers website. I use the site all the time for coupons and such, and they started a community I don't really understand yet. It seems to be a place for women to hang out online and talk, but I can't figure out a real navigation system or a reason to waste my time getting lost in useless chatter. Ugh. However, I popped "gluten free" in the search box and there were actually a number of posts about gluten free. The one that really caught my eye was a girl asking if going gluten free was truly a health benefit for the average person, or if it was just a fad diet.

That annoyed the snot out of me, and it wasn't her fault. It's the issue she innocently asked about. Do you know I have been told after getting sick on a "gluten free food" by the company who made it that no one has to test that a food is "completely gluten free" to label it so??? Yep, from what I have been told the gov't is trying to get some parts per million law passed but so far nothing is regulating what is actually sold as gluten free. So thank you fad dieters - while yes, you have shed some light on the plight of all of us who HAVE to eat a gluten free diet, you have now flooded the grocery stores with fakes!!

I am one of those unlucky (or lucky I guess) celiacs, if I eat even a crumb of gluten I'm sick for a few hours (for one crumb). I have gotten sick on Amy's Frozen Pizza, Amy's frozen lasagna (and that is why I don't eat Amy's!), and stupidly I once tried "gluten free oatmeal". Yes, I knew I was going to get sick but I had to prove to myself that oats can't be grown gluten free... they grow and are stored with wheat!!!

So thank you to all the companies trying to capitalize on a gluten free diet fad, for making people like me have to work even harder to find foods to eat!

Homemade Gluten Free Creamy Soups and Chowder Recipe

Over the last few days I have been talking with hubby about soups. I miss soup - New England Clam Chowder, Chicken & Stars, all those soups people eat out of a can without thinking!! So I decided to peruse the web and try to learn how to make a creamy soup. I was amazed at how easy it was, and so far have made an amazing ham and potato chowder, and last night a lovely cream of chicken soup. It's almost like a chowder, the broth is so thick, and omg is it amazing. I am in love!

*as always, if you are making this as a gluten free recipe check your ingredients to ensure gluten free status! I have brands I am very loyal to, but I still check every time I buy a new container to ensure nothing has changed on the ingredient list.

To make a chowder type soup simply get 3 to 5 cups of water boiling, and throw in whatever veggies you want. You'll learn quickly what to throw in first, and what to put in last, so they have the desired consistency. My first try my celery was super crunchy, but everything else was right so for us the celery and carrots boil for five minutes before adding potatoes or onions and such. I threw in a chicken boullion cube for both soups I made, and let that boil in. For ham I just threw in diced ham and was done, for chicken I skillet cooked cubed chicken breast in poultry seasoning, then threw that into our soup. Last step is tricky, so have your three ingredients measured and a whisk ready. Melt 4 to 5 Tbs of butter in a medium sized pot, then stir in the flour. The moment the flour is stirred in start SLOWLY pouring in two cups of milk, stirring nonstop with that whisk. If you get lumps, stop pouring and stir out the lumps. Make sure you get the edges of the bottom of the pot, we don't want dumplings! Keep stirring until all the milk is in, by now you should have a nice smooth whitish liquid. Keep stirring slowly over medium heat until it suddenly starts to thicken, and shut off the heat. Thicken it a tad more in the pot off heat, just stirring, then stir it into your soup!

Yes, it's easy! Next post I'll let you know how we make out trying creamy tomato soup and a beef soup :) WOOHOO!!

Happy Holidays everyone!!!

Today's Funny :)

Our twins' friend turned three a few weeks ago, and we went to his awesome party. Mom served a really yummy homemade chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, which my twins fell in love with. She used paper plates and plastic forks, which my two must have associated with getting birthday cake because the next week when I drove into work to have lunch with my bosses and coworkers my twins got all sorts of excited when they saw the plastic forks come out, and started yelling BIRTHDAY CAKE!! So now plastic forks mean chocolate cake in our family ;)

Gluten free crab chips

A good friend brought us some UTZ crab chips from up north, and I almost cried when I read "a gluten free food" on the back of the bag!!! I LOVE CRAB CHIPS!!! For the nonfollowers of UTZ chips, crab chips are the greatest potato chips ever made covered in chesapeake bay crab seasonings. Mmmmmmm they are just so DARN GOOD!! She brought hubby some UTZ hot chips, he took a ziploc bag of each kind of chip to work with him today and is in heaven right next to me :)

It's days like this that make me happy to have found a gluten free food that is SO DARN YUMMY, and makes me sad all at once because it makes me realize how many foods I MISS!!!

THANK YOU UTZ!!!

Studentsfirst.org

Wow, that is what I have to say about this wonderful woman who is trying to change our public school system for the better. Did you know we are #23 out of 30 developed countries in reading and math skills??? That is just unacceptable... and I won't rant, anyone who knows me understands this is the reason I homeschool. The public school system failed my child! If anyone is interested, check out the site - she's going to change our world someday!

Writer's Block

I have been compiling my own recipes into a book for at least two years now, and it became this pigsty of a book, I could never find the recipe I was looking for, and it frustrated the snot out of me. So I dumped it all onto the table and spent three hours putting it into the order I wanted it, so it was usable for me! Now there are recipes that aren't mine in there (so I can locate them) and recipes that aren't gluten free (ok, one - so I can remember how to make hubby green bean casserole every holiday). I have my recipes typed into a document, well most of them, but I just have no idea what the heck to do with them now! Do I start a new document with only the recipes I want to put into a book? Do I go through "my book" and add the good ones I have added since typing them up six months ago? I have come to hate the idea of even publishing a cookbook - how do you get someone to publish it, how does all of that work? How do you market and sell it? Being gluten free, is that a mark against it? Ugh.

hip2save.com and coupondad.net

So everyone who knows me hears me talk about using southernsavers.com to coupon and ferret out deals. I have found myself using two new sites now, who find even better deals!! Hip2save.com and coupondad.net/blog both are excellent places to find good savings on items. I have saved SO MUCH on Christmas presents alone using these sites! LOVE IT!