Yummy Healthy Cookies!!!

Well, I have been reading a lot about the negative attributes of the modern wheat that has been so genetically modified that I personally wonder if we can even call it wheat anymore! 

It makes us crave it more, has more “sugar” in it than table sugar and is even higher in gluten which makes so many  more people sensitive to it!

I don’t have any official gluten sensitivities, but I have decided to go WHEAT free for a couple of weeks just to try it out.  In the last two weeks the only wheat products I had were a 1/4 of a muffin that was staring at me!!!  and a very small bowl of pasta that I had made a killer red sauce for that I will share another time… so of course I HAD to have some. But in the meantime, I have had no bread or sweets of the wheat based kind at all … and I have to say that the longer I go the less I’m craving… I guess it’s getting out of my system! 

I don’t plan on staying 100% wheat free but I have to say that I feel good enough that I am definitely going to stick to my “moderation” rule and keep the wheat on the lower end of the scale.  ( I have to share tho… I found a website where they sell the “old wheat” of days gone by that has no modern modifications to its genetic code and it’s a little expensive but worth it I think … so I may be ordering some in the near future… I’ll let you know what I think!)

OK… so anyway, last nite I decided to try out some other types of flour and make some cookies… they came out great!!!  I just started mixing stuff and VOILA’!  YUM!!!

Ok start with your mixer and throw this stuff in….

2 sticks butter and 1.5 cups sugar-1/2 white and 1/2 brown and mix together

3 Eggs

2 tsp Vanilla

1 cup Buckwheat flour

1 cup Coconut flour

1/2 cup Tapioca flour

1 cup Oats

5 tablespoons  MILA ground chia seed

1/2 cup raisins

3/4 cup chocolate chips

Mix all together and drop onto cookie sheet… I flattened them a little because they don’t flatten much on their own (which I figured out after first tray)

Cook til lightly browned on the bottom… about 8-10 min in a hot oven!  (around 350 degrees)

Well I wasn’t sure how they were going to taste, but they were amazing!!!

The kids devoured them and it was all I could do to hide a few for lunches today!

The coconut flour smelled soooo good as I opened the bag … it didn’t give the cookies a coconut flavor but it did add “something” to it…. just good stuff and the kids will have no clue as to what you are putting in their cookies!!! 

Please try this and let me know what you think!!!

Love tons!!!

♥Dorina

Wow…Silence IS Golden…and so is cake…

I want to thank all of you that are reading my blog right now especially reading about my SILENCE!

I started this blog as a combination of commentary on my life and experiences and about food which I believe is one of the most important things in life.  It slowly…well I guess not that slowly!… became more about food and recipes than anything else and most people wanted more recipes and more recipes!

Well, after writing on this blog…not as regularly as I originally had hoped and planned but still off and on for the last year and a half what I have found out about life is way more than I ever realized life was all about.

Yes, I still feel life is all about food.  A big part of it anyway.  Food is something we need for sustenance.  BUT… Food is also comfort, enemy, challenge, addicting, joyful, creative, love, spite, hurtful, tasty, take you somewhere else,  maintaining heritage and history, yucky, memory inducing stuff.

I personally have used food for comfort, for spite, for creating art, for showing love, holding on to memories, to make money, for running away to…for blaming. 

So…what am I getting at?  Well since most of my writing lately has been food and all of a sudden I take a Vow of Silence and write for days about that, I felt I just needed to write today about everything.

In being silent, I not only have learned all the things I have been already writing about, but I just feel more in control of everything in my life…and that includes FOOD.  I LOVE FOOD.  I love the smells, the flavors, the textures, the sizzle, the bubbling, the first bite and the last bite…I love making the food, creating new recipes, making healthy food taste good, designing the food on the plate, decorating cakes…and just about every other aspect of FOOD.

BUT  there have been times when that food has owned me.  In some of my craziness, depression, lonliness, fear, boredom I have eaten.  I’d eat when my head was saying “don’t eat that” yet my hand would go to my mouth just the same.  

