"Matsen" madness :)

DJ and Kristin came with the kids last month for a quick surprise visit. It was such a treat to get to see them while they were here. The twins are growing up so fast! They will be one this month!

Proof that DJ really does have "dad's special touch".

I wish I could remember which one this was... Sofia?
When I first got there, Dalton was trying to hide from me. He was even hiding from the camera. That is him hiding behind his hand... can you tell? By the time I left, he was wrestling with me and trying to give me "killer whale kisses". It was kind of scary to tell you the truth.


Kristin's sexy look. Two babies trying to pull off her clothes :)
The 3 girl cousins. This was the best it got trying to get them to pose for a picture.

Some sad news...

For those of you that read this on a regular basis... you may know about the horse I was helping to care for, Savannah. This morning I got a call to inform me that she was put down last night. When I talked to her owner yesterday, she told me that Savannah was showing signs of Colic, a common intestinal disorder that happens with horses and can cause death. We were hoping it was just a belly ache, but as it turns out... it wasn't. The poor thing was in a lot of pain and considering how old she is (over 20) there wasn't much they could do for her. She was a sweet horse and I wish I could have had more time to get to know her. I guess my horse care taking days are over for now. I am just glad it was nothing I had done that made her get sick. That would have been horrible!

Another Attempt... even better!

After having so much success with my first gluten free baking experience, I had to try another. This one turned out even better!!! Maybe it was due to a little bit more brown sugar... but these were loved by all.

I am going to just post the whole recipe here to show the changes I made to the recipe... but you can find more if you want to check the website out yourself :)

Brown Sugar Blueberry Muffins from Karina's Kitchen

Brown Sugar Blueberry Muffins

Based loosely on my tried-and-true favorite Sour Cream Blueberry Muffins, these tasty cinnamon laced gems are vegan, gluten-free, wheat-free, egg-free, dairy-free, soy-free, nut-free and corn-free.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line a 12-muffin tin with paper cups. If you are baking these above 5,000 feet elevation, up the temperature to 400 degrees F and keep an eye on them. Check for doneness after twenty minutes, though mine took thirty minutes with frozen blueberries.

Whisk together in a mixing bowl: 1 1/4 cups rice flour* see note1/2 cup tapioca starch1/2 cup buckwheat flour (I used 2 1/4 gluten free baking mix from arrowhead mills)

1 1/4 cups (packed) organic light brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons baking powder- Featherweight by Hain is corn-free

1/2 teaspoon xanthan gum

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon allspice

Add in and combine:1/2 cup organic applesauce (I used 1/2c mashed bananas)

2 tablespoons vanilla rice milk* see note1/2 cup extra light olive oil1 1/2 teaspoons good vanilla extract
Prepare and fold in your egg replacer - here's my current favorite:For two eggs: 1 tablespoon Energ-G Egg Replacer 3 tablespoons sparkling mineral water or club soda 1 tablespoon light olive oil 1 tiny pinch of xanthan gumWhisk till frothy. ( I used 1 egg and 2 egg whites)

Add to the batter and gently combine.

Cook's Notes::If the batter appears too dry, add more rice milk, one tablespoon at a time.If the batter is too thin and wet, add a little extra rice flour, a tablespoon at a time. Humid weather can make flours damp.The batter should be moist but slightly thicker than wheat based muffin batter.When the batter consistency looks good, gently stir in::1 heaping cup fresh or frozen organic blueberries (still frozen, not thawed)Spoon the batter evenly into the twelve baking cups. Sprinkle a little organic brown sugar on the tops.Bake in the center of the oven for about 25 minutes, or until golden and dry in the center (check with a wooden pick if you like). If using fresh blueberries, cut back on the baking time and check for doneness at 18 to 20 minutes.Cool on a wire rack very briefly, then tip the muffins out of the pan and place them on a wire rack to continue cooling (this way, they don't develop soggy bottoms!). These are oh-so-yummy warm from the oven.For future snacking, wrap the muffins individually in foil, then freeze in a big zip-freezer bag. Thaw at room temperature or briefly re-heat in a microwave for thirty seconds.

