Karen

My Thoughts On Sarah Palin and The Republican Ticket

I have heard from several of my relatives and friends who think that Sarah Palin is the best choice the republicans could have made for the vice presidential candidate. I have also read and heard a lot of the news media’s comments about her daughter, Bristol, being pregnant at 17 and how “tragic” that is, and how Bristol’s life is over. What?

First of all, life is NOT over for her. It will be a different life, a harder life, one that includes diapers instead of dances, but certainly not OVER. She and the boyfriend have made a CHOICE to raise the baby together. (If indeed it was her choice and not her mother’s, who is pro life and not pro choice.) OK, so Mom, the vice presidential candidate used the word “decision” and not the word “choice”, but they mean the SAME THING!!! Also, I am of the opinion that poor little Bristol will still have a comfy life, what with a well to do family and all, I don’t think she will actually be the one taking care of baby. She will either have a nanny or her Mom and Dad will be doing the actual child care.

Second, and a very important item to me, is how can she say that this is a choice her daughter made, and that the news media should respect her privacy, and then campaign against choice for the rest of the women in this country? She said “We ask the media to respect our daughter and Levi’s privacy as has always been the tradition of children of candidates.” Yet, she brought them to the convention, paraded them around for the public and news media to see, even had Levi in a photo op with McCain. Don’t want them in the spotlight? Don’t put them there yourself. She refers to Bristol and Levi as children, but let them make a very important adult decision.

While I personally would have never chosen abortion, (and I did get pregnant at 17 before I was married, so I know for sure I wouldn’t choose abortion,) there are millions of women who deserve the chance to make their own decisions. If Palin wants the people of this country to leave her daughter out of the spotlight, to accept that her daughter has the right to make this choice, then Palin needs to understand that EVERY woman has the right to make the choice of whether or not to have a child or an abortion. EVERY woman has the right to decide what to do when faced with an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy. And Palin’s position on the pro life side of that particular issue is what makes her daughter’s “decision” important. The very fact that she was allowed to make a choice, whether it was for keeping the baby or not, is what keeps the spotlight on Bristol.

Not every woman has well off parents who can help them. Not every woman has a man who will stand beside through it all. Not every woman is capable of taking care of five or six or seven children. But, every woman should have the chance to make the decision of what to do for herself, without interference from government. The same as Bristol Palin.

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Creamed Corn with Red Peppers

Karen · 4 Comments

We drove down to Kanab again Monday afternoon. FabGrandpa needed some soup and some fruit bars, and I needed some veggies for this week, so off we went. It had been raining, storming, thundering and lightening for a couple of days, but on Monday the weather was clearing up, and the sky was beautiful. So was the desert:

We had lunch at Escobar’s, a little Mexican place off the main drag, then headed over to the Foodtown. I found a Boston Butt pork roast on sale for $1.79 per pound, some fresh sweet corn, a red bell pepper, and some yellow squash. We brought our treasures home, where I got out the butcher knife and sliced off a few pieces of the roast. I breaded them with rice flour and fried them like pork chops. Boy were they ever good!

The next day, I poked holes in the rest of the roast and stuffed them with garlic, and put it in the crock pot while I was at work. I think it was the most excellent roast, ever! So, tonight, we had leftover roast with fried squash and creamed corn with red peppers.

The first time I made creamed corn with red peppers was when the refrigerator quit working last month. I had the last bits of those sweet Italian red peppers that I bought in Maryland last fall, and some corn, that I did not want to lose. I cooked them up together and it turned out to be very good.

Here is the recipe:

3 ears fresh sweet corn
1 red bell pepper
1/2 stick butter or margarine
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup milk

Shuck the corn and scrape the kernels off the cob. Wash and chop the red bell pepper. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan, then add the peppers and saute for a few minutes. Add the corn, milk, salt and pepper. Turn the heat down to low. Cook, stirring often, until the corn is done.

I took a picture of it, but it did not turn out very good, and made it look very unappetizing, so you won’t see it here. Sorry. But, you will not be disappointed if you try this. Yum! Oh, and the best part: It’s gluten free!

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Fun Monday-Where I Blog

Karen · 11 Comments

Janet from “The Planet of Janet”, one of my bloggy friends, wrote about her blog space today for Fun Monday, which is hosted by a different person each week. This week, Gattina of “Writer Cramps” is the host. I have never participated in Fun Monday before but thought this was a good time to start. So, here it is folks, the place where I blog:

Here it is, my space at the dinette table. Since I live in a travel trailer, there is no separate room for an office. The kitchen/living area/office/TV room is all in one space. But, it is quite comfy, and the coffee is always just a step away.