In a way it was the same as when before taking my vow of silence I would tell myself to “just shut up Dorina” but my mantra to myself always seemed to come AFTER I had said something stupid…then I’d be beating myself up about it.  Just like when I’d put something in my mouth that I really didn’t want to eat, I’d beat myself up afterwards but that didn’t stop me from doing it again just like my shut ups didn’t really shut me up.

MAKING myself be quiet was awesome.  I have learned that self control should be more about changing your starting point…your initial thoughts…THEN you can control.

If you try to control while in the act…gravity takes over and it’s all downhill.

I used to think changing your thoughts was hard.  For someone stubborn like me…it was for a long time, but only because that is what I told myself. I realized the person that has the most influence over me is ME.  Wow…what a concept!  I was the one keeping me down.  I was the one telling me that I sucked at this and was no good at that.  I was my own worst enemy.  Pride got in the way.  Now really…what the hell did I have to be proud of???  NOTHING!!!!  Not about myself anyway.  I was a big mouth bully talking too much and not listening enough…eating too much yet not feeding my soul. 

I urge you…if you have ANY issues with your life whatsoever…try learning to control your thoughts.  Try a vow of silence for a couple of days, or even a day. Listen to yourself and realize that nothing outside of you matters if what’s inside of  you isn’t whole. 

You may have depression, anxiety, bi-polar etc in your family or you may just be a bit depressed about your life at the moment…or it just may be a short sad time because of some current tragedy in your family or just frustration with kids in high school which sends you spinning….

Whatever it is…these things I have done and am doing can help…they WILL help.  I will continue to write about what I have been doing this year because this is basically the culmination of a year of inner search in which my VOW OF SILENCE  was the clincher that made me understand all the cool stuff I had learned but in a sense only “memorized” but didn’t’ really “understand” as I think I do now.

May any of you who are mothers, or just in your 30’s or 40’s or 50’s (which can be depressing all by itself)…or just feel like something isn’t quite right in  your life, find your own peace.  I am here to tell you it can be fixed, and it is all worth the hard work. 

The first thing I am going to tell you to do is to please say a small prayer today giving thanks to God for all that you DO already have that is good in your life, and then just stop and go about your day thinking about that.  Then you can work on the rest.

Until we meet again, I wish you Peace. 

Love,

Dorina

Vow of Silence- Part 4

You know as I looked over my last three posts about my Silent Vow week, I see how many different things ranging from attitudes and behaviors, inner spirituality and God, self worth and respect for self and others, and just the health of my ears have been affected by the silence.  

I was going to kind of give up on the silence but now I think that just being a LOT more quiet the rest of the week will suffice.  I think an hour here or an hour there might be easy enough and not too annoying to those around me.   

I am actually thinking that my hour of cooking dinner might be good quiet time.  It is time when everyone is here but it is usually a kind of hairy and frenzied time with people coming and going, kids being hungry and homework trying to get done. 

But that one hour is also when I usually get crazy and the noise around me and the voices trying to be heard often include mine.  So I will take mine out.  Might just work…If I can keep my mouth shut during my most frenzied hour of the day, I just might be able to control that much more in my life.

I may do this forever…who knows!?!?!?!  

 Well, it’s time to make dinner…maybe I’ll say a little prayer for strength…

Actually todays quote of the day had to do with strength…

“Anyone can give up, it’s the easiest thing in the world to do.  But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that’s true strength.” 

And the amazing Jack Lalanne once said.. “A healthy person starts the day by counting their blessings”

I think I will follow his lead and add that to my daily routine.

Thanks Jack for all that you did for the world, may you Rest in Peace.

On that note I give thanks right now for my blessings today which are too numerous to list here…

Peace,

Dorina

Vow of Silence-Part 3

The weekend was more difficult.  The whole family around me for the whole day did not make it easy for me to be silent 100% like I would have liked. 

Kids and hubby got a little frustrated when they were talking to me and yet HAD to look at me to see if I heard or was going to respond somehow.

This just shows me how little we ALL give the proper attention to the people we supposedly care about. 

