It's Seriously HOT. Seriously!

Good lord. I woke up at 8am this morning. Yah - I got to sleep in for once! But I knew I needed to get my tail moving and out to the garden to pick the ever producing green beans. They are really coming out of my ears. At 8am it was already 80 degrees. That's crazy. So, I got the kiddos fed and dressed. Andy headed over to the hog barn to do chores, and me and the kids headed out to the garden. It wasn't long and I had beads of sweat literally dripping off my face. Gee-ross!!! I think I've mentioned before that I don't do well in extreme heat. (for the record, we are in an Extreme Heat Advisory until Wednesday or Thursday) It was brutal out there, but I managed to pick 3 gallons of green beans - again. We filled the sink full, and now I must blanch them to freeze. JOY! Not a process I love, but it must be done. Unless anyone wants to come unload green beans off of me. I also picked peas....and I will admit, they are not worth the time and effort. For $2 I think I'll go to the store and buy the frozen variety - my preference, petite peas. They are just as good and require no picking or podding. Someone please remind me this when I order my garden seeds for next year. When I made it into the house after picking the goods, my tank top was drenched, and I felt horrible. My stomach was nice and queasy - not sure if that was from the heat or the one too many beers with friends the night before. Even after a little 10 minute snooze, I didn't feel a whole lot better. Sure drained my much needed mojo for the day. I have a ton of crafty projects that need to get done this week for our 2011 Stampin' Up! Catalog Kick-off Party. Hopefully mojo will return after the kids go to bed tonight....
My sweet hubs took the boys to the County Fair this afternoon. I'll be anxious to see how that went over. Alex requested to see the cows, pigs, and hopefully a horse. No doubt his request will be granted. I hope they all come back in one piece along with the ice cream and root beer I requested! Nothing like a good ol' root beer float on a hot day.

Back when I was a young 'en - I used to stay at my Grandparent's farm for a couple of weeks during the summer. We'd walk beans - the old fashioned way of doing things - to get the weeds removed from the field. We'd go out for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours after supper. The plus was Grandma always gave us a dish of ice cream before supper, and on really good days, we'd have root beer floats. We'd sit on their steps, and cool off with those yummy floats - sometimes served up in old fashioned metal glasses. They were the best. We'd watch the fire flies buzzing around, and sometimes we'd even see deer off in the distance. I so loved those days! I hope that I can create memories like that for my kids....so I really hope that Andy brings home the goodies! I can already hear Will asking for a special treat! :)

Alrighty - I need to get supper rolling, and I'm feeling less than ambitious about it. Oh well. Pampered Chef recipe tonight. Maybe I'll feel pampered??? Have to admit - ya can't ever go wrong with a Pampered Chef recipe. They are always the best ever!!!
So, with that, I'll be done rambling, and get to work in the kitchen.

Bug Off!

This, my friends, is one reason I do NOT like living in the country! Flies! They have inundated my house....ugh! Typically, we use bug bombs in the house and that takes care of them. We haven't had a chance to do that yet this summer. Not that we haven't been gone for long enough periods of time, we just forget. So, now there are tons of flies in my house. They stay pretty well in the kitchen bathroom and my craft room. Basically where I am hanging out the majority of my days! I can about guarentee the bug bombs will get put to use in the near future.

For some reason they really like my ankles, er, cankles when I'm out picking beans in the garden. ANNOYING!!! I can't go out there anymore without a douse of bug spray on! It's like my new summer scent. I think Andy has become attracted to the smell of Off. Yick!