Here, you see FabGrandpa’s office space, which, by the way, is right next to mine. He doesn’t blog, he doesn’t e-mail, he doesn’t pay bills by computer. No. All he does is read the news, check the weather, and play Halo. Loudly. Until I tell him I can’t take it anymore and please put on your damn headphones!!!!!

Here is a view of my blog space from the outside. This is my home, fulltime, and I have to tell ya, I love it. We have lived in this one for a year and a half now. It is bigger than the first one by two feet. We lived in the first one for 6 years.

Here is a picture of where we are right now. I took this picture yesterday. We had thunderstorms most of the weekend, with loud, crashing thunder, that seemed to roll all around the canyon before it stopped. Even on a cloudy, stormy day, the canyon is awesome.

And, just because I love this picture, I am sharing it with you. This is at the picnic area on the side of the road, right across from the entrance to the employee residential area. Yeah, some people just see weeds, but I see beautiful wildflowers. What do you see?

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Counting Cactus, or The Day I Was An Environmental Consultant

Karen · 8 Comments

(Here I am with Robert Frye)

Have your ever volunteered to do something totally off the wall, just for the experience? I had the opportunity to do just that on Sunday. Ok, I was not exactly a volunteer because I got paid to do it. But I did volunteer for the job. I was hired as an Environmental Consultant for one day. And what a day it was!

I got up really early on my day off to drive the 43 miles down to Jacob Lake, where I met Robert J. Frye, a retired professor from the University of Arizona; Sarah, who is a biologist from Bryce Canyon, and Courtney, one of my co-workers. Robert has been tracking this rare cactus for several years. After the introductions were out of the way, Robert he told us a little bit about what we would actually be doing.

(This is a different species of cactus, a little bigger and rounder than the pediocactus)

We drove about half way down the Kaibab Plateau on Hwy 89A towards Page, then parked on the side of the road and walked a short distance through the woods to the first plot.

A plot is an area that is 10 meters in diameter, where pediocactus have been found in the past. If you are wondering at this point just exactly what a pediocactus is, click here for more information. This particular pediocactus only grows on the Colorado Plateau in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah.

(That’s Courtney placing flags in the last section of the plot)

So, here is what we did. When we first arrived at the plot, we had to look for a metal rod sticking out of the ground, which marked the center of the plot. Next, we looked for another metal rod, which marked the north side of the plot. Then, we laid out measuring tapes in an “X”, with one going north and south, and the other one going east and west, measuring 5 meters in each direction from the center of the plot. Then the real fun began.

We crawled around on our hands and knees, looking for either the cute little cacti or a tag or a nail to indicate where a cacti used to be. At every location where something was found, we placed a little flag, somewhat like those used to mark utilities before digging.

After all the flags were in place and we were fairly certain there were no more to be found, we started collecting data. One person sat in a folding chair with a notebook and pen, while the other three people crawled from one flag to the next, calling out the angle of the location from the center of the circle, the distance from the center, the nail or tag number. If there was only a tag or nail, it was simply “nail found”. But, if one of the cacti was there, we used calipers to measure the size of it. These are little bitty cacti.

(This is a pic of two tiny pediocactus with a flag marking their location)

The measurements were in millimeters. We did find a few, but, sadly, the numbers are declining.

(Out in the desert near Vermillion Cliffs. Isn’t it just beautiful?)

After we finished collecting all the data, we picked up all the little flags and the tape measures, and drove to the next plot site.

(This is a different kind of cactus. It was huge and looked dangerous.)

The second place we went was out in the desert. It was fun to go in the four wheel drive vehicle out across the desert to find the plot.

(Notice that you see no road in this picture.)

I even had to crawl under a barbed wire fence, twice. (Sorry, no picture to prove that interesting fact.) I had a lot of fun, and learned a little bit about how scientific data is collected. And, if I get the chance to work on another study, I’ll be out there in the desert—you can count on it.

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Sizzlin Summer Vacations

Karen · 1 Comment

If you want to find out where some of my bloggy friends around the internet went on vacation this summer, go on over the We Are THAT Family. There you can read about where Kristin and her family went, but scroll down to the bottom of her post there, too, to see where everyone else went. There are some interesting looking vacations going on over there!

