Found recipe on the Internet.  Tweaked it a bit for personal taste.  Baked it.  Ate it.  Oh, my goodness, this is good.  We were all talking Southern by the time we were done eating.  We will be doing this again!  These turn out crispy and easy to pick up by the slice, and are soooooo good.  And the whole meal took less than 45 minutes.  You could also used pre-cooked chicken, but would still want the onions and bacon cooked fresh for this meal.

BBQ Chicken Pizza

Ingredients

1 cup chicken cut into strips (I used dark, but you can use whatever)

1 sweet onion, sliced very thin, slices cut in half

6 or 8 strips of bacon, cut into smaller pieces

1/2-3/4 c. BBQ sauce – whatever is your favorite

6 whole wheat 8″ tortillas

1 cup shredded cheese – mix whatever you’d like, but gouda and cheddar mixed is what we used

a few sprigs of cilantro

Directions

Toss the chicken, onion, and bacon into a skillet and cook until all is done.  For dark meat, this will take about 20 minutes.  For white meat, closer to 10.  Drain well, return to skillet.  Mix in about 1/2 c. BBQ sauce and heat through.  Don’t overdo this, you need the meat and onions just barely coated with the sauce, or you’ll get a soggy pizza.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Place tortillas on a small gauge rack.  I used my cookie cooling rack, which has about 1/2 inch openings between the wires.  You can put these directly on the oven racks, but they may fall through when baking.  spread a very thin layer of BBQ sauce on the tortillas.  Place the chicken, onions, and bacon on the tortillas, keeping a lot of space between the pizzas.  This needs to be minimalist cooking – too many or too thick on the toppings, and you’ll have a soggy mess.  Sprinkle on the cheese, again, not too much.  You should still be able to see the chicken and onions.

Bake for 5-7 minutes, or until the tortillas are crispy and the cheese is melted.  Top with a few pieces of snipped cilantro.

Makes 6.  Each pizza will serve one person, unless you are hungry, then you might need one and a half to be satisfied!

We had such an unusual spring.  It started raining the end of April and didn’t stop until well into June.  Even now, we are getting nearly daily rainfall, although it’s more a pattern of our summer monsoon – dry all day until late afternoon when thunderstorms pop over the mountains, bringing us no more than a sprinkle.  The humidity has been very high, which is unusual for our dry area.  The ground has been soggy and cold.  The sun barely shines.   The shade garden thinks we are in Seattle and is going to town. The veggies are thinking we are stuck in winter.

Until Friday, that is.  We hit 98 degrees Friday under very clear skies, and our humidity plummeted to 12%.  Finally, a normal day.

My perennial flower bed, the one in the sun, completely wilted.  Some of the leaves on my Snow on the Mountain completely dried out/burned up, curling up into brown, crispy death.  I came home from work to find about a third of it destroyed.  I immediately set the end of the hose in the garden and moved it every five minutes to another plant, giving them a deep drink.  The sun was still blazing down, and I couldn’t risk a sprinkler on what was left of the leaves.  At dark, I set out the sprinkler and ran it for almost an hour to get water deep down.  Everything looked better the next morning, but still, those brown leaves are not going to recover. The dianthus are pretty angry at me too.  Like I turned on the sun or something!

Yikes.

The next week is promising temps in the upper 90’s to near 100, and no rain.  We’ve been waiting for this weather to arrive.  But it is such a shock to have 60’s and clouds and rain one day, and two days later 100 degrees.  The plants can’t adapt quickly enough.

The good news is that all this heat will finally help my vegetables.  The tomatoes, eggplant, squash, pumpkins, will all be happy to see it, and maybe finally I’ll get some production.  The heat will also mean that the slugs will leave.  Right now slugs are decimating my beans and lettuces each night.  I’ve had to resort to bait to get rid of them.  This is a hard time of year for gardening.  I may have a lot of plants in the ground, but no production.  Nothing to eat.  Lots of trips to the grocery store.

But we gardeners are an ever-hopeful lot.  We know that our veggies will come.  Today, I will water and water, and hoe at the weeds that seem to be fine with all this rain, and hope to see blooms on the squash and tomatoes.

All in good time, I guess.  All in good time.

