It has been a very long time since I have played Fun Monday but Jill made it next to impossible to resist. She asked us to share our experiences homemade gifts. . .

This is the third year I’ve made our Christmas cards, people seem to like them.  I love to paper craft!  This year I just made this one design and it was pretty quick.  Now I need to actually mail them, lol.

My mom often makes quilts and as you can see with my grandson, they are huge hits!

One of my blogger friends, Snowcatcher, shares a new crocheted snowflake pattern, of her own design, every single Monday.  I have not crocheted since I was a wee girl, with my grandma.  These snowflakes have kicked my butt!  It took me hours of trying to just get simply one to not look like a chaotic knot of thread, lol.  I was determined to make a few for people I thought would appreciate them.  After about 3 hours of attempts I finally got one lopsided flake.  I kept going and I have now made 9, none are perfect like Snowcatcher’s, but I am hoping the people I share them with will simply appreciate that I tried, and tried, and I was thinking of them the entire time or I would have given up.  {If you feel like you read this part before it’s because you did, I posted about the snowflake a few days ago in my cancer daily posts but it fit so well here I posted it again.}

You can see more Fun Mondays by going to Life is Not Bubble Wrapped.

Fun Cooking Monday
originally posted Monday, 24 September 2007

Lisa at the Food Snob is hosting this week’s Fun Monday; don’t forget to visit her site to see a list of participants. She got us back in the kitchen and I know you will be as shocked as I was at her request

I want to see your favorite recipe, be it either because your grandmother wrote it, it’s the easiest thing you can slap together that everyone likes, it makes you feel healthy, it’s cheap, etc. You don’t have to make it (although you could if you want) but let us see the index card, cookbook, printed paper from the web, and why it’s a favorite in your house. If you have a lot, just pick one, I know I’ll have to.

I hate to cook. There, it’s out there, I do not like to be in the kitchen anymore than I have to. My husband actually does most of our cooking and he’s fantastic at it! He loves experimenting with foods and he wishes I was more flexible in my food choices (nice way of saying, he hates how picky I am). Unfortunately, he cooks like my mom, they neither one use recipes and just go by taste. Fortunately, I do have a recipe for those of you who like it.

Since moving away from Missouri I have been unable to find one of my favorite foods. In fact, the only Chinese dish I eat, Cashew Chicken. The type of Cashew Chicken I am talking about originated in Springfield, Missouri, so the one you see on the menus elsewhere are most likely not the same.

Cashew Chicken

* 5 whole chicken breasts
* 1 t sugar
* 4 T soy sauce
* ½ c cashews (unsalted)
* ½ c green onion tops
* 4 eggs beaten slightly w/ milk
* Cornstarch
* Oil
* Salt
* 1 t monosodium glutamate

Cut chicken into cubes. Let cubes marinate in soy sauce for at least 30 minutes. Dip cubes in egg batter and then in a mixture of cornstarch, salt and monosodium glutamate.

Brown chicken in oil, remove, and add ½ cup cashews. Simmer w/ chicken for 10 minutes. Add a few teaspoons of water for chicken to steam. Place over cooked rice and garnish with more nuts and green onions. Pour oyster sauce over dish.

Oyster Sauce:

* 4 chicken bouillon cubes
* 1 c water
* ~bring to a boil then add
* 2 T cornstarch mixed to a thin paste with ¼ c of water
* ~stir constantly, then add
* 1 t sugar
* 1 t salt
* 1 T oyster flavor sauce

I have only made it that way one time. The way we (we being my husband) typically make it is:

Short-cut Cashew Chicken

* Cook some frozen popcorn chicken.
* Make some white rice.
* Heat in a pan, a can of Chicken Stock and thicken with some cornstarch.

Throw rice on a plate, place chicken on top, add your cashews and onions then add sauce. Enjoy. While it’s not exactly the same as my dearly missed Missouri dish it is a decent substitute.

AND

Macro Monday is easy to play, snap a macro (or any close-up) photo, post it on your blog and come back here and sign Mr Linky(at the bottom of this post). Don’t forget to visit each other.

I am hoping that the hostess of this week’s Fun Monday, Jan, doesn’t mind that I have combined FM with my Macro Monday this week. Her topic was one I just could not resist and the photos worked for my meme too. Hope there’s not too much confusion with this.