That night, Kori and Brad and Kay and Matt had us over to their apts with Nicole, Ty and Cambria. They tried the muffins and I got another seal of approval from the crowd. Knowing what great bakers these girls are... I was pleased they liked them :)

Brad was very excited about the gluten-free muffins. That... or he was trying to make Cambria smile for the picture with little success.
Yes... this is my husband picking his nose. Don't worry... I don't let him touch the muffins while I am baking.

Meet Savannah

This beautiful mare is my new friend Savannah. I met her through one of my pilates clients who knows her owner. Turns out... the owner has been looking for someone who would be willing to come out and take care of her a couple days a week since she has been too busy to make it out herself everyday. I will be brushing her down, cleaning out her stall, taking her out for walks, exercise and rides (which include some bareback rides which are new to me).

If you know me well... you know about my eternal love for horses. I am so excited about this, as well as a little nervous about being responsible for the care of someones horse. I have already learned so much about how to take care of her and it has only been two days! The stable is down the street from our house... so it is pretty easy for me to make it out for and hour or so during my mid-day breaks. Savannah is such a sweet heart with a lot of spirit... I think we are going to get along great!

Loyalty

"I’ll take fifty percent efficiency to get one hundred percent loyalty."
SAMUEL GOLDWYN, Marx's Goldwyn: The Man Behind the Myth

My Dad sent me this article about a customer who had complete loyalty to my Grandpa's business because of the relationship they had with one another when he was alive. My dad continued to enrich that relationship and the out come was loyalty. Just goes to show that the way you treat people will determine the loyalty that they will have towards you... in business and in life.

Tom Hennessy: Loyalty valuable when buying a carArticle Launched: 07/19/2008 09:52:05 PM PDT

My father was the kind of guy carmakers had in mind while sitting at their drawing boards. After years of buying nondescript cars, his taste changed in the 1950s. So did Detroit's. The industry gave us larger vehicles, lavish with chrome and fishtails. My father, and countless other fathers, kept buying them. No one thought much about the quality of air then, nor about the supply of oil that we sucked from the earth in countless barrels. In time, of course, things changed. Just how much they changed was evident early last week when General Motors scheduled a news conference. For 24hours, there were rumors that GM, once a symbol of America's industrial prowess, might be about to declare bankruptcy. That did not happen. But what did happen was grim enough to anyone whose future is tied to GM's. The company announced a 20 percent payroll reduction for salaried workers, elimination of health care for older white-collar workers, and the suspension of its long-hallowed dollar-a-share stock dividend. The end was near Stringent as those measures were, they were no surprise. In the auto industry, warning signs have long been present for anyone who cared to look for them. "When will the Big Three carmakers get together and produce a more efficient product?" my wife once heard a Detroit executive ask an industry vice president. The answer she received was muted or nonexistent. After all, the angry executive was a woman, and automaking, as much as any endeavor, was a man's world. Besides, speculating about "the end" just wasn't done in Motown, where cars were big and exclusively American. Years earlier, the press secretary to Detroit's mayor had been obliged to quit his job in shame when it was learned that he was driving-good heavens! - a Volkswagen. As David Halberstam, the late historian, wrote in his fine book, "The Fifties": "General Motors, in the years after the war, made ever bigger cars. It moved in that direction because it was the nature of the beast." It was also the nature of that beast to produce cars that had a way of looking outdated to their owners by the end of the model year. Now and then, someone in the industry made a move designed to buck the trend. When Charles Wilson, later Dwight Eisenhower's defense secretary, suggested that Chevrolet produce a low-cost, low-priced car called the Cadet, others in the industry demurred. Smaller cars meant smaller profits. The Cadet idea died way back in 1947. A half century later, Mercedes-Benz introduced the two-seater Smart Car in Europe. Another indictment against traditional Detroit thinking, the Smart Car hit the U.S. market in January. With a price range of about $14,000 to $18,000, it has sold about 15,000 cars in the U.S., with 30,000 more American customers on the year-long waiting list. When my wife and I left Detroit in 1980, an auto-industry friend gave us a Long Beach contact for buying cars. His name was Monte Davis, and he was the owner of Glen Thomas Dodge, then located on Anaheim Street and now on Spring Street. Monte, who passed away last fall, was a prince. We bought our first Long Beach car from him, and then another, and another, and so on. Simply put, we were good to his dealership because it was good to us. On a recent evening, we had dinner with friends who were a-twitter over the fact that they had just purchased a new car. When they showed it to us after dinner, they proudly presented a sleek amalgam of metal in bright red. And it had not come from Detroit. It was a Prius. Built by Toyota, the first Prius went on sale in 1997. Designed to be fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly, it was introduced to the world market in 2001, and redesigned three years later. Facing temptation Our friends' car was beautiful, and they introduced us to it at a time when we were preparing to drive to northern California. Maybe it was time for us to do the unthinkable. A day later, we went shopping for a Prius only to learn that there was a waiting period before we could get one. Oddly, our friends, who had gone to another Toyota dealership, did not encounter that problem. So we waited. And we thought. And we did the math. In time, getting something like 49 miles a gallon, as our friends were, we would definitely save on fuel costs. In the long run, however, our savings would not be that great since we would lose significantly on the trade-in. There would be an additional cost. We would be giving up a dealership that had been trustworthy and reliable for nearly three decades. Having already told Monte's son, Bob Davis, that we were about to buy a Prius, we called back and said we had changed our minds. Yes, fuel costs are important to us, especially since we are now retired. But loyalty in the marketplace should be worth something as well. We can only hope Detroit will come to that realization as well. Tom Hennessy's column appears on Sundays. He can be reached at 562- 499-1270 or by e-mail at Scribe17@mac.com.