I have realized that undivided attention is one of the greatest forms of respect and also affection and love that we can offer someone.  When I have an upset child as I did yesterday and I took him in my room and he laid next to me on my  bed and I told him I thought that he must really be bummed about the issue and then he began to talk because I spoke to him in a way that showed I had heard him and understood him.  After not more than 5 minutes we had “made a deal” that I was going to help him with the issue and he was going to   try not to react to the situation while I was helping work on in…and he was happy again.

Amazing what just a few minutes of undivided attention does.  And giving that short amount of time at that point actually saved a heck of a lot of stressful time later. 

In being quiet, I find it easier to hold my tongue so to speak.

I say “so to speak” for this reason.

This morning my son Nico asked me why I was talking and I said that no one will allow me to finish out this week the way I want so instead of it being a VOW of SILENCE it is more a vow of pretty quiet.

So he asked…”Like holding your tongue?”  and I was about to say yes when I realize something right then…so I said “NO, because holding your tongue makes it seem like you have to hold something back…when you are being “silent” or “quiet” you are not holding anything back because you had no plans to say anything at all.  SO holding back is different and harder and means nothing has changed in your thoughts, feelings or instant reactions… you’re just HOLDING BACK your immediate reactive thoughts and feelings.

I now on the other hand feel like I have better than controlled my tongue.  I am changing my thoughts and even my feelings on a lot of things and definitely the way I am choosing to react to certain situations.

Words from other people, looks, sighs, gestures have always been triggers for me and set me off.

I am choosing not to read into things so much and just actually listen to the words. 

I feel that people may think they are saying what they want to say and the words themselves may actually have good meaning, but the tone, accompanying looks, and body language that goes along with those words can change their meaning completely.

I realized that I send off LOTS of non verbal signals, looks and negative body language when I am speaking totally NOT getting my original point across the way I had wanted to.  Inside thoughts and reactions to my own thoughts get in my own way!  Now that is sad…or I guess I should say WAS sad…. 

I don’t know if the 100% or even 90% Vow Of Silence I had initially hoped to keep up for a week is actually realistic when I’m living in a house with 6 kids- instead of going on a silent retreat somewhere.  I am sure that being silent when everyone else is also in silent mode is MUCH easier!  Being silent when people are calling you from the other room and trying to get there quick enough so they don’t think you are ignoring them and so then they keep yelling doesn’t help the situation and then would just fill your head up with more noise.  

I still would recommend doing it with the family tho because it really makes you see what you would have said in real life moments and situations and how different those moments became because you said NOTHING! 

So through all this I would recommend doing this for a day or two or three….definitely.  Even the first 24 hours offered me a great deal of insight but I am still seeing more every day now. 

Spiritually I found that it has made it easier to pray when I am quiet.  Instead of my standard….
“Please God…help me”  it almost feels like you can hold a conversation.  It really is almost like you are somewhere else.  Like a fly on the wall. Like invisible…YES  in a way it makes you feel invisible… You sort of feel that no one else is around…because unless they are talking to you, you are not really paying attention to the chatter around you just so you can try to stick in your two cents. You are JUST listening with no plans of speaking in mind.

I often say that 100 pennies still makes a dollar when it comes to saving, and so in this case your two cents should definitely be kept in your pocket…what a savings of your peace of mind and everyone around you if you start saving those 2 cents now.

So anyway, back to God…it’s almost like  you can feel a presence…or something that is more tangible and close- not so far off and distant in the heavens somewhere.  When you are just inside yourself…even when there are people around, it is an interesting feeling.  Like you are floating…like you are on the outside looking in.  It is like you can see yourself and how you “would have” interacted because you know yourself and know what you would have done but then at the same time you see how your NOT being in the fray makes a really big difference…in fact you might even see that you WERE the fray….as I realized I would have been a few of those times I was observing. 

Because of our very busy house…I was not able to be AS silent as I wanted.  BUT in a very short time I have learned amazing things.  About me and about people in general.  I see the speed at which everything travels…whether it is the boys getting food…and it has to be NOW because “I’m starving” or the quick rush in the house to turn on the TV after school…

Can we have a slow conversation?  No…it is a conversations with 10 people all speaking at once…people picking and choosing what they want to hear and what they want to react or respond to..and doing this all while hovered around an “under the counter”  9 inch TV in the kitchen.

