Ouch, Jessica! My mandoline has a safety thing you're supposed to stick with veggie you're slicing on so you can't cut your fingers. Of course, it also kinda gets in the way so I tend not to use it, but this may have convinced me to reconsider!

I'm glad you're okay, Jessica! My mandolin slicer has the safety thing, too. I never cut without it, though it is inconvenient and I've been tempted to skip it. Working in restaurants I've had every accident you can have in the kitchen. I once sliced the tips of three of my fingers off on a tomato slicer. Lesson learned - no cutting without the safety on the mandolin slicer. Though that didn't stop me from messing with that fan a few weeks ago...

MEGAN I saw this recipe on another site tonight and thought of you :)

PUMPKIN SPICE GRANOLA

Ingredients ~

8 C Raw Whole Oats
1/2 can pure pumpkin
5 T brown sugar
2 t cinnamon
1/4 t ground ginger
1/4 t ground nutmeg
1 t salt
1 egg white

Directions

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. In a bowl, mix pumpkin, brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, salt, and the egg white. Pour the oats into a large mixing bowl.

Pour the pumpkin mixture on top of the oats.

Using a large spoon, or your hands, mix everything together very well! Pour the oat mixture onto a cookie sheet (I spray mine with coconut oil).

Bake the oats at 300 degrees for 15 minutes and then gently mix. Bake for another 20 minutes. Remove the oats from the oven and allow to cool COMPLETELY!

Once the oats are cool, mix in your favorite nuts and fruit. I used almonds, raisins, and cranberries.

Store in cool, dry place in a well sealed container.

MMMMM!!! That sounds delicious Gary! Definitely gonna try that one! :T

I'm not sure if the pumpkin recipes are in the recipes thread. I'll put them up there next. Though they're not really "mine", I've borrowed them from others not created them myself, but will give full credit!

Jessica, ow ow ow, that sounds like it hurt! Take care of your fingers!

Yoga was great last night. Our yoga teacher has started doing a "yoga nidra" as a relaxation at the end of class. She goes through the different body parts (e.g. "feel your right hand. feel your left hand.") It's still hard for me to focus only on each body part, etc., but I'm hoping I will get better at connecting as we continue since I don't always feel in touch with my body. She wants to do one class where she teaches us tennis ball massage and we go through the whole nidra meditation, bc the whole thing is rather long. I can't wait! It sounds great. She is a professional masseuse so she knows what she's doing massage-wise.

Have a great Thursday all!

Shannon, three fingers! Ouch! I didn't actually cut anything completely off of my thumb so it wasn't that bad. I admit it though . . . :o I took the safety device off the mandoline. :o :o It's a long story, but suffice to say that we registered for a simple mandoline for our wedding, and MIL decided to get us the most expensive one in the store instead, which is so complicated it comes with a DVD to show you how to put it together and use it, and the safety device requires two additional pieces to be attached to the mandoline (can't use one without the other), and it is shaped such that you can only use it with objects that fit in a 3-inch diameter circle. I was slicing 8-inch long zucchini into lengthwise strips. Sigh. I tried to use just the top part of the safety thing (the part with the spikes that poke into the food) but it is not usable without the bottom piece.

In any case it appears to be healing well so no big deal.

In other news, today is our last day with Ms. Booboo. I'm not sure when exactly my in-laws are getting back from their vacation so I don't know if we are giving her back to them tonight or tomorrow. We had a very frustrating walk this morning and I admit it will be a relief to return her so that I can enjoy my walks with Carter again. If we were going to have her longer term I would definitely invest more energy in teaching her to walk well on the leash because that is really the only problem we've had with her. I think she would respond better to Cesar Millan's methods than Carter does, because I think a lot of the issue is that she is very much an alpha female and is used to being the boss of everyone and getting her way all the time.

I do feel kind of bad for Carter though. In many ways he likes being an only dog, but he has had a lot of fun playing with her these two weeks. OTOH last night we had to separate them because they were running around the house and Carter was sliding out on the wood floor (dangerous for his delicate spine!).

Yes Megan, the acid reflux is a new thing I've been dealing with since the beginning of summer. But the restricted diet has really helped me to maintain my weight. I'll know where I stand on Monday morning when I weigh in for the first time in 2 weeks. but going by how my skinny jeans fit, I think I'll be at the same weight and not have dropped too low.

Today, I met up with two more fiber artists and they took me to another Medditerean restaurant so I was able to have baba ganoush again plus a ceaser salad with a really good piece of salmon. I know I'm not suppose to be eating cheese, but it's not that much on a salad.

Then we went to two art quilt gallery exhibitions and I went to the Boulder Contemporary Art Museum.

If any of you are in the NJ area, you're welcome to come to my art opening on Tuesday October 11th from 5:30 to 7:30 pm at the Princeton Brain and Spine Institute at 731 Alexander Road, Suite 200 Princeton, NJ. I'll be showing 7 of my neurology art quilts and my cousin will be showing several of her vertabra watercolors.

Tomorrow, I get the results of the 8 hours of intensive testing I had on my reading and writing issues and hear what they recommend I do to improve my spelling problems.

Everyone's posts here have disabused me of any desire I had to buy a mandoline. I get so tired of chopping vegetables, that seemed like a good solution. But I work hastily & a bit sloppily sometimes & I can now imagine decapitating a much-needed finger, which I definitely don't need.

We are having that glorious weather where it's frosty in the morning and then brilliantly sunny in the afternoon. I really want to enjoy it, but feel like something is sitting on my back & weighing down my shoulders, and suppressing any buoyancy in me. I will make myself go out this weekend & go out into the sunlight & feign being okay, and maybe, if I do it long enough, it will be true, and I will be okay.

