patty dutcher: Summer in full swing

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Summer in full swing

I am unclogged and in the flow of the river. Heck, I am in the rapids!! I have my oar over my head, a smile on my face and I am having a blast!! WOHOO!! Getting out of my own head and being involved and present for others has made such a drastic difference in my mood and overall happiness.

Summer is in full swing around my house. Between traveling and swim team we are busy people, and loving every minute. I am using some new strategies to motivate my girls and that has been HUGE!! They are packing for trips, cleaning my house(score!!) reading library books and the biggest...getting along!! One tip that has really made a difference is having them agree on a list of whatever needs to be done. Wait, let me back u. First I have to determine what motivates them. Money is the motivator in this house. So we agree on what needs to be done. I offer $10 for a completed list. And here is the sweetest part of the deal...for every time I have to remind, follow up, interfere, navigate, nudge or otherwise get involved in what they have assured me they will handle, it is a dollar off the top. This has worked beautifully in my house, well, it has worked so far and we are 2 weeks in. We will see how long it last but for now it is a dream come true. Before we left for a trip last week, the girls and I agreed on their individual list and they had a time frame in which to complete it. By the time we got in the car to leave, they had each lost $10 out of the original $30 they were offered. I also threw in that they would be paying for their own food when we stopped to eat on the trip. This was an added bonus because they made much better food choices since they would be paying for it. The first few times there were shouts of “thats not FAIR!!”. But my reply took care of that, “ I made up this game so it is FAIR!!! and if you say that again it is another dollar off”. You could hear a pin drop. I will keep you posted on how this continues to work in my house.

For things to get done, it all comes down to motivation. Motivation and clear expectations. And also some money, and …. I just use what works for a while and then switch it up when we need a change.

Change is good.

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ART CAMP FOR GROWN UPS!!

I have had art camps for kids, they were fun but taking this summer off. Now, I answer the question..."do you ever have art camps for grown up?" This summer I do!!
June 30th 6:30-9pm.
At my house...
Pottery: I will help you create your own master piece.
Acrylic on canvas: you can paint the perfect picture for that spot in you home, and you can pick out the perfect colors!!
Jewelry: You can play in my beads and create those earrings you have been wanting me to make for ages!!
Cost is $25. all supplies are included, you jusat have to show up!
email me if you are interested, dutcher4@bellsouth.net
Come on over and let me help you unleash your inter artist!!

Wisdom from Stimp about the work we must do to find peace.

The Jesuit Priest, Henri Nouwen, whom I spent 24 hours with while he was teaching at Yale, told me to be aware of people who project their fear and anger on others. He said they have their deamons and until they find peace within themselves, they will not be of much use to others, much less themselves. He reminded me of the scripture where Jesus said we are to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves. This meaning we are to discern what we ourselves are responsible for as opposed to how we think others are supposed to act. The hardest work we have in life if taking ful responsibility for ourselves and our actions. It is much easier to point fingers and say it is another person who is making my life miserable. We may say another is controlling, manipulating, or whatever rather than taking full resposibility and acknowledging that we are allowing that behavior or exist. Being gentle with ourselves and with others is critical in finding inner peace because otherwise we continue to project ourselves on others. This is hard work work, but well worth the effort. There is so much hate in the world caused primarily by people who have not found peace within themselves. A way to find peace within ourselves is through psychotherapy/counseling where someone skilled can objectively help us understand why we buy into the notion, as George Bernard Shaw reminds us, that the world is not devoting itself to making me happy. We are responsible for our own happiness, not another person and not the lottery!!

The Key to Being Happy by Stimp Hawkins

Why are we not happy? According to my spiritial practice, it is primarily because we do not experience ourselves as we really are. We see ourselves as being independent and perminent, whereas we are interdependent and impermanent. We are constanly changing, moment by momet, just as I am changing as I write this. Suffering comes when we get caught up in feelings that seem so solid and perminent. We are not allowing for the fact that these feelings are empty of any inherent nature. Our egos want things to go our way, we want them to stay the same. This thinking keeps us from looking deeply into why things are the way they are. We all have the tendency to get so caught up in our own needs we fail to see what is going on with others. The trap is not taking time to look deeply into ourselves and see that we are a bottomless pit of needs complaining, as George Bernard Shaw says, "that the world will not devote itself to making us happy."

Let me use my granddaughter, Rachel as an example. When she was diagnosed with a potentially fatal bone disease, all of us who loved her were forced to get outside of ourselves and concentrate on her. What we saw was how impermanent life is and how dependent we all were not only on Duke and their incredible medical team, but how dependent we are on each other. During Rachel's illness, change was happening moment to moment, sometimes not as rapidly as we wanted but it was happening. So many lessons we can take from that crisis, primarily the impermanence of everything and how interdependent we all are. Remember, nothing stays the same, absolutely nothing. We need to take time apart and go deeply into why things are the way they are and practice loving kindness at every step.