I realized this craziness we call life as we currently know it has to stop.  I have to stop.  All we are doing is spinning our wheels and getting nowhere.

I know I haven’t gotten anywhere in years.  But I am going to change my driving habits.  I’m driving with all wheels on the ground.  I’m driving slower.  In driving slower I will never have to slam on the brakes or back up because I will be traveling at a pace where I had the time to respond to a situation up ahead instead of having to react quickly to it…which could still cause an accident.  I will also be able to enjoy the scenery and the breeze in my hair instead of the wind that blows in my face when I’m driving too fast and then my hair gets in my eyes and once again I can’t see clearly.  But I thought I loved the wind in my face.  So I never used to notice that I couldn’t see.  Now I see.  

This QUIETness that has become more me all of a sudden is I THINK the me I was searching for my whole life.  It’s the ME who can actually see ME.  I was always looking outside for affirmation, confirmation, affection, attention, but now…I realize all the love and affirmation and attention I need is within me.  I am within me.  God is within me.  I am good.  I can do things well.  I am strong.  I am kind.  I am compassionate.  I care about others.  I love with all my heart.  I am beautiful inside and out. 

All the things that I didn’t like about myself were really only one thing.  And now that is gone…disappeared…poof…into the quiet air that I hear so much more in now….and I think I have the one thing that will carry me thru the rest of my life…
WOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW….. I just  REALLY figured out what that ONE thing was that Curly the cowboy tried to tell Billy Crystal in City Slickers. Hmmmmmm………..I wish he’d said it out loud in the movie…I might have gotten all this a long time ago! 

I must say…Just be quiet–long enough– and you might figure out what yours is too. 

Thank you God for all that I have and all that I will have and the people that I love and love me.

and thank you God for not letting me get old and die without figuring all this out…. 

Peace,

Dorina

Vow of Silence-Part 2

Well since yesterday at noon when I last wrote, I had a pretty quiet day until last nite when I went to a “business” gathering and got to speak for a couple of hours…altho even there most of the time I was listening…

Oddly, I am finding that even when I MUST speak or have my pre planned necessary “speaking times”  I don’t want to talk! 

So anyway,  yesterday, I pretty much was home the whole day, just cleaning house since it had snowed and I had no desire to go out until I had to in the evening. 

I didn’t talk to Pat on the phone and I didn’t talk to anyone else on the phone either.  I “showed” my mom how to set up “google chat” and we “chatted” for a few. 

She really wants me to share all this stuff and the “enlightenment” I am gaining from it all. 

Enzo (19) and Leo (18) went to a concert last nite and a friend was here with them for a bit before they all left…I was making bread for the meeting I was going to and even with a guest over, I didn’t speak except to tell him briefly why I wasn’t speaking…I didn’t want the kid to think I was some mean mom (he’s a newer friend) who wouldn’t talk to a guest that was waiting for my boys to get ready to leave!!! 

Later when I was at the meeting, someone I was telling about what I was doing compared it to a fast.  It really is a fast in a way….yet I don’t feel deprived at all.

In fact I am almost resenting the times that I have to speak….and when I am speaking, I am finding that I am speaking more quietly…softly almost.  Almost sounds strange even to my own ears, but it sounds nice.

I’m liking it alot.

I am finding that I am “speaking” more with a smile or a look or a short gesture and getting my point across very easily.  I have at times been mouthing words and I think the whole family will be great lip-readers by the time I am done!!!  haha! 

I have found that before this, when I would speak, it would be very easy for kids to pretend they didn’t hear me and not look my way and disappear before I noticed they were gone and hadn’t picked up a dish or whatever…

NOW, I get their attention with a quick snap of the fingers or tap on the counter and they LOOK at me…so they are paying attention and SEE my gesture to clear a dish or pick something up!!!  No getting away with disappearing when you get eye contact!

You can pretend you don’t hear but you can’t pretend you don’t see!