I’ve been a busy busy girl these days.  With spring and now just about jumping into summer, there are the gardens to work on, the grass to mow, biking trails to explore, yummy fresh foods to cook, etc.  Tater has been out of school since before Memorial Day, the Perfect Child just got engaged and is moving out of the house to live full-time with her boyfriend and I’ve inherited not only FishyFishy the Betta but Gracie the cat as well, and all of that surrounds the biggest thing to happen to me in a very long time:

I published a book!  I mean really, traditionally, through a publisher, published a book!

This has been a long, sometimes painful, slow process.  The book itself was written in 2009, but I didn’t have it finished enough to submit until last spring.  My publisher, The Wild Rose Press, has been awesome, and while it has been a lot of work, it has also been less work because of their care of me and my story.  When I signed my contract last October, I had no idea what a whirlwind I was going to be shoved into.

Fairest of the Faire was released on June 5th, just a little over a week ago.  Since that day, I’ve spent nearly all my spare time guest-appearing on different blogs, talking about my book on social media and in person, and arranging with local bookstores to carry it.  It has been exciting, meeting new people and making new connections, but it has also been exhausting.  I have been sleeping, eating, and breathing book promotion.

But what an exciting time for me!  As a writer, becoming an author is kind of the “holy grail” that is not obtained by many.  There is still a lot to be done in the next couple of months as far as promotion, and I do need to get to working harder on my second book.  But for now, I’m just sort of basking, enjoying this accomplishment.  It is a dream come true!

Blurb:

Schoolteacher Connie Meyers is suddenly a young widow, her husband killed in a horrific car accident. Heartbroken to find out he had gambled away everything they had, she moves to her sister-in-law’s Midwest home to rebuild her life. A trip to the local Renaissance Faire with her nieces leads to a summer job as a costumed storyteller.

Avowed bad boy and fair performer Gage Youngblood is infatuated with Connie at first sight. Despite his deliberately commitment-free life, and Connie’s don’t-touch-me attitude, he soon has her in his arms, realizing quickly she is also in his heart.

When she is threatened by her late husband’s bookie, he steps into the role of protector, his fate forever sealed with hers.

Excerpt:

“Who said anything about a relationship?” he said, standing up so he could tower over her again. “I’m just trying to have a little fun. You know, fun?”

If he’d been an animal, she was sure he’d have had hair raised on the back of his neck, he seemed so angry, and it struck her painfully. She hadn’t wanted to anger him or hurt him. She turned away from him and closed her eyes to tamp down the tears she knew would come if she let them. She crossed her arms over her chest, to hold in the pain. Being tired made her much too vulnerable.

“Yes,” she finally said. “I know about fun. Life isn’t always fun, though.”

“Princess.” His voice was soft, tender. “I won’t hurt you. It’s not in my plan.”

Despite herself, she felt the shivers of desire race down from her shoulders, down her arms and legs, and back up to that secret, soft place at her core. She bowed her head and gritted her teeth, hoping for the feeling to go away.

“And what is your plan, Gage?”

“It’s a simple plan. I want you to feel good. I want to feel good, too.”

Available NOW!

Buy at Wild Rose Press (PDF or paperback)

Buy at Amazon  (Paperback or Kindle)

Buy at Barnes and Noble (Nook)

Since moving to Colorado, I’ve made a pretty big effort towards eating better, and taking better care of myself.  This has not been a perfect process, but I’ve also not spent too much effort beating myself up about my “mistakes.”  There are things I’m learning all the time, different things I’m trying, and while my body shape doesn’t seem to change, how I feel has changed tremendously.  I have better and more sustained energy, recover from minor to moderate injuries within a day or two, have less achiness overall, and rarely get sick any more.  These are all bonuses.

In the beginning, I gave up fast food.  That meant no more McDonald’s, Taco Bell, or any of the others.  And after years of eating such things, I did miss them.  But as the weeks went by, I missed them less and less, and finally realized that when I did indulge, they made me feel ill.

But I haven’t given up on all “fast food.”  I think there is fast food, and then there is fast food that is okay to eat.  I love Noodles and Company, which uses mostly fresh ingredients that they cook while you wait.  Chipoltle is not one of my favorites, but I like Q’doba, which also uses fresh foods and responsibly-raised meat.  I like places like Crazy Bowls and Wraps, Tokyo Joes (despite the bad experience we had at the one in our town), and fresh foods from the food bars at local grocery stores.  None of these places are perfect, but they are the way to go when home-made food may not be available or practical.