Can you guess what this is? Well it’s not my dog’s chew bone. But Jan wanted to know what we have in our house that is unique and we’d never get rid of. I don’t think anyone would want this.

This has been hanging out in our freezer for six years. I have never touched it, it’s about 2 inches long and I dumped it out of its specimen jar to a napkin for the photo, then carefully put it back and threw said napkin away.

This, my friends, is a piece of a rib bone, and not just any rib bone. It’s mine!

September 2002, I had what’s called a Chamberlain Procedure. The doctors cut out a piece of rib and operated on my lung. I had a mass in the hilar region (near where the lung meets the airway) and there was concern of the mass blocking off the opening and making the lung quit working. The doctor wanted to take out the entire lung but my oxygen level wasn’t good enough on one lung so he just removed the mass. It was not cancerous.

When I woke up in ICU I found out that my mom had requested my rib for me.  She told the doctors something about my religion requiring me to have all my body parts when I am buried.  I think my boyfriend thought we were nuts, but he did eventually propose so maybe he likes nuts.

December 31st 2002, New Year’s Eve, I spent in the ICU hooked up to tubes and such after going through a second surgery to put mesh in the area where the rib is missing. Apparently, you are supposed to be ok with a piece of rib missing, but my lung herniated out of the opening. I hope I never have lung surgery again!

If you’re playing Macro Monday please sign Mr Linky.

I think this ring-billed gull wants to go home with me.

Or, maybe not. What do you think he’s saying?

Is that so?

Boy, he’s almost as loquacious as I am! Too bad I don’t speak ‘gull’.

One more yell, then. . .

He turned and walked away.

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Macro Monday is easy to play, snap a macro (or close-up) photo, post it on your blog and come back here and tell me about it.  Words, no words, it’s up to you.

The truth of the matter is that I don’t often have opportunity to doodle. But this past week, something occurred, and later I felt the need to make some scribbles. The moment was scary, and sad, and we’re really, really sorry, but my interpretation of the moment had us laughing like silly school girls for quite a while. Please note the sizes of the raccoon and the mini-van – that’s no exaggeration!

Gas around us has dropped to $3.19, which makes us very happy. And the floating head is how I used to draw myself, when I had a perm – I was showing hubs, since he always laughs at my onion-head version of myself.

OH, and when Dennis crawled under the van to check things out he discovered a smily face on the oil filter – left by our mechanic. Seems everyone doodles.

Thanx for a fun Fun Monday iPost!!

Well Rayne, I wish I could tell you that I save the nail clippings from all of our guests, or all my dogs’ hair shavings, or some sort of fabulous oddity. But I can’t.

I throw twist ties away as soon as I can, I hate those little boogers! And I don’t really save anything that I can put my finger on. I generally pick up extra napkins from places we go but they always get used, not just tucked away for safe keeping.

I am guilty of saving various papers to use when scrapbooking, but I don’t really call that a collection either. Sorry, to be so boring. We’re on the drive home today from taking tons of photos of the newest grandson. I’ll get some up as soon as possible (probably in a couple of days).

Do you know that I am not romantic at all? Do you know that I will happily watch a B Thriller over a Chick Flick any day? How about that I ♥ LOVE suspense books but would never pick up a romance? Do these things help you understand how hard this week’s “Love Story” Fun Monday was for me?

Limber and graceful she clung to him.

The moment she touched his firm bark she knew that she must have him in her life for all eternity.

She tried to impress him with her twig imitation. Long and lithe, a perfect blend, she held on through the strongest winds.

When that failed to impress him,

She began to plead. She begged and she begged and told him her need. He simply hung there, with his leafy hair blowing in the breeze.

She used the only tool she had to make a permanent announcement of her love for him. Their names carved in a heart.

‘Love you ~ Rider + Merit 93’

Sorry A Monkey in the Wrong Tree, that’s as mushy as I can get. I found the carving on the birch in the Upper Whiting Park in Whiting, Wisconsin and I am curious about who Rider and Merit are, and if, 15 years later, their love is still as strong as the carving. Just one of Wisconsin’s little mysteries.

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Colton Scott was born September 5th and weighed in at 8 lbs.

Sorry for the quality of the photo but at the moment it is the only one we have of our newest grandson.  And I thank our son, Bryan, for snapping it with his cell phone and sending it our way.  If all goes as planned we will be snapping photos of him next weekend.   And yes he now has a name, although they plan on calling him Cole.