Much Love and joy as we all take our journeys toward complete happiness and peace.

Stimp

Wise answers from my dad... Stimp Hawkins

My question, (asked me by an 8th grade student):
Why must we always help others in need? Why are American's so quick to help in Haiti, when we ourselves as a nation, are suffering?

Dad's answer:

When there is a major crisis such as Haiti, the best is brought out in us. Our first response it to help. The suffering in our country is nothing compared to Haiti, but when you take a closer look in our country you begin to see people addressing human suffering; i.e.food banks, shelters, soup kitchens,numerous agancies helping those in need. Haiti's disaster was on such a massive scale and recieved such world wide coverage, we saw and continue to see efforts to help. Just looking at the question, "why must we always help others in need?", is the way in which we find out who we are. Didn't Jesus say we have to lose our life to find it? (Matthew 10:39) We find our identity by helping others When left to ourselves, we are nothing but a bottomless pit of need. Selflessness is the path!!

Love you,

Dad

The True Joy in Life...by George Bernard Shaw

The true joy in life is to be used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one. To being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grieveances, complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community. And as long as I live it is my privilage to do for it what I can. I want to be thoroughly used up when I die. For the harder I work the more I live. I rejoice in life for it's own sake. Life is no brief candle to me. It is sort of a splendid torch, which I've got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.

Wow, powerful words to live by!

Tomato Royale

1 lb grape tomatoes
3 Tbs red wine vinegar
1/4 cup dried basil
2 cloves crushed fresh garlic
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup capers
extra virgin olive oil

Cut the tomatoes in halves/quarters and place skin side down on a lightly sprayed(canola oil) cookie sheet.
Place in 225 degree oven for 2-3 hours
Remove tomatoes from oven and put into a clean quart jar.
add next 5 ingredients and stir well.
Pour eeov over mixture in the jar until it is covered.
Mix well again.
Cover with lid and leave on counter for a couple hours...or eat right away!! Stores in the fridge for 2 weeks.
Oh, so delicious with goat cheese/cream cheese on good toasted bread.
This is also great mixed into pasta.
Use it on pizza instead of the jar pizza sause, outstanding!!
One of our family favorites is putting it on flour totillas and sprinkling with mozarella cheese, pop in the toaster oven for 8 minutes, yummy-do!!!

Fresh baked bread...

Bread recipe:

Desolve 1 packet or 1 table spoon of yeast in two cups of warm water. After it is desolves,

add:

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup of honey. Mix well.

In large bowl, measure 6 cups flour. I use 4 cups whole wheat flour and 2 cups white flour. (see explanation below)

Add 2 tsp salt

Pour in liquid and mix well.

When mixture comes together into a ball, place on clean surface and kneed for 3 minutes.

Put dough back in oiled bowl, cover with wax paper and place in warm spot, (I place in oven with the light on) and let it rise until double in size.

Divide into loaf pans and let rise for a couple of hours. Remove from oven and heat it up to 350 degrees.

Bake for 30 minutes

Remove from oven and place in cooling rack. Butter the top of each loave to prevent from drying out top crust. You can spray with canola oil, this works well for me.

Enjoy!!
The reason I use 2 cups of white flour in my bread, is because whole wheat flour doesn't absorb any oil, and white flour does. Which is why whole wheat bread is so dry and white bread is like cake.

Popeye Strawberry Salad

You can build your salad any way you like. I will just tell you what I like in mine...

Fresh spinach

fresh strawberries, sliced

1/2 cup walnuts or peacans or almonds, toasted

red onion, sliced very thin

blue cheese crumbles, or feta cheese(if I don't have crumbles, I will use a tablespoon of jar blue cheese dressing)

Poppy Seed Dressing

Homemade Poppy Seed Dressing

1/4 c vinegar

3 tbls sugar

1 tsp mustard powder

2 Tbls fresh grated onion

1/4 tsp salt

Mix this well till sugar dissolves.

Whisk in 1/2 cup cannola oil

Stir in 2 Tbsp poppy seeds

If you want to buy your dressing ready made, I usually pour 1 cup into another container and add more vinegar to the bottle. Store bought Poppy Seed dressing seems too sweet and not tart enough. Trading out some dressing for more vinegar does the trick for me.

Enjoy the all these strawberries in season, they are wonderful!!