That being said, I can usually prepare a fresh dinner from scratch in 30 minutes or less.  That can be accomplished with chicken, or with eggs, or with ground beef or butcher-made sausages I get from my favorite small grocery.  A salad with fresh greens, tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, and seared chicken is pretty quick to make, even if the chicken breasts are still frozen.  And with my busy life, quick meals are important.  If I can’t put it in my crock pot, then it needs to be fast on top of the stove.

Gone from our family diet are most pre-packaged foods – pasta with sauce, rice with sauce, canned cream of mushroom soup, frozen dinners, etc.  I tend to use fresh ingredients, and if I don’t have those, I use frozen.  That way, I know exactly how much salt and seasoning is going on them, and what those seasonings are.  It was baby steps at first, of course, but I’ve slowly been eliminating foods with ingredients we don’t want.  My latest label-reading has me looking a lot harder at salad dressing.  Most of them list High Fructose Corn Syrup as their first ingredient.  I now choose ones that have “water” as their first ingredient, or “vinegar.”  I know what those things are and how my body will react to them.

It has been easy to do here in Colorado, because there is an emphasis on fresh, wholesome foods in all of the grocery stores.  The attitude toward food is very different than what I grew up with – we purchase local when we can (I buy all of my eggs from local producers), and buy fresh when we can.  I am blessed to be able to afford the luxury of buying good foods, and being able to leave behind the cheap, but dubiously nutritional, foods that we had eaten for many years.  I hope I will always be able to eat this way, now that I’ve become accustomed to it.

I turned 54 last weekend. I had to sit and let that sink in a bit. This means my mom will be 74 this year. My dad will be 80. I’ve survived a marriage, a divorce, and another marriage. I’ve survived the birth of three children and the loss of two pregnancies. I’ve been without grandparents for more than 20 years. I have two brothers who are both now over 50, as well. How did we get so danged old?

With age comes a form of maturity. I still feel young, but now don’t put up with as much crap as I used to. I like that part. It actually makes life a little easier for me.

But one thing I can do without is the fact that apparently, I have gone into menopause. I joined the White Pants Club seven years ago (hysterectomy), but menopause was still to come. And it has finally decided to make its visit. I want to hope that it won’t stay long, but as with all things we don’t like, it has already worn out its welcome. I’ve always had some midnight sleeplessness, for which I take medication, but now the mild night sweats have turned into a sweatbath. The hot flashes during the day come on me so fast I don’t know what hit me. I get a warm feeling in my chest, and suddenly, it’s in my neck, down my back, and my head is so hot I feel like anyone looking at me will so those wiggly heat marks like you see in the heat of the desert. Just to make it more fun, my face turns nice and red.

It seems like such a cruel trick. As women, we go through a lot. We start with menstrual cycles when we hit puberty, which for me was about 12 years old. We suffer through a teenagehood of raging hormones without the maturity to know what to do with them. Then we have kids, and sweat our way through childbirth and hormonal crashes both during and after pregnancy. Pregnancy itself changes our bodies forever. We gain flab and stretch marks, perky boobs are a distant memory, and we sleep less and less as we get older. And just when we get used to all of that, wham! Menopause!

The science lover in me wants to know what the purpose of menopause is. These symptoms – hot flashes, less sleep, dry skin, sexual dysfunction for some, and the cranky side effects of it all – there has to be some purpose for all of this. I just can’t figure out what it is. Seems like a terrible, terrible joke. A prank Mother Nature plays on us. And I’m not finding it funny. It is not funny at all.

Of course I’ve asked my sister-friends how it has been for them. One of my friends has been having hot flashes for more than 10 years. She is a couple years older than me. Some of my friends who are a bit younger are already tired of the meno, and feeling hopeless.

This doesn’t give me much faith in the idea that it will pass quickly. You would think modern medicine would have figured this out by now.

We are headed into the last week of May. We have had nothing in May but rain, rain, rain, rain. We’ve had a few days where the sun came out for a few hours, but those times have been few and far between. We usually get about 2 inches of Rain in May, our “rainiest month.” So far, my back yard has gotten close to 8 inches. And that doesn’t count the moisture we got from the 5 inches of wet snow we got overnight one night.