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Western Legends Days In Kanab

Karen · 7 Comments

I had four hours of “comp” time, so I decided to combine it with four hours of annual leave, and go to Kanab last Saturday morning. My neighbor, Sue, and I headed out early.

I had read in the newspaper a month or so ago that they have a farmer’s market in town every Saturday morning, and that there was a lady there who bakes gluten free breads, cakes, and cookies. I have really been wanting to check it out.

But, when we got to town, we discovered that Western Legend Roundup was going on, and because of the festival they did not have the farmer’s market.

The Western Legends Roundup a big festival where they celebrate the history of the town and some of the old western stars who made movies in the area way back when, where in town for the celebration. The only one I saw was Clint Walker, but he looked old. I mean really old, and nothing at all like the picture of him from his movie making days. I didn’t even take his picture because I was so disappointed.

There was a vendor row, where Sue and I ran into our neighbor, John, who works with the Grand Canyon Association at the Visitor Center book store. He had some things from the book store on display there.

At noon, there was a parade, with the old cowboy stars riding in horse drawn wagons. There were several beautiful halflinger horse teams with beautiful wagons.

One wagon was drawn by a two ox team. Those animals were awesome! It was the first time I had ever seen oxen in real life. Each one had a young boy riding it bareback.

The best thing I saw in the parade were little girls from the Kaibab Paiute Reservation dancing down the street in their native costumes. They were so cute!

This wagon had the entire class of 1958 from Kanab High School riding in it!

After the parade, we walked across the street to the food vendors. I had a corn on the cob on a stick, with butter and salt, and a peach iced tea. A little pricey at $6.00 for the two of them, but boy was that cold iced tea good!

Yeah, that was worth the trip!

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Monday Stuff

Karen · 3 Comments

MMMM, Peppers, Onions, and Celery for the roast.

This morning I got up and checked the thermometer we have in the freezer section of our refrigerator. Not the new one, but the one that has been on the blink. The freezer part had been getting down to around 40 degrees, so we had some things in there while we tried to use it all up, you know, meats, frozen veggies, and some frozen fruits. So, this morning, the temp on the thermometer was 59!!!

I took everything out, and had to throw a little bit away, but there were several things that I could save IF I cooked it today. So, I put some chicken thighs and some pork country style ribs in the oven and baked them. I just put some meat tenderizer and some seasoned salt on them. After they were cooked, I packaged them up in meal size portions and put them in the little freezer compartment of the new fridge.

I had a small beef roast in there, too. I had been saving it for a special meal, because I don’t cook beef very often. FabGrandpa’s doctor back in Georgia told me not to let him eat very much beef. So, most of the time, he only gets beef if we eat out, which is not very often. But last time we went to Page, this roast was on sale for a good price. I used about a 1/4 of it to make beef stew last week and put the rest of in the freezer.

Starting down the grade into Hurricane, Utah

So, today, I sprinkled the rest of it with tenderizer and seasoned salt, then seared it in a skillet with olive oil and then put it in the crock pot. I cut up some celery, onions, and a red bell pepper and sauteed those for a few minutes in the skillet, then dumped them in on top of the roast in the crock pot. I left it on high for about an hour while I got dressed, cleaned up the kitchen, and made up the bed. We decided to run down to Hurricane, Utah (about 100 miles away) to pick up a part we had ordered at the RV place there, so I turned the crock pot down on “warm” while we were gone.

Sunset when we were coming back home this evening.

When I got home, that roast was just right! MMMMMMMM.

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Cabbage and Smoked Sausage

Karen · 9 Comments

I was tired today so I wanted something I could cook really fast for dinner. I cut up some cabbage and some potatoes, and threw them together in a skillet with some butter, salt, pepper and water. I simmered them until they were tender, then added some smoked sausage, cut up into bite sized pieces. It was really good, and ready in about 30 minutes.

Now I have to tell you about something that made me laugh today. When I was walking around the campground this morning doing the rounds, I passed by a site where there was a tent camper. No one was up yet. I could hear someone inside the tent snoring so loudly that I could almost see the sided of the tent moving in and out. I walked a few sites on down the road, and again, there was a tent camper, with no one up and about yet. As I was walking by, I heard a very loud faarrrrtttt! and then a guy said, “Boy did that ever feel good!” I have laughed about that all day!

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