Very interesting! 

But in the meantime, I am finding also …and this is weird and I don’t get it… but everything is a little cleaner.  I feel more energetic I think too, so cleaning up after my crazy crew doesn’t seem as difficult.  Maybe I have more energy for house cleaning etc because I am not expending energy talking or yelling.  I also find I am feeling a bit calmer all the way around.  AND, I think part of it is that everyone seems a bit more helpful…maybe because they are calmer too and so less pissy when I want them to do something…in fact everyone is washing their own dishes and cups more often than ever before. 

I had to speak a bit more today than I had hoped or expected because we went into the city to check out the School of Visual Arts for Leo  but all in all it was still a quiet day for me and I enjoyed it very much. 

Well, it is midnite and I am going to bed…Yay! more quiet time ahead…SLEEP!!!  🙂 

 Buona Notte

Dorina

Vow Of Silence

Hello!

Today I am going to begin writing about something different and unusual.  You see, since noon yesterday, I have taken a vow of silence for a week.  Originally I sent out an email to my mom and few close friends that I speak to most often so that they wouldn’t think I was ignoring them!  But now I am finding the experience to be quite enlightening so I want to document these days.

 First, This is the email I sent out before beginning… 

Hello my friends and family
I am going to come straight to the point…
those of you that know me know that I have always had a “big mouth”…
saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, over-talking people, cutting people off, turning the conversation back to me, taking the conversation over, always needing to be right or in control, etc etc etc—
NOT how I want to be.
 
SO–knowing this about myself…what do I do?
Well I’ll tell you.
For the next week, I am taking a vow of silence.  Except for my two hours that I have to coach and my doctors appt, I will not be reachable by voice unless it is an emergency.  
I will text, email, write on paper or try my hands at sign language but I will not speak to you.
 
What I will do is LISTEN.  
I hope in the end, the thing I will come out with is better listening skills…a clearer head…less need to be heard.  I hope that like Carmelite Nuns or Tibetan Monks, I too can find some peace in the silence.  
I know you all are wondering how the heck I am going to do this– ME of all people…and that is exactly why I want to do it.  Call me crazy,,,in fact call me whatever you want this week….you’ll get NO argument back from me.
 
Love Always,
Dorina

Two of the responses I got were interesting…and different!

*I know you can do this. I know someone that yearly goes on a retreat where they do not talk.  He said that it is very strange at first but you get used to it.

*OMG…….i cant believe you are going to do this. Can you do this??? I couldn’t do it…..What are you going to do when you need to discipline the kids???/                                                                                          BTW…your first statement of having a “big mouth” describes me too!!! I have tried in the past to be more conscious of it…but I don’t think it has worked…..I always fall back into my old habits!  Good Luck!!
I THINK THESE ARE DEFINITELY THINGS I WILL BE ABLE TO RESPOND TO WHEN THIS IS OVER…OR MAYBE EVEN BEFORE!

So…what posessed me to do this?  
Well, I was in a “mood” the other night and stuff just kept spewing out of my mouth that was not serving me AT ALL!!!
So in my frustration with myself, I said…”you know, I should just wire my damn mouth shut!”  then I proceeded to tell whoever was listening about a girl I knew from high school who had surgery on her jaw

and she survived altho she could sort of talk thru her teeth!!! 

Anyway, I went to bed that night and this crazy idea began to form…and “vow of silence” came to mind.  So of course I got up and went to my computer and looked up “vow of silence” and “Tibetan Monks” who everyone knows don’t speak and “Carmelite Nuns” which I knew about growing up going to Catholic school…

What I found was interesting and believe it or not the following 3 points from Wikipedia I think sum it up quite well…

• As an aid to the practice of good, for we keep silence with man, in order the better to speak with God, because an unguarded tongue dissipates the soul, rendering the mind almost, if not quite, incapable of prayer. The mere abstaining from speech, without this purpose, would be that “idle silence” which St. Ambrose so strongly condemns.
• As a preventative of evil. Seneca, quoted by Thomas à Kempis, complains that “As often as I have been amongst men, I have returned less a man” (Imitation, Book I, c. 20).
• The practice of silence involves much self-denial and restraint, and is therefore a wholesome penance, and as such is needed by all.

