Kenneth Wegner

The story:
Here in Nevada we have early voting at various locations around the valley. Malls, rotating grocery stores, libraries ect. So I was going grocery shopping at my local grocery store and there was a guy campaigning/handing out information about Kenneth Wegner in the parking lot. He approached me and was immediately in my face and confrontational. He asked me if I was voting and handed me information. I told him that I wasn't voting that day and asked him why he was campaigning at a voting site. He jumped to the defensive so fast and snidely told me that he wasn't campaigning- that he was simply handing out information about the candidate. That in order to be campaigning that he'd have to be the candidate. I rolled my eyes at him and proceeded into the store. In the front of the store there was a sign stating that this was private property and as such the owner of the property had opted to not have campaigning or leafleting done on their property during the early voting time. So I informed the manager that there was someone in their property doing just that.

When I went back outside he asked me if he could ask me a personal question. I told him I'd rather he didn't. He did anyway. He asked if I was LDS. I told him that I was and he handed me completely different information then he'd handed me previously about Kenneth Wegner, (that alone ticked me off) and he told me that Kenneth was also LDS and blah, blah, blah... One of the papers (the one that listed all the horrible things about his opponent) had a phone number at the bottom to call to volunteer for his campaign.

So I called the number and asked to speak with Kenneth Wegner. I was a little surprised when they put me through to him. I related the first part of the conversation in the parking lot and got the same attitude and defensiveness from him. Then I told him about his volunteer handing me completely different information when he found out my religion and he asked me if I was ashamed of my religion. I told him that was a strange question coming from a man who handed out different fliers depending on the religion of the person to whom he was campaigning for.

He was rude, confrontational and immediately defensive. I have a hard time with people like that. I have a hard time with people who think that I should (or shouldn't) vote for people depending on their religion.

Worse he told me that President Faust (one of the head men in our church- an apostle. Think cardinal in the Catholic church) told him that he needed to run and let people know what he believed. Basically he was name dropping trying to influence my vote. Well. He did. Influenced me to NOT vote for him.

The final straw was when he condescendingly told me that I should pray about it and then ask my husband who I should vote for. Steve and I do talk to each other about our voting thoughts and do some research together- but we also don't always agree and vote the same way. Although after talking to Steve about Kenneth Wegner he agreed that we shouldn't vote for him.

If you're wondering? He lost. Woot!

Deep Breath!!

YAY! Results are in and Nevada now has an indoor clean air act. No smoking in grocery stores (seriously it was allowed where there were slot machines) or in restraunts or bars that serve food. YAY!! So no more 'smoking or non'- there is just non!!! Woot. It becomes effective in two weeks. I think we'll go to dinner to celebrate!

VOTE!!

Don't forget to vote today! I know it's midterm elections and not the presidental elections- but really- go vote. Do your homework if you haven't already and go vote.

If you live in Las Vegas don't vote for Kenneth Wegner. More on that later. But he's a jerk. So vote for Shelly Berkley.

Super Saturday

It's over. It was fabulous (if I do say so myself). Everyone seemed to have a great time. Lunch was fun and light (which is what I was going for). My chocolate class went well, but really how can you mess up chocolate? I came home with a bunch of projects to work on- but most people finished their stuff there. I was just so busy making sure things were running smoothly that I didn't have much time to do crafts, which is okay.

All you need to know about CHOCOLATE

These are the handouts from my chocolate class:

All you need to know about chocolate….

• Consumers spend more than $7 billion a year on chocolate.
• U.S. consumers eat about 2.8 billion pounds of chocolate annually, making per capita consumption about 12 pounds per person a year.
• American chocolate producers use about 1.5 million pounds of milk.
• Chocolate has over 500 flavors components, more that twice the amount found in strawberry and vanilla.

Tempering: ‘Real’ Chocolate needs to be tempered in order to not form white crystals when drying. There are several methods of doing this, a common one using a double boiler- but an easier way is using the microwave.

No more than a pound at a time should ever be tempered, and tempering shouldn't be attempted when the air temperature is over 75 degrees Fahrenheit. A pound of coarsely chopped chocolate should be placed in an open, microwave-safe glass or ceramic container. The chocolate should be microwaved at full power for one minute and then stirred briefly. Continue to microwave at full power in ten-second increments until the chocolate is about ⅔ melted and ⅓ solid or lumpy. Then stir briskly until all the chocolate is completely melted and smooth.

Using a candy thermometer, the temperature must be tested as follows for the different types of chocolate:

• (88 to 91 degrees Fahrenheit for dark chocolate, the generic term for semisweet chocolate or bittersweet chocolate.
• 84 to 87 degrees Fahrenheit for milk chocolate or white chocolate.

For easier heating and reheating you can use chocolate wafers (commonly sold by Wilton in an array of colors) or Almond Bark. Both have the flavor of chocolate, but aren’t really ‘chocolate’ since the coco butter has been removed and replaced with palm oil. This eliminates the need for tempering.

-For dipping fruit (of any kind) it must be completely dry or the chocolate won’t stick.

-To flavor you can buy candy flavoring which is much more intense and doesn’t need as much to flavor so that it doesn’t add too much liquid to your chocolate.

-Always dry chocolate on waxed paper or parchment paper.