Speaking of beans. Lately I've felt a bit like a migrant worker. We have green coming out our.....you know! Just yesterday I picked three gallon buckets full! I have to say tho - yummy! There is nothing like fresh green beans. And I like to pick them young - before they develop that little seed inside. I seriously could eat a whole plateful! I'm not a huge fruit eater, and so I make up for that in veggies! I love veggies. Beets - they are the other thing we have been chowing down on. This year are beets are better than ever. The spot that our garden is in used to be the foundation of a shed. So the dirt sat there idle for 50+ years. The last few years are beets had no color inside of them and they really didn't have any flavor. We put some fertilizer on the garden this year and I think in conjunction with the ground being worked the last couple of years has helped. The beets are deep red, almost black and full of flavor. Yumm! We had those for supper tonight - they go great with grilled burgers. I've also got peas in the garden, but they've been slow. I think this will be the last year for those. They are really a pain in the ......! Now, we're just waiting on the sweet corn........it's awfully late this year, so I hope it'll be good.

Sorry, that's all I got today. Not much but blabber!

Sweet and Spicy Chicken Drumsticks

Hi all....when life hands you lemons....let's just say I've been drinking a lot of lemonade lately. or Michelob Ultra....I told you I wouldn't blog daily. But I didn't think it'd be 10 whopping days. Things have just been swamped around here. After we got back from our camping trip over the 4th of July, Andy noticed in the Sioux City paper that one of his college buddies' mom had passed away. He came home and immediately said we needed to get a sitter - for the next day! So, I called my awesome sister, and she agreed to help us out. Ironically, it wasn't long, and that college buddy called us. I felt so bad for him. His mom was 61 and died very suddenly of a brain aneurysm. So, so sad. Andy and his buddy have been friends for 18 years now! Andy had made several trips out to their house, and had spent quite a bit of time with them. It was nice to hear Andy's stories on our 2 hour drive over to the funeral. It's so nice and comforting to reminesce (I think).
After that funeral, I had to kick it in gear as far as working goes....so I've been working my tail off a bit. I'm driven tho - I've got a lot of goals that I really need work for. I fell a bit short on a couple of goals I had this past year, so need to work harder this year. (Our Stampin' Up! year runs July 1 to June 30th) Anyway.....these are all of the reasons for my lack of posting. Hopefully life will settle down a titch so I can be freed up just a little more.

Anyway...while we were camping I made these Chicken Drummies one night for the group of us. I had made them a couple of times at home - in the oven - and we all love them. Even my lil' Aubrie will eat an entire chicken leg! So, we decided to make them over the campfire. I had put them in a couple of aluminum pans, we set them over the coals and then we trekked off on a little adventure. I figured they needed to cook over the coals for about an hour and a half ( since I wasn't sure of the temperature). We were gone a little longer than expected...thanks to a horseshoe game and a couple too many brewski's! I was a little nervous that they would be overcooked. They were cooked, but not overly so. And they made up so many juices, and simmering in those juices for so long, they just fell right off the bone....they were good, but I thought they were better when cooked in the oven. If we make them on the coals or grill again, I think we will try poking holes in the bottom of the pan midway thru so that some of the juices run out.....maybe.
These are really super yummy, and I won't claim credit for the recipe - I got it from Taste of Home - I find a lot of their recipes to be easy and delish! This one ranks right up there:

Sweet and Spicy Chicken Drummies
2 C sugar
1/4 C paprika
2 T. salt
2 t. pepper
1 t. garlic powder
1 t. chili powder
1/2 t. cayenne pepper ( I leave this out for the sake of the kiddos!)
20 chicken drumsticks - although you may have enough seasoning to make up to 30

In a large resealable plastic bag, combine everything but the drumsticks. Add drumsticks a few at a time, seal and shake to coat.
Place in two greased 15 x 10 x 1 baking pans. ( I have used 9 x 13) Cover and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight. ( a small amount of juice will form in pan)
Bake, uncovered at 325 for 50 - 60 minutes or until chicken juices run clear and a meat thermometer reads 180.

I will add that I do cut this recipe in half when it's just our family. So, 10 drummies. There are never any leftovers. Ever. Will can eat 4 of these - and he's 5!!! Alex asked for chicken legs for lunch, and cried when I didn't have any!! They are very easy. Toss a salad to go along side, and maybe some veggies....you've got yourself a meal!

