RockTheDesert

Frame By Frame

Looking for family-friendly movies? Want a fresh take on movie reviews? I recommend that you visit Dr. Rus's excellent movie review blog, Frame by Frame!! FBF is a great tool to help you find movies for you and your family to enjoy! Frame by Frame works for me and my family!  

This post is part of Shannon's excellent blog carnival "Works For Me Wednesday".

Works For Me Wednesday - Free Music

Go to Paul Joseph's great blog Cries Of The Heart for a free, original Christmas song that is absolutely beautiful.

And then, go to Free CCM and sign up for free music downloads.

Seriously, it's free. All you have to do is sign up for CCM's free music downloads HERE. 

I got three great Christmas songs (mercyme, sara groves, sandi patty) AND an entire album (phil wickham) today.

Just Do It...

Oh, and for other Works For Me Wednesday posts, check out Shannon's fantastic Rocks In My Dryer blog!!

Works for Me Wednesday - Photo Greeting Cards

Today is Works For Me Wednesday over at Shannon's excellent Rocks In My Dryer Blog. It's a carnival, so be sure to check out all the great posts today!!

Works for me: Photo Greeting Cards!!

We travel quite a bit as church-planting missionaries with e3 partners. Most of our work over the past year has been in central/east Africa. Last summer, my husband and I wanted to send out personalized thank-you cards to all of our supporters. We gathered a few simple materials I already had on hand: dymo label maker (the classic, hand-held model), photo corners (scrapbooking item), off-white card stock (from office supply store). Then I found a couple of cool photos taken on a 1-day safari my husband went on while in Kenya. We printed the photos on 4x6 glossy photo paper. Then I folded the card stock in half, put 4 photo corners on the front, inserted a photo, then crunched out a dymo label message and placed it on the inside of the card. Wrote a personal greeting/thank you. Then my husband addressed plain white envelopes, stuffed in the cards and dropped them off at the post office. So easy. Relatively inexpensive. Pictures were beautiful - frameable really!!

This lion looks a little bit battle-weary!
I thought this was a pretty cool picture.
So beautiful. One of my favorites. Although I'm sure the water and shore smell pretty bad.

Works For Me Wednesday - Don't Waste Those Veggies

This post is part of a blog carnival called Works For Me Wednesday, hosted by Shannon at her awesome blog, Rocks In My Dryer! Join the fun by reading, commenting, and submitting your own post!

My husband attended an after-funeral gathering on Saturday while I was still out of town. At the end of the event, the hostess urged him to take home an entire, uneaten, huge, overflowing veggie tray from a big box store, complete with baby carrots, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, broccoli, mild peppers, and two kinds of dipping sauce. A cornucopia of crunchy, healthy goodness. Unfortunately, our refrigerator is completely full right now. We took the tray apart, separating the veggies into their own individual ziploc bags. We've been snacking on the veggies for lunch for 4 days now. I noticed that they are starting to not look quite as fresh. I decided to get creative with them and use them in recipes - why not?

Broccoli: steam in boiling, salted water for 5 minutes - should be shockingly bright green and still have a good bite to them. Toss with cooked (al dente) rotini pasta, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, pinch red pepper flakes, generous dash Tones Italian seasoning, handful parmesan cheese, dash pepper, salt if needed. My sons and husband scraped the bowl clean last night - no leftovers.

Carrots: steam in boiling water until very tender - don't you love their lovely orange hue? Mash or food processor 'til fairly smooth. Spoon into 1 cup storage containers. Freeze until you need carrots for carrot cake or winter soup. From the recipes I've looked at, you can substitute at least 1 generous cup of mashed carrots interchangeably in most carrot cake recipes. Try The Pioneer Woman's Carrot Cake - I'm going to try it today!

Cherry tomatoes: slice tomatoes in half. Add chopped scallions, finely chopped cilantro to taste. Add 1 finely chopped, seeded serrano chilie. Squeeze juice of half lime over all. Salt to taste. Awesome salsa for your eggs or top a salad with it, sprinkle with mexican cheese, crushed tortilla chip for great light lunch salad. I've also tossed this with leftover pasta, leftover chunks of chicken, chopped mild peppers (from the tray) - makes a different pasta salad.

Sugar snap peas: stir fry always works with these. I'm thinking of making fried rice for my sons for lunch today - if I chop these coarsely, I'll use in place of regular peas. Yum!

These creative twists on my veggie tray work for me - hope they work for you too!

WFMW - Tote Bag's Surprise Solution

This post is part of Works For Me Wednesday at Shannon's Rocks In My Dryer blog. Check out Shannon's WFMW post called "Paint Jars."

I've got this totally cool straw tote bag that was given to me as a gift from a good friend. Not to drop names or anything, but it's from Brighton. It's my only bag from Brighton. My others are from Target, Walmart, Ross, etc. I'm not a purse-shopper. In fact, I hate purses because not one of them meets my needs perfectly. This straw tote bag is big & roomy, leopard-print-lined, and has sturdy leather handles.