Well, point one is good…my “tongue has often been unguarded” and has caused me problems… and I am finding that it feels somewhat spiritual.

In preventing evil as point 2 says, it keeps me from saying mean things etc and I do already after only 24 hours think that this is going to turn out, like in point 3 to be something I am going to recommend as needed by all…but I guess I’ll see after the 7 days. 

OK…so here is my story of the last 24 hours.

Before noon yesterday I got all the “business” phone calls I had to make done so that I wouldn’t have to do it later.  Then at noon I shut the mouth.

Even with two of my aforementioned “exceptions” in one day yesterday, –I had an eye doc appt at 2:30 which had already been made and I had to coach last night so I had about 3 hours of “talk time”  I still had many hours of quiet time anyway.  And STILL I already feel I’ve gotten a lot out of it.

So I was texting with my hubby Pat and he wanted to know how the kids were taking it.  I told him they were pretty good.  Then I had to come back and tell him otherwise because my 13 year old son was having issue with it.  He thought it was dumb…especially when I was trying to get him to do something without my “telling” him. He said ” Just talk already!”  But I used my chalkboard in the kitchen or just pointed and everyone seemed pretty much fine with it.  In fact the big boys -the college twins- think its great!!  haha!

By the time the night was over even Mr. 13 was fine.  Just took some getting used to!

Dinner was rather quiet…I guess I often start conversations…but it was pretty nice.

So that is them…what about me?

Well, what I have figured out so far…

When I am talking, I am not listening.

Even when I am NOT talking at the moment, I am more focused on what I am going to say next than listening,  I find I am preparing my response to what someone else is saying before they even finish. So…therefore not REALLY listening,

I’m finding that I am already becoming more tolerant of the things going on around me because I am not reacting to them…which I usually do with my mouth–BECAUSE I CAN’T TALK! 

The kids arguments seemed to be shorter because I wasn’t butting in.  I only had to point my finger and give a dirty look once last night. I think that’s pretty good.

Some of the other questions I got from Pat via text that made me think were…

p-Is the silence maddening?

d- no actually…I realize I don’t like hearing me either

–(interesting thing to figure out about yourself)

and then at one point I told him

d- you know on one hand it’s easy and on the other hand it’s not.

p- I can imagine

(but out of this I realized… no one can imagine this… I did have this grand idea of what it was going to be like but in no way did I realize it the way it is hitting me) 

and then later, when I was at soccer practice he texted me

p-how does it feel to talk?

d-it felt weird actually…like I wanted to whisper at first

p-weird

(it really was weird at first…especially talking to my own kids who I had been quiet with for the whole day!  but I think what was more strange was the fact that it felt that weird already after being quiet only the better part of one day) 

Now… Today…

This morning went very smooth.  Of course with snow and a two hour school delay it gave me more “morning time” … I got up and went about my morning breakfast business…made everyone french toast and eggs and coffee and lunches  AND what was interesting was that when I just pointed to each kid and their dish, they got up and WASHED IT and put it away!  I didn’t have to say a thing!  It was great!  And NO ARGUMENT about it either!

Hmmmmm….maybe there is something to this quiet thing…… 

Well that is it up to now…I have to say so far-so good.  

Peace,
Dorina

Giving Thanks

For the first time in a number of years we are going away for Thanksgiving. Boy do I need to get the hell out of New Jersey! I have been so stressed out in recent months and I can’t seem to shake it unless I am on a soccer field with the kids, cooking in my kitchen with my music playing drinking some vino or sitting here writing about it.

So as I sit here I am trying to decide what I am thankful for….but it has been a hard year.
Isn’t it sad when it seems hard to find things to be thankful for?

Let me see if I can piece it all together here…
Let’s go back a bit this year.
It was my twins senior year. That is a bittersweet time in the life of a young person as well as a mother. Enzo and Nico are my oldest…so it was tough for my first babies to be graduating from High School. Is it normal for Mother to want her babies to stay little?