Go ahead - go try some!! If you have a Hy-Vee near you - drumsticks are on sale this week for 88 cents/lbs!!!

Iowa in July....

Humid. That's Iowa in July. Flat out humid. I'm one of those that likes heat. I like a good 85 degrees. Just get rid of the humidity. I can't deal with it. I had a heat stroke in a field similar to the one about when I was about 15. Ever since then....the humidity just kills me.

The corn loves humidity. Remember the other day I said there were probably times when you can actually watch the corn grow. I bet in the next few days, you'd be able to see it if you really wanted to. But who wants to do that. It will be growing fast here in the next few days, and pretty soon their little tassles will be sticking out, turning the fields into a new color. That's one of the great things about Iowa. The color is always changing. We are really green right now, and soon the corn field will turn to a beige color - only across the tops. If you were to fly above, you'd see a neat patchwork effect created by the yellow-beige tassles on the cornfields, the deep green soybean fields, yellow-green pasture ground. It's an awesome sight.

My garden is coming right along. I love fresh garden goodies. My all time fave - beets. Ya - I'm an odd one. And so is my hubby and all three of my kids. We all like them - a lot. This year we planted 3 rows of beets -which is quite a bit. I noticed the other day that they are starting to push up out of the ground. That means very shortly we'll be having some yummy goodness. I'm hoping to freeze some of the beet crop this year. We'll see. Typically I just boil them, skin them and slice them up, and throw on a slab of butter - real of course. This year I planted a new variety that claims we won't need the butter. Time will tell.

I also planted green beans which have little baby beans on right now. Beans are kind of a pain in my - you know where! They come on SO fast - it's hard to keep up with them. We've also got peas, zucchini, watermelon, squash, pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers, and sweet corn. Oh, and my strawberry and rhubarb patches. We've also got a blueberry bush to get in the ground. That's another story there that has to do with our lovely dog. I've got some raspberry bushes too. I noticed tonight that there are quite a few berries on - we planted them about 3 years ago and this might be the first year we get to pick berries. They are in a mess of a spot - along a fence that has become overgrown with grass that we don't weed eat often enough and would be remedied easily enough by some cows back on the farm. Again - another story. Back to my garden. Things are looking the best they've looked in years. I think part of that has to do with the fact that we've put a little more effort into it now that the kids are a bit more manageable. Also, Preen has been a tremendous lifesaver. I don't usually like to use chemicals in the garden, but we didn't use Preen last year, and the garden became and overgrown jungle. We ended up giving up on the gardening thing last year. The Preen made a huge difference this year. We could see where we used it and where we didn't. I'm pretty sure they make organic Preen too. I've also got some black hornet looking things eating my rhubarb leaves. I used Seven on those. It seemed to help until Mother Nature decided to downpour and wash it off. Are you getting the jist that I'm kind of a lazy gardener? Well, I kinda am. I like to garden. I just don't like to weed. And I suppose, if you are going to garden, veggies, flowers, any of it, weeding is part of the territory. It's just not fun when it's 95 and so humid that you can see the dampness in the air. Or you walk outside and instantly bead up. UGH!

Okay - that's all I've got for you today folks....hope it's cooler where you are!

Product review...