Gluten-Free Baking Success!!!

We had some soon to be over-ripe strawberries and bananas that needed to be used up. We pondered about what we could make when I happened to stumble upon one of my gluten-free websites(Karina's Kitchen). The recipe of the month was "Vegan Strawberry-Banana Muffins". How perfect is that??? I knew it was destiny's was of telling me it was time I try out one of these gluten-free baking recipes. I was a little nervous working with different kinds of flours as wheat-free alternatives. My experiment turned out to be a total success!!! These muffins are delicious! I took them to one of the studios I work at and everyone loved them! One of the clients even said he would buy them from me if I made them to sell. I got the seal of approval from Haws and I knew they were good :)

Ripe Strawberries were the inspiration.

The recipe made 21 muffins and I only used 1/2 c. of organic brown sugar, making these low in sugar as well. The fruit gives it all the sweetness it needs.
Adding the fruit makes these so pretty!



Yummy AND nutritious! Who knew gluten-free could taste so good. Did I mention they are also dairy-free? Anyone could love these muffins :)

Hit me with your best shot!

Yeah... I am a little behind here, but a few weeks ago, Haws and I went out with Kelly and Stan to do some target shooting at the indoor shooting range in HB. We were first surprised to see a friend of ours from church working the front desk. If we knew he was going to be there, we may have been able to get some better guns ahead of time. I was also surprised to see the young "kids" in there shooting. You would think there would be a strict age limit, but I never saw anything about it. Kind of scary.

Stan had his gun that he uses for work, which was a lot heavier and more powerful than the ones we borrowed from Haws' dad (yes... the man owned a business in Compton, so a gun was kind of necessary). I was not a very good shooter, but it was a fun night out and I felt like it was a learning experience. I learned that I should never try to shoot anyone with a gun.

Kelly and I showing off our real weapons... don't mess with girls in goggles!

No... that is not a little boy. That is me with me new short hair cut.
Look Mom... I hit the target!!! 3 times!!!
Haws' looking good from behind :) He was a much better shot than me.

Got one right in the red.