**I am thankful that they graduated and were accepted to the school they wanted to go to.

My babies started college at Rutgers University in Newark. Wow! I am NOT old enough to have kids in college. NO WAY!!!

**I am thankful that I have raised them to this point and as 18 year olds I have really done my job and I think pretty well.

My LAST baby, Angelina, made her First Communion in the spring. My LAST First Communion in this house! My FIRST white DRESS (as opposed to the 5 white suits that came before). Of course hopefully there will be a second white dress in the future. (far off in the future…)

**I am thankful for the beauty that is my daughter and that I have succeeded in her reaching her first 8 years and making her First Communion.

Leo is now the Upper Classman at the high school in his Junior year…finally the “BMOC” (big man on campus)
and Tino is now also in high school…he was one of the “little kids” in the house until now….now he has passed into “big kid” territory.

**I am thankful and proud that Leo is a good big brother to his brother Tino the frosh and that Tino has melded so well into the high school life.
I am also thankful ahead of time that next quarter’s report cards are going to be better than the ones that just came!!! 🙂

Carlo has also started out on a new journey and is now in Middle School.

**I am so thankful that he has moved to the next level smoothly with good grades and lots of friends.

Financially things are tough all over…including at our house where we are now paying two college tuitions as well as for bigger clothes and shoes that cost so much more…not to mention cell phones and laptops and so on….

**I am thankful that even though times are tough, my darling Pasquale still has a job, and that my boys are now working as well and unselfishly “helping out” a bit around here.

**I am thankful we have raised GOOD PEOPLE.

OK….so I guess I should just shut up when I am thinking about how stressed I am. I mean really, I have to say that even though deep down I know all the things I just wrote about, from every dark cloud there comes cleansing rain and then a rainbow.
This moment writing right here on my blog–I am truly realizing all the things I have to be thankful for and it’s funny, but there is a common theme to it all….
What I am most thankful for in this life is the love of my wonderful husband who so unselfishly works as much as possible in these tough times to provide for his family even if it means not seeing them sometimes. I am also thankful that he hasn’t “kicked me to the curb” yet for the stressed out B#%$ I have been lately! I am truly thankful for the 20 years we have had together. I can’t wait to see what the next 20 will hold.
I am thankful for my 5 handsome sons who are loving and giving and caring….who even though they have their moments when they fight like wild animals, they will come to each others defense in a split second.
I am thankful for my daughter who always reminds me in her sweet little voice “don’t worry mommy, you’ve got ME”.
Wow. I am REALLY lucky.

Thank you God for all that I have. I would have nothing without my family.

♥Dorina

PS….I strongly urge you ALL to sit down for 5 minutes and WRITE down all the things you are thankful for. I’m telling you…This felt REALLY good. 🙂

Bad week ->->-> Good week

I am SO sorry!!! I haven’t posted since the Tuna dish and I am kicking myself since the main reason I started writing here was to make myself accountable and force myself to write for all the people reading as well as for myself.

Well, let me tell you it has been “one of those weeks”. One of the weeks where it seems “if anything can go wrong it will…at the worst possible moment”…

Let’s see…in a nutshell….
In the past week,
2 kids had the flu, one husband worked WAY too much overtime, I made no money this week, the first game one of my college sons got to START as goalkeeper, they lost (so of course he was really bummed!), went to soccer games for my high school son in pouring rain up in New York, missed a doctors appt, fought with my 14 year old almost all week, fought with the DH a bit too much this week too, had serious knee and back pain this week, twisted my ankle in the driveway, the light came on in my car meaning I need new brakes and I burned my toast in the toaster oven twice!
AAAGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

So….since I am really trying to be POSITIVE with things in my life….
let me see if I can think of a few things that I can be thankful for this week….
(crap…this is hard today!!!)
Well…..I did make a really good chicken, potato, onion and apple dinner last nite that was really tasty, I cleaned out the bottom of the TV hutch that was full of papers and junk and now just holds some toy bins like it is supposed to!, a very dear friend who has a shop is going to fix my brakes for me cheaper than the Mini dealer so I am thankful SO MUCH for that friendship!(Great person BESIDES being a car saviour!!!) Even tho Angelina stayed home from school last Monday because she was sick, we had a wonderful time together…just us girls, I found an important paper I was looking for and I found a $37 check that I never cashed and a 20 dollar bill in an old birthday card!!! Woohoo…BINGO!!!, (don’t you just LOVE finding money???) I met 2 nice moms on Leo’s new soccer team at that game in the rain AND I started my new workout program!