Lemi Shine. I was introduced to this product by my mother in law who also lives on a farm here in Iowa. We have interesting water. I don't know that are water is neccessarily "hard", but we do have a lot of calcium or lime in our water. And our dishwasher wasn't doing a great job anymore. It didn't mater how much detergent I used or didn't use. Our glasses were getting built up with film and our silverware was dulling. I had used plenty of dishwasher cleaners on an empty load. They didn't help. One day my husband and I completely took our dishwasher apart and removed as much limescale build up as we could. That was a tedious and disgusting job. And it didn't improve much of anything.
Insert Lemi Shine. I opened the bottle up. OMG! It smelled just like a Lemon Drop. It said to put some in on an empty load on your first use. I'm not one for following directions well. I was too anxious to see if it worked even a little bit. So, I followed the OTHER directions for your second load. I put in the Lemi Shine in half of the dispenser and my detergent in the other half. I shut the door and crossed my fingers. A couple hours later I opened the door and went right for a glass. OMG - it was like magic had happened in my dishwasher. The film that had built up over the course of - I don't know - a year??? - it was gone! I'm serious! GONE! My silverware was actually sparkling. And I hadn't followed those directions to run an empty load with the stuff first. Two years later - I'm still using it. On every load! That being said, for a while, it seemed to be hurting my silverware for a while. So I quite using the Lemi Shine in every load. I would use one of the Cascade Power Pacs with bleach and Dawn - or whatever they are called in between Lemi Shine loads. That helped. But now, I'm back to Lemi Shine with every load, and for the past 6 months I haven't had any issues, and I haven't had to pay the higher dollar for those Cascade Pacs.
Where do I get Lemi Shine? Target. Our local Wal-Mart does not carry it. And Target is about an hour away. So when I go, I buy about 3 or 4 cans of it. It also makes your dishwasher detergent last a lot longer, since you are just using half as much as before. At our Target store it costs about $3.64/can. You can buy it directly from lemishine.com, but I believe the cost is higher. Amazon also carries it, again more expensive. Therefore, I stick with Target!
If you are having problems with cloudy dishes - give it a try. I think you'll be glad you did.

FYI - Lemi Shine did not sponsor this post. This is simply my opinion!!!!

The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies....EVER!!!

I'm not kidding. I believe my husband has a sixth sense when I start baking these cookies. All of a sudden, he shows up out of no where.


At our house we refer to these cookies as Lisa Cookies. Lisa was the gal that used to take care of Will and Alex while I was still working. She is an awesome cook. My hubby used to joke that if anything were to happen to her husband, he was next in line. She said that Andy (my hubby) would have to wait in line. There were others in line before him. Once in a while Lisa would send cookies home with us. I could have ate all of them on the way home, afterall, it was a 20 minute drive - I could polish off a few cookies in that amount of time if I really wanted to. But I was kind. I saved them.


The recipe. It makes a lot. I'm not kidding.

Lisa's Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 C. brown sugar (dark is best)
1 1/2 C. white sugar
1 lb. margarine (4 sticks - I actually use real butter)
3 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
6 C. flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 pkg. mini chocolate chips.

Combine sugars with butter until creamy. Add eggs and vanilla. Sift together the flour, soda, salt, add to creamed mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Bake at 375 for 10-12 minutes.

Now - a few hints....if you have a stand mixer, that would be best to mix these up with. I DON'T! I've never had a stand mixer. Would I like one? Well sure - but right now, it's just not in the budget, and not really a necessity. I get by with my trusty ol' Black and Decker hand mixer!
I typically don't use mini chocolate chips. I use regular sized ones. Why? Well - I use our store brand (Fastco) chocolate chips, and they don't make mini. When using regular chip - I typically use about a bag and a half. Two bags is just too much.
I mentioned that I use real butter. This is one thing I splurge on. Have you ever read the ingredient list on margarine. ICK! Read the ingredients in real butter. Cream, salt. That's it. Can't get more real than that people! And I just like the taste of real butter much better - especially on toast or grilled cheese!
Do not overbake these cookies. I usually underbake slightly. They are just starting to get a bit golden when I pull them. Let them cool on the sheet for a minute and then transfer to a cooling rack. They really are best to eat after they've cooled about 10 minutes, then I put all of them in the freezer. For some reason, if you leave them in a container at room temp, they just tend to lose their freshness. So I freeze immediately. They are great right out of the freezer. Take 2 out, let thaw for about 5 minutes....mmmmm. My ass also thanks me for this. If I had cookies setting on my counter....I'd be huge!
One last thing - Lisa always fed these to teething babies - frozen of course! I did the same with Aubrie. Works way better than any other teether. And, I'm not finicky about what I feed my children at what age. So when she was teething at 6 months, I gave her a cookie. I don't know that she really got much off of it, she just gummed that yummy frozen goodness and was in heaven. Happy kids make happy moms!!!

