Misc. ramblings and resolutions

By popular request, here's a photo of the pasta drying rack DH made for me. As usual, it's larger and fancier than really necessary, but it comes apart completely for storage. With the state of the real estate market, maybe he should go into business selling sturdy pasta racks. This is the last project he completed before we started the complete overhaul of his workshop. Even before the broken pipe incident, I had bought him epoxy floor paint for Christmas. Romantic gift, eh? To use it entails moving everything out of one half, sweeping and scrubbing the floor, then painting, allowing to dry.....that's as far as we've gotten. Crawling around on a cement floor is very exhausting and every muscle I have is achy. It looks great though and it has been a good way to do a thorough cleaning and get rid of a lot of junk.

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I spent most of the day yesterday working at a funeral lunch at my church. A 63 yr. old man had died while shoveling snow with his wife on Christmas day, really tragic. Spending a day in this manner is a good way to put things in perspective. For one thing, you never know when the day will come for you. Not a happy thought I know, but thinking about it can change the way you live your life if you let it.

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As promised, here's the New Year's resolutions for 2009 in no particular order-
1. Lose another 25 lbs. ( I've gained back part of the 25 I lost last year)
2. Don't gain back weight you tried so hard to lose!
3. Exercise at least once a week to start with.
4. Be a better listener, not always thinking of how I will respond.
5. Give more compliments, especially to my kids.
6. Remember when things get tough that other people have it waay worse than I do.
7. Along with #6, be thankful and grateful for everything I have instead of thinking about everything I want.
8. Read more books.
9. Sort my pictures and print off/back up all digital pictures.
10. Be kinder than is necessary.
11. Don't watch so much tv.
12. Go to bed earlier.

Okay, that's it. I realize I'm leaning a little close to the "change your entire life" resolution area, but I think naming several gives me a little more room for success. I'm looking forward to a great New Year's Eve spent with friends and I hope you will have a wonderful 2009!

Pasta Machine Success!

Here's the meal we had last night.....Lemon Pepper fettuccine with Greek shrimp, homemade French bread, and salad. It was very delicious and it was fun to experiment with my new pasta machine. First I made the bread dough in the bread machine, made it into a french loaf, glazed it with salt water and baked it. We made the sheets of pasta and laid them all out on the counter to get them ready to cut. Then we ran the sheets through the pasta machine again to cut it into the fettucinne. We laid the noodles all out on a plate....don't do this! When it was time to boil the noodles, they were all stuck together and we had to run it all through the machine and cut them again. DH is down in his workshop right now making me a noodle drying rack...you've got to have someplace to hang the noodles. While the noodles were cooking, the shrimp part was finishing up in another pan on the stovetop. It consisted of olive oil, lemon juice, onion, garlic, shrimp, parsley, and salt and pepper. When both parts were done, they were mixed together served with a few crumbles of feta cheese on top. Yum! I think we're going to make this again for New Year's Eve. We are getting together with four other couples and each are bringing part of the meal. The others are better cooks than we are, one of the couples even did a cooking class trip to Italy, so I hope this dish will pass muster! I wish I could get my pictures to lay out the way I wanted them!