Wow…
When you sit and write it all out like that….I guess it wasn’t such a bad week after all…that is if you can let the good overcome the bad. And..let me tell you….it took a LOT longer to come up with the “good list” than the “bad list” but it was much more WORTH IT!!!

I get these little “quote of the day” emails every morning from some website and I have to say…today’s quote was really good….
“A life of reaction is a life of slavery, intellectually and spiritually. One must fight for a life of action, not reaction.”
– Rita Mae Brown
So, as people began to annoy me before my eyes were fully open today, I have been repeating to myself over and over…. “ACT…dont REACT”….and you know??? I really do feel better and I haven’t gotten as upset as I normally would. 🙂

Because you see, I am totally a big crybaby, and I have to admit that when things went wrong this week, whether real or perceived, I cried…and let me tell you I think I cried every day.
NOT doing so today!
I’m gonna ACT…not REACT!!!
No time for nervous breakdowns today ( I think I had a couple this past week!)
But no more time for that stuff….I have to figure out what I am making for dinner since it is a double soccer practice nite and I have to coach!
I think I am making some soup!
Ciao for now!!!

♥Dorina

Witches and Gangsters!!!

My Candy Corn Witch and Gangster!

 

OK OK OK….Everyone wanted to see a pic of my Halloween kiddies!!! 

Here you go!!! 

Thanks for asking to begin with!

♥Dorina

Mexican-ish Chicken Soup!

Tino stayed home from school today with a slight fever and a nice cough.  …why do we call something that is really crappy, NICE? 

Well anyway, as Leo said when he got home from school….”You’re making soup aren’t  you?”  and when I asked why? he said  “cuz  Tino stayed home sick today…you always make soup when we are sick!”   …but he said this with a scowl on his face and I was getting annoyed  and apparently he was annoyed also because he had ordered soup for lunch at school also! 

Oh well….too bad….  All I could think of was “you just wait”  I’m making a DIFFERENT soup tonite!

I VERY often in the winter make homemade chicken soup.  I love it and the kids do too as long as I don’t make it too often which I guess sometimes I do.

Today while I was shopping at Trader Joe’s ( I LOVE that little store!!!) the canned black beans caught my eye and I decided then and there to make a Mexican style chicken soup with black beans and corn.  Sounded good in my head anyway!

So this is what I put in my big 8 qt pot of water filled 3/4’s high….

• 8 chicken legs that I had taken the skin off of
• 6 carrots chopped small
• 1 whole medium onion chopped
• 6 stalks of celery chopped
• 2 cans of black beans with most but not all the liquid drained
• 1 bag of frozen corn
• one whole red pepper chopped
• about 1/2 head of garlic (6-7 cloves) put thru a garlic press
• Brown rice —a cup or more.

I seasoned with coriander, cumin, salt and pepper and a pinch of ground red pepper.

Once the chicken was cooked, I took the legs out and set them in a bowl to cool enough so I could pick them up.  Then I took all the meat off of the bones and threw back in the pot!  I let it cook a while longer, (til the rice was cooked) and then we dished it out.  I served it with some tortilla chips and of course since we are Italians preparing and eating Mexican style dish, I put grated Romano cheese on mine!!!  Leo dipped his chips in the soup.  I broke mine into smaller peices and dropped them into my soup.  I think we both liked it the way we did it!

Try this verson of chicken soup the next time someone in the house starts getting sick.  Still chicken soup.  Still plenty of veggies, so therefore still healthy and good for the cold and tasty enough that everyone will love it!

❤  D