That's all for today folks!

Welcome!

Hey there! I'm starting a new blogging venture here. For those of you who aren't familiar with my current blog, Stamped Silly, it's basically my paper crafting blog, and generally Stampin' Up! products. This blog tho, will be more about my life on the farm in Iowa. I will focus more on raising kids on the farm, a lot more recipes, some gardening, and sometimes an occasional rant!

I live in West Central Iowa. I am married to a typically great guy - he can have his days. And I'm sure if you asked him, I've certainly got mine! We have three children - two boys ages 5 and 3, and a girl age 1. Life is interesting here in Iowa, regardless of public opinion. While some may think that we like to watch the corn grow (and there actually are days I bet you could actually see it grow), we do have much more of a life than that.

I grew up in Iowa - about an hour north of where we currently live. My husband grew up about 7 miles from our house. His dad was born in the house we live in, and they currently own our home. This house has been in the family for many years - probably about 75 years??? Not sure. We live off the beaten path, and I wouldn't have it any other way. We can run naked in the yard if we wanted to. And my kids, well, there are days that they do!

I left my job as an insurance agent a couple of years ago to stay home with our kids. Our very dependable, very loving day care provider moved to another town, and I tried really hard to find a new sitter. But in the long run, it was best to stay home. I was thrilled. I wanted to give my Stampin' Up! business a really good shot, and my boys were getting easier to manage. Two weeks after I left my job, I became pregnant. I had very mixed feelings about it. We'd had some issues before at staying pregnant. I had miscarried several times at about 7 weeks. When I was pregnant with Will (our oldest), my doctor put me on progesterone. It worked. I took progesterone with Alex too (our middle one). I decided NOT to take progesterone with the last pregnancy, leaving it in God's hands. That's how many mixed feelings I had. I was content with two children. A third might distupt my system! And it did. I was tired for 12 weeks. VERY tired. And then, at 13 weeks I had an ultrasound. It was all smooth sailing (for the most part) from there. When Aubrie came into our world, we knew she was definately God's will! She fit in so perfectly with the rest of us.

So, now, here I am. Living the life in Iowa. It's not always easy, it's not always fun. But I can guarantee you that I look back on each day with a smile.

With this blog, I want to share some of the stories with you about the life of This Iowa Farm Girl. Some of the recipes that I create. FYI - I do like to cook. However, with a very limited budget, and the simple fact that I'm here in Iowa, I don't cook with high end products. I don't cook with anything that you can't find at your local grocery store. (I typically shop at Fareway - and if you aren't in the midwest, you probably haven't ever heard of them, but it's a great store! We also have Hy-Vee, and a No-Frills - aka No-thrills!) I don't use bizarre items in my cooking. I do try and cook almost all our meals. I'm not a huge fan of pre-packaged or frozen meals. I don't want to be called a hypocrit, so will admit that we do have chicken nuggets, chicken patties and some Hot Pockets in our deep freeze!

Now, let me state this - I may not be here every day to blog. I would like to be. I'm hoping that this blog will at least help me get some of my stories written down. Hope you won't mind the occassional rant on my hubby, my kids, or any other family members. I do have an opinion about things. And I'm afraid, I will share. Part of the reason for the blog. Like it or not. Don't expect political correctness here either. I'm not. I consider that a freedom of speech.

So, for now, that's all I've got, a brief introduction, some ideas about what's to come. I've got work to do while the kids are napping. And cookies to bake. Which will be the first recipe I think I'll share with you.....