There is flooding, and while it isn’t like the flooding we saw in September, 2013, it still has people on edge. Flooding here is not like the flooding I’m used to in Missouri. The river doesn’t just get high and sort of spread out like a big lake, except on the plains. Here in the foothills, the rain rushes madly down the canyons, scouring out everything in its path. It is ruthless. It doesn’t slow down until it has found a way to leave town. Most of the rivers here are called rivers, but as a Missouri girl, they are just creeks. But right now, they are very full creeks.

Even up high, in Rocky Mountain National Park, the waterways are crashing through the rocks and trees. As I sit writing this on another cloudy, overcast day that had significant rain in it, I am looking out at the Big Thompson River rushing by the coffee shop. The water is muddy and angry. Some of it is snow melt, but much of it right now is from the persistent rain.

We all feel like we’re living in Seattle! According to our weather people, Seattle has actually been warmer and much drier than we have.

But May can’t last forever, right? I’ve got plants and seeds in the garden, flowers in pots on the front porch, and all the summer clothes out. These 50-degree days with pounding rain are depressing. They are promising us some sun tomorrow, and I am looking forward to that. I will go outside and soak up as much as I can. Last year by this time we had the swamp cooler running and were wearing shorts every day. We haven’t even uncovered the swamp cooler yet.

Cold, grey, rainy, damp, and foggy. I’m ready for some sunshine!

A few months ago, I started deliberately moving away from plastic containers for long-term storage.  I like the look of glass jars, and find them to be a better choice when it comes to storing things.  Glass doesn’t absorb or leach odors, and you can see through them to see what is in the jar and how much is left.  Jars seal tightly as long as you use good quality lids.  They also have the advantage of looking kind of nice sitting there on the shelf.

A couple weeks ago, one of the “deal” websites I look at frequently had a set of Pyrex bowls with lids on sale for a ridiculous price.  I bought a set.  Once they arrived in the mail, I wished I’d gotten two sets.  These have snap-on plastic lids, so they are not just good for baking, but good for storing, too.  They are pricy most of the time, which is why I don’t own more of them.  But as I age, and have fewer people in the house that are capable of breaking all my good dishes, it just seems smart to start to replace some of the plastics with perfectly useful Pyrex.

Pyrex bakeware and dishes have a long history, which you can read all about it here on Wikipedia.  I have always liked them for their good looks and sturdy and utilitarian nature.  If you want something to go from freezer to oven, Pyrex is your friend.  If you want to be able to keep that bowl of mashed potatoes warm in the oven while you finish preparing the rest of the meal, Pyrex is your friend.  Baking a pie?  The way Pyrex distributes heat is like magic – no oddly burned crusts.  You can put it in the microwave, too.  It’s multi-purpose!

And I own a lot of it.  Not as much as a collector might, but I have some useful pieces that get used, if not every day, at least once a week.  Some have a history (see below), but for the most part, all of the pieces that I have have been picked up at thrift stores and garage sales.  And as I am an avid thrift store shopper, I’m picking up more and more of it.  Nothing, and I mean nothing, works like Pyrex!

These nesting bowls are from the late 50’s, and came in multiple colors.  My mother received a set identical to this one as a wedding gift in 1959.  I purchased my set at a thrift store for under $10, about fifteen years ago.  I have seen similar sets priced in antique stores for upwards of $50.  It is rare to find all four bowls.  These have pour spouts and are great for mixing batters.  The largest bowl was used in my house growing up to serve my mother’s potato salad.  I can hardly touch mine without seeing that vision in my head. 

Pyrex bakeware is a must.  All of these pieces have been picked up at various thrift stores or yard sales.  I have other baking dishes, but these are the ones I use the most.  I also have pie plates. 

I received a three-piece measuring cup set for my first wedding, some 26 years or so ago.  The four-cup one (center) is actually not from the original set, as it was broken by my current husband and he replaced it.  The smallest one is not in the picture, as I had just used it to measure oil and water for red velvet cupcakes.  But the cup on the right is a new addition.  Paid $8 for it at a thrift store a couple of months ago.  It is a very rare, hard-to-find 8-cup Pyrex measuring cup.  Great for measuring, but also for mixing a batch of brownies or cupcakes or waffles.  It holds the batter with room to spare, and then you can pour it into the pan or cupcake tin with less mess than a mixing bowl.  Worth the $8 although I balked at first and almost didn’t buy it!