Aunt Ellen's Asian Noodles

This recipe is from my husband's aunt, Ellen DeWitt. Her original recipe is a little different (see blog post 1/22 ;) ), but the basics are the same so I give her the credit.

1 1lb box thin spagetti

4 Tblsp Seseme oil

4 Tblsp honey

4 cloves garlic, minced

4 Tblsp red wine vinegar

1/4 c. soy sause

1 cup(8oz) Taco sauce

(I know this sounds weird, but it is the right ingredient! I have tried to substitute with other things, and trust me, stick with the taco sauce!)

A few dashes of Texas Pete, for a little heat

1/4 c. seseme seeds

Cook the spagetti noodles, el dente. (do not over cook!)

While pasta is draining, combine the next 7 ingredients in the pot on the stove. Bring mixture to a boil and return noodles to the pot, toss to coat well. Cover and let stand for an hour or so.

Toast seseme seeds and sprinkle on top, toss noodle to mix.

This dish can be served room temperature or cold...either way, Delicious!!

This recipe is wonderful served with a pork tenderloin roast and Asian slaw. Need those recipes also? I will be back in a minute with those...

Favorite dish at the moment...Sausage and Macaroni Skillet Dinner

Yummy-do!! Perfect for cold weather and short evenings...

I have been making this recipe for about 20 years and loving it! A dear friend of mine, Meredith, gave this to me years ago when I was still single, I loved cooking it back then as much as I do now.

P.S. Meredith no longer makes this dish, she is a vegatarian.

Brown 1 lb sausage, (I like Neese's mild) drain, return to skilet

Add 1 med onion, chopped

1 med green pepper, chopped

Cook together about 5-7 minutes

Add 1 tsp curry ( I know it sounds wierd, but it is not the same without the curry!)

Add 2 cans diced tomatoes and 2 cans water

Bring to a boil

Mix in 1 1lb box mac noodles, uncooked

Add more water to cover mixture.

Simmer on med heat for 20 minutes.

Will get thick, yum!

Just before serving, add 1/2 - 1 cup light sour cream.

Yes ma'am, it is delicious!!

This dish is wonderful served with cooked apples. Need that recipe too?

Well, here it is:

Slice 4-5 apples, remove core and leave skin on

Put 1/3 of apples in bottom of a small casserole dish with lid

Mix together in small bowl: 4 tblsp flour, 6 tlbsp sugar, 2 tsp cinnimon and 1/2 tsp salt

Put 1/3 of the sugar mixture on apples, top with 3 pats of butter

Put down a 2nd layer of apples, 1/3 sugar mixture..1/3 apples....end with sugar mixture and butter on top.

Microwave covered, for 9-10 minutes

Remove from micro wave, remove lid and let sit for 5-7 minutes before serving.

Your kitchen will smell fabulous!!

"...to go with that margarita..."

The Best Guacamole (sp?)

3 ripe avecados (buy them the day before you need them and put them in a paper bag, closed tight, when you get them out to use, they will be perfect!)

Seed, peel, and mash avecado

3 cloves garlic, minced

3 tbsp light mayo

2 tbsp light sour cream

juice from 1/2 lime

Stir is all up and Yummy-do!!

Serve with home fried corn chips.

Home fried? " How do you do this", you ask?

Well, you buy corn tortillas in the package, round, flat and stacked, they are very inexpensive and they are in the latino section of the grocery store.

Pour canola oil into a skillet, about 1-2 inches deep. Heat it up on med high/high. Cut the tortillas into triagles and put a layer(6-7 triangles) in the hot oil. Turn the chips over after 2-3 minutes. Continue cooking till light brown. Put on paper towels to drain. Sprinkle with salt while hot so the salt will stick. Oh my, these are so good!! If I make them ahead of time, I store them in a brown paper grocery bag. Once they are completely cool you can store them in zip lock bags.

Enjoy your fiesta, I am going to take a siesta!! I just love a nap!

The Stream

Water running down a stream, clear, moving forward.
Rolling over rocks and stones, glistening like shattered crystal in the sun light.
On the outside edge, some water gets caught up in an eddie.
A small whirlpool along the shore, confused and swirling.
The same water going around and around.
The same water going around and around.
Then comes the rush of the wind and a branch falls from an over hanging tree.
Knocks that eddie out and the water again joins the flow.
The water moves down the river, clean and moving ahead.
Keep moving along, try to stay clear of the eddies.
Don't spin around and around, it is boring and makes my stomach hurt.
Try to stay in the swift moving stream, it is fun and makes me laugh.
The Rush of the Wind is a friend of mine.

patty dutcher

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Summer in full swing

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My older brother and his handsome sons! Jan.1, 2011