Soft Carmel for pretzel sticks

INGREDIENTS

• 2 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 cup corn syrup
• 1 cup butter
• 1 (5 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

DIRECTIONS

1. Place the popcorn in a large bowl. Shake and toss the bowl to make the unpopped kernels go to the bottom; discard.
2. In a sauce pan over medium-high heat, cook the brown sugar, corn syrup, and butter, stirring constantly. Heat to 270 to 290 degrees F (132 to 143 degrees C), or until a small amount of syrup dropped into cold water forms hard but pliable threads. Remove from the heat, and carefully pour in the can of condensed milk; stir until smooth.
3. Dip pretzels into caramel- let .dry on waxed paper When they’re semi solid (they’ll never fully harden) then dip into chocolate. Drizzle with contrasting chocolate or sprinkle with chopped nuts, coconut, or candy sprinkles.

Chocolate Popcorn

Ingredients:

White chocolate or White Almond Bark

Popcorn

1. Pop Popcorn

2. Melt chocolate and toss with popcorn until fully coated.

3. Lay out on waxed paper to dry. Drizzle with contrasting chocolate, sprinkle with toffee bits or candy cane if desired.

Chocolate Truffle Filling

Ingredients:

11 ½ ounces milk or dark chocolate

1/3 cup whipping cream

Candy flavoring if desired

1. In a heavy saucepan combine chocolate pieces and whipping cream. Cook over low heat for 4-5 minutes or until chocolate melts, stirring frequently. Remove saucepan from heat and cool slightly. Whip with wisk until smooth. Cover and refrigerate until firm.

2. Roll into balls and then roll in powdered sugar or ground toasted nuts. Place on baking sheet lined with waxed paper and freeze for 30 minutes.

3. Dip into chocolate and allow to dry again.

Candy Clusters

1. mix your favorite cluster ingredients into melted candy (equal parts chocolate and either nuts, raisins, coconut, mini marshmallows, rice crisipies or other items)

2. mix thoroughly so that all ingredients are coated with chocolate.

3. Drop mixture onto cookie sheet covered with waxed or parchment paper. Refrigerate until firm.

I'm still alive!

Barely though.

This week has been crazy. I've been aiming to stick to the schedule as much as possible. I made a job chart and tv watching rules and the tv's only been turned on once! YAY! We've had a lot of odd things pop up though- dental appointments, medical appointments ect that throw us off- but I'm not aiming for perfection- just following it when we're home to the best of our ability.

Tomorrow is Super Saturday so today I'm trying to figure out what I'm forgetting to get ready. I feel like I should be stressed out- but I'm really not. I've got a great group of really dependable people to help me out and I've put them in charge of certain things and I'm really not worried.

It did occur to me today that this great group of women need to be recognized and thanked in some way so I need to do that tonight as well as prepare for my chocolate class. I'm thinking of killing two birds with one stone and making them some dipped pretzel sticks and wrapping them all pretty. Is that lame??

For my chocolate class I'm teaching: chocolate tempering, nut clusters, chocolate dipped strawberries, chocolate dipped pretzels, truffles and chocolate popcorn. They're all totally simple things (I think) but they're things that I've gotten specific requests for. I'm making up handouts so if anyone is interested I can post them here later.

I'll post some pictures of my completed crafts after tomorrow- if I can get my camera to download. I'm suspecting that my cord is ruined since the camera isn't recognizing it. (angry face) I realized this after trying to down load pictures of my totally cute Halloween girls.

November Schedule

So Ashley is in year round school. She's on track 4 which means she has the month of November off school. I feel like our Summer flew by and we didn't get to do as much as I wanted and I don't want to waste the month of November on kids watching TV and me wearing my pj's all day. So I'm setting a schedule and some goals to accomplish by the end of the month.

Goals for Amber:
Learn to play 5 Hymns well enough to accompany (one must be Christmas)
Read 5 books
Set up Cake site
Get house fully organized
Teach Ashley one piano lesson a week
Do one craft a week with the girls
take the kids to the library twice
Work out 4 days a week minimum

Goals for Ashley:
Learn how to correctly spell the 100 sight words
Read one chapter book a week (with mom's help)
Learn how to cook 3 new recipes from her cookbook
Have one piano lesson a week
Pass off math speed tests

Goals for Megan:
Learn how to write name from memory
Figure out colors
practice cutting
learn to recognize all alphabet letters

Goals for Annika:
Start learning how to write name
Start learning how to cut
learn how to use the potty (acck!)


Daily schedule:
7:30-8:15 up, dressed, breakfast
8:15- leave for gym
10:30 return from gym
10:30-11:00 mom showers, everyone has free play
11:00 snack
11:10 work on writing and spelling
12:00 lunch
12:30 math, games (board or computer)
1:30 naptime for younger girls- ashley and mom read, do chores
3:30 play time or errands or library or piano
5:00 chore time
6:00 dinner
6:30 everyone helps clean up from dinner
Evening is free time


I want to have some system where the girls can earn 1/2 hour increments of tv time. Ashely especially is hooked on TV and wants to watch it constantly- which I hate. I'm not sure what sort of system to use though. Maybe 15 minutes per chore? Hmm, any ideas there? I'm going to have to try this out and see how it works. Hopefully we can send Ashley back to school smarter- which would be a good thing.