I would love to hear your Pyrex stories!

This is one of my favorite pictures of my mother and I.  There are actually two doggies in the picture, but you’ll never find the second one since she’s always snuggling under the covers.  The dog you can see is no longer with us.  He was quite old in this picture, which is from two and a half years ago.  The older I get, the more I resemble my mother.  But you can see very distinct differences between us – primarily that I am obviously warm-blooded, and she is not!  I’m in shorts, no socks, short sleeves, and I was probably still hot.  Mom is in long sleeves, long pants, socks, and she is probably still cold.

I am blessed to have my mother.  My mother didn’t have hers at my age.  And her mother didn’t have hers at her my age either.  Women from her side of the family didn’t seem to live long lives.  But of course, many women of that era lived hard lives, too.  They bore too many children, did a lot more physical labor than we do these days, and didn’t have top-rate healthcare.  We are very blessed to live in the times we live in.  My mother is in her 70’s and looks to be in it for the long haul, and I’m in my 50’s and intend to live long enough to aggravate a whole lot more people and write a whole lot more books.

For the last three years, in the fall, my mother has been able to come and visit for several weeks.  We work on projects together, like gardening or making jelly.  And we always get to take a trip.  One year we went to Santa Fe.  Last year we toured around southern Colorado, seeing Lake Isabel, Bishop Castle, the Royal Gorge, and The Great Sand Dunes.  I had never spent any time in Southern Colorado, and we had a wonderful time.  One year we spent the time just going up and down the mountains looking at the Aspen as they turned yellow and gold, and took pictures of enormous herds of elks above the  treeline in Rocky Mountain National Park.  This year when she comes, we are thinking about going to Mount Rushmore.  I was there as a young teen, and would love to go back.

These trips are awesome, in so many ways.  We talk and talk, something we haven’t really been able to do since I was a kid.  We learn more about each other, which is always a good thing.  We enjoy meals together, and can commiserate together about the things in our life that aren’t going right, and be joyful for the rest of it.  I get a chance to “treat” my mom, who lives on a limited income and has to count her pennies.  These trips are what I will look back on in my older years, and remember how blessed I was to experience them.

Someday, my mother will be gone.  We never know how long we have, and as we age, we learn to appreciate more that we still have our parents.  We can learn so much from them, despite the fact that when we are young, we think they don’t know anything.

I hope everyone who is a mother in any way, however remotely, has a wonderful day.

May is our wettest month of the year.  The best thing about it is how green everything gets, how much everything blooms, and how much it reminds me of home.  Not the landscape, certainly, which is mostly flat until the mountains.  But the green, the flowering trees, the verdant look of it all.  With it comes what I call our “early monsoon season.”  We have a true monsoon season in late July and early August, but in May, Colorado acts for all the world like a tropical paradise.  We wake up to sunny skies and a quick warmup, but by noon clouds are building, and by 3 p.m., there is rain.  The rain is spotty, sometimes merely a few raindrops, but the clouds are angry and dark, bubbling with mammatus-shapes, thunder rolling.  And then there are the funnels.  I have seen two funnels already this year.  The picture above is not mine, but similar to one I saw recently.  These little funnels would strike fear into the hearts of many a Midwesterner.  Little funnels never stay little, in the Midwest.  Here, they dangle for a few brief moments, then work their way back up into the cloud.  Later, further east, they may redevelop, but this close to the mountains, we never see more than what you see above.  We are just too high up, and there is no room for the high development and instability that is needed for true tornadoes.  It happens here so rarely, maybe once every 20 years, that one will actually make it to ground.  It is one of the advantages of living six miles from the mountains.