The problem with the bag is that everything gets lost in it. Everything. My keys. My wallet. My pens. My spare change. My lipstick. Everything. Well, one day, I was super-busy at work, gathering things to take downstairs, talking on my phone, drinking a big cup of cold water, making copies, you know, all the essential multi-tasks. My hands were full, my arms were full, my cup of water was now almost empty and clenched in my teeth. I somehow slurped down the water then I tossed the cup in my straw tote bag which was hanging on my arm. I headed down the stairs, down the hall and started searching for my keys to the auditorium. Found 'em. Opened the door. Tossed my keys back in my purse. I was totally surprised when I heard the keys hit the bottom of the empty cup. I stopped dead in my tracks. The solution to my messy, unmanageable purse might have just occurred accidentally...I put my stuff down on a table. Unloaded my purse. Started dropping all sorts of treasures from the bottom of my purse into the 16 oz red plastic cup. From that point on, searching for things in my purse was a pleasure, not a pain. I carried that purse and that cup for at least 2 years. Every so often the cup would crack or split open and I'd replace it with another one. This worked for me and if I were to carry this purse again, first thing I'd do is stick a red cup in it!

WFMW - Big Bear Best Rice Ever

This post is part of Works For Me Wednesday at Shannon's Rocks In My Dryer blog. Today is the "recipes with five ingredients or less" edition. Shannon's got some yummy-sounding recipes posted HERE.

A few years ago, my parents went on a little weekend getaway to Big Bear, CA. They stayed in a lovely condo within walking distance of downtown. They had a fantastic dinner one night which included this rice as a side dish. When my mom got home, she dreamed of this rice and finally called the restaurant to ask for the recipe which they graciously gave to her.

BIG BEAR BEST RICE EVER

Ingredients:
2 cups long grain rice (jasmine rice is in the original recipe, but I rarely have it on hand)
4 bouillon cubes - I use vegetable
3 garlic cloves, chopped or minced
8 cups fresh baby spinach leaves (1 whole pre-washed pack from grocery store)
1 cup freshly grated parmesan or asiago cheese

In dutch oven, combine 4 cups water, 2 cups rice, 4 bouillon cubes, and garlic. Cover and bring to a rolling boil.  Reduce heat to med low (keep a small simmer going) and cook for 20 minutes or until all water is absorbed and rice is tender and fluffy. Add all the spinach to the pan, then re-cover with lid for 5 minutes. Stir now-wilted spinach into the rice along with the cheese. Adjust seasonings to taste with salt and pepper. Enjoy!!

Hungry Men

Another Wednesday, another blog carnival - this post is part of "Works For Me Wednesday" which is a weekly feature of Shannon's Rocks In My Dryer blog. Shannon's post today is quite a scary and vulnerable topic for most people - Fridge Organization!!

As the weather starts heating up, I find myself wanting to eat salads and fresh fruits for all three meals. Not a bad idea for a person trying to focus on fitness and weight loss. However, I've got these three hungry men in my house - 1 lifts weights daily, 1 lifts weights and is in football training, 1 quickly becomes scarecrow-like if he doesn't pack in the daily calories. And, of course, they all love a hot, home-cooked meal at the end of the day no matter what the season. That bubbling, sizzling meal is appetizing and tasty in the winter and even in the spring. But in the summer and fall seasons in AZ, I literally feel like the 115 degree temperatures during the day are cooking my insides just when I step outside to get the mail. The thought of roasting meat and potatoes, hearty casseroles, and baked anything, is just the catalyst I need to stick my whole head in the freezer!

My good friend, Brenda, showed me the simplest trick in the world for pleasing my hungry men while not heating up the oven or microwave or the kitchen - are you ready for this? Early in the morning, she puts her ingredients for dinner (roast beef for tacos, chicken in green or red salsa for burritos, spaghetti sauce, macaroni & cheese) into a crockpot...THEN...she puts the loaded crockpot IN THE GARAGE, plugs it in on low, and goes on with her day. At the end of the day, the garage isn't heated up any more than it usually would be, the house doesn't smell like a piping hot dinner, and an easy-to-pull together dinner takes just a few minutes. Yesterday, I made the yummiest chicken in green sauce into quick burritos in flour tortillas with cool sour cream and a sprinkling of sharp cheddar. 5 minutes later, dinner was served and my hungry men were more than satisfied!!

Boredom Is Contagious

I've decided to try my hand at posting a Works For Me Wednesday post at Rocks In My Dryer.

Those of us who live in an extreme weather zone, whether winter or summer, must go to extreme lengths at times to keep our own boredom, let alone our kids' boredom under control (somewhat). I always put together a summer agenda, filled with various activities, including swim lessons, public library, wash the cars on the lawn, picnic at the park, field trips, play dates with friends, camping out in the living room, waterpark passes, lemonade stand, matinees, neighborhood carnival, write and act in a play, create video commercials, road trips to cooler places...not everything cost a lot of money. The biggest cost was my time. And at the end of the day (or summer) that's what my kids appreciated the most. The creative ideas and my undivided attention at least a few times per day. I found that when I spent my bored time on the phone or volunteering at church or whatever didn't involve the kids, they became even more bored. So, if I had to re-live the pre-school/elementary years (and thank God I don't), I'd spend a lot more time not avoiding summer and a lot more time being crazy and engaged in my kids and their summer. Boredom goes both ways and is contagious!