TGIF! I will so happy 10 days from now when my book fair is OVER!

This morning I set up, followed by teacher previews. I am going to try to sneak out to an author luncheon (James Howe, author of the Bunnicula series) but I can only do it if my new, not so reliable volunteer, shows up. Tomorrow and Sunday I work WW, and then the book fair is all next week-- including two nights....then I work WW the following Saturday and Sunday, so.... feeling exhausted just thinking about it!!

For some reason Dewey has pooped on his bed the last two days after not having an accident for months! UGGGHHHHHH.... been cold and wet so that may be part of the reason......

I think I had more to say but I'm brain dead now!

Just got back from lab work, fasting lab work, came home and made scrambled eggs and coffee. I need to do laundry but just don't feel like it. I wonder how the pioneer women felt about laundry, after making the soap and heating the water and then scrubbing on a scrub board. I am thankful I wasn't born in that time.

Michele, I loved the Bunnicula books when I was a kid!

Bargoo, on the one hand I appreciate the convenience of the modern era, but on the other hand I think if we still had to do all that manual labor we wouldn't have such an obesity problem.

Saef, sounds like prime opportunity to go for a walk or a run to me. Beautiful outside, you feel crappy, exercise makes you feel better . . . ?

I have been feeling kind of crappy too. I think it's because I'm trying to go off of Lyrica. My doctor said to drop from two pills a day to one and stay there for two weeks before going off entirely, so that is what I'm doing. I'm wondering how much of the aches and pains are a reaction to taking away the drug versus things that were there before I went on it? It does have warnings about being habit-forming, which is one of the reasons I want to not be taking it. That kind of implies that there will be some sort of withdrawal symptoms. I can deal with achy joints much better than the awful "brain zaps" I had when going off of Cymbalta a few years ago though.

Meanwhile my podiatrist's last resort is for me to try kinesiology tape on my feet. He was basically like, there is no scientific evidence that this will help at all, but I can't think of anything else to try. :shrug: Oh well, it can't hurt.

I'm baaack!
 

I know you all missed the dog stories tremendously :p but I have no new ones.

I missed the internet terribly - felt totally cut off from everything. I did start reading "The Help" and am finding it very entertaining. I can really identify with the maids in the story, (due in part to my dog sit client's attitude toward me), although of course I'm much better treated than they ever were. Most of my clients do not regard me as a servant but rather as a buddy for their dogs.

I am preparing for Canadian Thanksgiving and will be making a pumpkin chili for the first time. Anyone know if fresh pumpkin is better than canned for this? DH is a dab hand with a knife and cutting up veggies. I am not and was considering a mandoline but will not go that route now - I need all of my fingers too! Most of this weekend's food planning was for fall weather. I will still make those foods although now it looks like we're due for warm sunny weather all weekend.

We are experiencing indian summer here and DH and I will be outside doing things all weekend. I will be able to get most of my gardening done without freezing my butt off (as has happened in past years due to my procrastination). :yay:

I better go attend to a ton of laundry and start dinner soon - a new fish dish invovling snapper, capers, zucchini, olives, etc.

TGIF and TGIBH (thank goodness I'm back home) :cheer:

Dagmar :D

I make pumpkin chili and only use canned pumpkin.

A few years ago I received a really nice KitchenAid food processor for Christmas from my parents. They are somewhat expensive, but I considered it a long-term investment... um, on my parents part, anyway. My dad decided to get me a bunch of different discs. They slice similar to a mandolin, shred in a heartbeat (like things for coleslaw, cheese), grate my blocks of parmesan... besides all of the food processor functions! I don't know how I lived without it. Ok, now I'm just being dramatic. But your fingers don't get anywhere near the blades. Perhaps other food processors have similar blade options? If you use/own a food processor anyway, some disc options might be safer than this highly dangerous mandolin contraption!

I had to go to the city for work yesterday and scoured the city for kale seeds or seedlings. None to be found. I'm almost as obsessed with kale as I am with pumpkin right now! So I will be ordering some seeds online today... got to get the winter garden into shape this weekend. And make pumpkin muffins and Gary's pumpkin granola recipe. Do I have a problem? :devil:

Speaking of pumpkin, Dagmar, I usually use canned for convenience. I do know if you start from scratch be sure to get a baking or pie pumpkin, not the type used to carve jack-o-lanterns. The taste is sweeter and texture better for baking. I'm sure you can google a picture. You have to cut up the flesh, bake it, and then mash/puree it to get to the right consistency.

Carolyn, sounds like your trip has been filled with lots of art exhibits! Any you particularly enjoyed? GL w your own exhibit - unfortunately I am much too far away to see it, but I hope it goes well.

I need to do laundry too this weekend. Ugh. Ok, we can all do it together...

Have a great weekend all!

We went to see the Ides of March today. I wasn't sure if I'd like it as I dislike politics--I really hate getting into any kind of political or religious discussion, mostly because I'm not well versed on either subject. In any case, this was an excellent movie and reinforced my dislike of politics and all the corruption involved in it. I do recommend seeing this movie. It is good. Powerful.

So we came home and I made individual savory bread puddings for dinner (whole grain bread, ham, green onions, low fat cheddar and eggs). It was quite good--DH and DS each had 1 1/2 while I had 1 and therefore there are no leftovers. Served a nice green salad on the side.

Hope everyone's weekend is going well!

Your bread pudding sounds intersting. I think of bread pudding as a dessert and do not include ham or cheese or green onions.