I spent my weekend working my plot in the community garden.  With Tater’s help, we put in the corner posts that were removed for the path rehab work that was done, dismantled the fencing I’d been using for pole beans and tomatoes and recreated it as an enclosure for pumpkins, and planted peas and kale.  We readied the potato basket for the potatoes that will go into it this week.  I found this website about making one from poles and willow or vines, but mine is just a bit of large-gauge wire, lined with a double-thickness of row cover, and staked to the ground.  We started with some composted alpaca manure, layered with straw.  I will use straight compost or potting soil for additional layers.  Last year’s experiment wasn’t hugely successful, but it was successful enough that I want to try it again, this time with a bigger basket.  I bought Kennebec potatoes this year.  I grew reds last year.

Back at home, I have planted kohlrabi, cauliflower (an accidental purchase), lettuce, and a few herbs (parsley, thyme).  I still have two huge parsley plants from last year, but as they are biennials, they will just go to seed in a month or so and not be good for much.  I have one basil plant to go in the ground, but it’s too early, although I did sow the seed I kept from last year’s batch.  The raised bed I built last fall is full of compost, bunny poo, leaves, and good dirt I had to by at the store.  It could use another layer, but I’m going to work with it as-is this year.  I will plant the tomatoes there, and probably a squash or two.  I already have the squash and pumpkin seedlings ready to go.  It’s just not warm enough yet.

I will also add cucumber, and will soon plant beets and parsnips.  Parsnips take the entire summer to get big enough to dig.  They are still small, but so sweet and wonderful, it is worth giving up the space for them.  I grew way too many turnips last year, so this year I will plant fewer.  Much fewer.  We will have beans, of course.  Lots of yummies to eat!

I will take pictures next time I go over. Right now everything is bare.  We had to dig up so many weeds, as I’d use alpaca manure on top of the garden last fall.  It is full of weed seeds!  And the mint that had happily stayed in one tiny corner had suddenly taken over about 1/5 of the garden.  We dug it all up, but put a small batch in a pot for Tater to are for at home.  But we have to remember that here, despite the fact that there are solid signs of spring, we should plant no warm-weather items until after Mother’s day.  Even later if we can stand it.  We will likely get one more freeze this year, if not more.  But the rain?  Even with the little funnels?  We’ll take it!

What’s growing in your garden?  What are you most anxious to begin harvesting?

Today, as I do most weekend days, I headed to the cafe down the street to get some writing done.  They have great coffee and a wonderful savory scone that I enjoy immensely.  The cafe is in an old Victorian house with tons of character, complete with doors to nowhere and creaky wooden floors.  The Barista is a cute little hipster boy who makes a most excellent latte and despite being busy as a one-man-crew, always friendly and helpful.  I usually spend a couple of hours, sipping my latte and nibbling at my scone and writing a couple thousand words or so.

But as per usual, my peaceful time is disrupted by poorly behaved young children whose parents think it is okay to let them run about and knock over things and generally make a mess.  I realize I am going to sound like a cranky old lady, but I am also a mother who has fully raised two children, and am currently raising a third.  None of my kids, at any age, would have been allowed to run around inside any establishment (other than maybe a play studio?) as if it were a playground.  Had they behaved like that, they’d have been swiftly set to rights and reminded that ladies and gentlemen, even young ones, must follow expected protocol at an indoor event.  It should be no problem for a child of 4 or 5 years of age to sit quietly for 30 minutes with a book, toy, or snack while their parents visit over a cup of coffee.  They should not interrupt adults unless the roof is on fire, and they should play quietly using their inside voices.

I am not stupid.  I know it is hard for kids to behave at all times.  But there are standards of behavior that should be enforced by parents or caregivers.  Children allowed to do as they wish when they are small, are going to turn into teenagers and young people that no one wants to be around.  I don’t know what excuse the parents rely on to not teach their children manners, but whatever the excuse is, it is inexcusable.  When the behavior of your children impacts those around you in a public, indoor environment, it falls upon you to set them to rights, and to be sure that other patrons are not being inconvenienced by your children.  It is not “children will be children,” or “oh, isn’t that cute.”  It is annoying, and disruptive.  And it doesn’t need to be.

I will not forget the times I was complimented on the behavior of my children.  It makes a mother very proud to hear that someone noticed that her children were well-behaved.  It made me know that the hard work of making them behave was worth it.  I now have polite adults who remember that they are not alone in a public place, and that their actions affect others.

I just wish the parents in today’s visit understood the value of teaching their children manners.  It can make all the difference.