Fresh Salsa (made by Dave)

SO easy to make and SO GOOD!

Mom and I got these little hand crank salsa makers one year at the swap meet in Mesa. I got one for each of my girls and I'll get one for Courtney and Dave too. I used it to chop up all the ingredients for the bottled salsa too. There's nothing easier. Here's the recipe:
SALSA FRESCA
2-3 medium size ripe tomatoes (quartered)
1/2 medium onion
1/4 bunch fresh cilantro
2 cloves fresh garlic (or I've used bottled and it works great too)
1 tsp. garlic salt
1/2 lemon juice
1 jalapeno (1/3 for mild, 2/3 for medium and all for hot and spicy - or more if you're Rick)
Put all the ingredients in your Ultra Chef Express and mix to consistency desired. Serve with tortilla chips. They're addicting....

Bottled Salsa

Hal's Salsa Recipe
36 large tomatoes (approximately 1/4 bushel)
6 large onions
6 large Bell peppers
1 entire garlic pod
3 Anaheim peppers
12 jalapeno peppers
1 bunch cilantro

1 cup vinegar
1/2 cup sugar
6 TB salt

Chop all vegetables (except for the tomatoes) into fine pieces. Blanch tomatoes in hot water and remove skins. Chop tomatoes into fine pieces. Add vinegar, salt and sugar. Bring to a boil then turn down heat and slow cook for 30 minutes. Pour into bottles and steam or cold pack for 40 minutes. Enjoy throughout the winter! (Special thanks to Marie and Randy for sharing their fresh garden produce with us.)

Ever Woman should have...

MAYA ANGELOU'S'

BEST POEM EVER

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... enough money within her control to move out and rent a place of her own, even if she never wants to or needs to...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... something perfect to wear
if the employer, or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE . a youth she's content to leave behind....
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE . a past
juicy enough that she's looking forward
to retelling it in her old age..
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and...
a black lace bra...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .. one friend who always makes her laugh..
and one who lets her cry...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE ... a good piece of furniture
not previously owned by anyone else in her family...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE .. eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a recipe for a meal, that will make her guests feel honored...
A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE a feeling of control
over her destiny..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... how to fall in love
without losing herself..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... how to quit a job, break up with a lover, and confront a friend, without ruining the friendship...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... when to try harder...
and WHEN TO WALK AWAY...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... that she can't change the length of her calves, the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents..
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... that her childhood may not have been perfect...
but it's over...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... what she would and wouldn't do...
for love or more...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW.... how to live alone...
even if she doesn't like it...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW.. . whom she can trust, whom she can't, and why she shouldn't take it personally...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW... where to go... be it to her best friend's kitchen table.. or a charming Inn in the woods.... when her soul needs soothing...
EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW.. What she can and can't accomplish in a day... a month... and a year...

AND REMEMBER: GOOD FRIENDS ARE LIKE STARS. YOU DON'T ALWAYS SEE THEM, BUT YOU ALWAYS KNOW THEY ARE THERE!!!!!! Be yourself..everyone else is already taken.

I fear for our country

I don't want to vote for any of them! Why can't there be a third party or some other viable choice? I may have to waste my vote and write in a name, but it won't matter much since I live in Utah anyway. The debates were very telling. Obama scares the crap out of me on so many levels. I don't think that being a "maverick" should be a campaign platform for McCain. I'm not sure I want a "maverick" running this country either. They are both liars. I have deep reservations about Palin's ability to lead this country if anything happened to McCain (which is a real concern given his age and health history.) She just doesn't know enough about a lot of things (especially foreign affairs) and I think the learning curve would be too steep. We don't have time or patience for more mistakes and the good will of the world has been exhausted. I don't care how good looking they are, how eloquent they are, how unique and different they are, what sex they are, what the color of their skin is (although I do get hung up on hair styles, admittedly), I just want a good leader who can help safeguard our freedoms and protect our country. It finally boils down to their stands on abortion and given my feelings on that, I may have to go with the platform that is the lesser of two evils. I will never vote for anyone who supports abortion or wants to change the definition of what constitutes a marriage.

Then there is this bright spot to consider - the economy.... I thought this summary was helpful to understand what has happened and why.

"So who is to blame? There's plenty of blame to go around, and it doesn't fasten only on one party or even mainly on what Washington did or didn't do. As The Economist magazine noted recently, the problem is one of "layered irresponsibility ... with hard-working homeowners and billionaire villains each playing a role." Here's a partial list of those alleged to be at fault:
The Federal Reserve, which slashed interest rates after the dot-com bubble burst, making credit cheap.
Home buyers, who took advantage of easy credit to bid up the prices of homes excessively.
Congress, which continues to support a mortgage tax deduction that gives consumers a tax incentive to buy more expensive houses.
Real estate agents, most of whom work for the sellers rather than the buyers and who earned higher commissions from selling more expensive homes.
The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and down payment requirements for working- and middle-class families.
Mortgage brokers, who offered less-credit-worthy home buyers subprime, adjustable rate loans with low initial payments, but exploding interest rates.
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, who in 2004, near the peak of the housing bubble, encouraged Americans to take out adjustable rate home mortgages.
Wall Street firms, who paid too little attention to the quality of the risky loans that they bundled into Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS), and issued bonds using those securities as collateral.
The Bush administration, which failed to provide needed government oversight of the increasingly dicey mortgage-backed securities market.
An obscure accounting rule called mark-to-market, which can have the paradoxical result of making assets be worth less on paper than they are in reality during times of panic.
Collective delusion, or a belief on the part of all parties that home prices would keep rising forever, no matter how high or how fast they had already gone up.

The U.S. economy is enormously complicated. Screwing it up takes a great deal of cooperation. Claiming that a single piece of legislation was responsible for (or could have averted) the crisis is just political grandstanding. We have no advice to offer on how best to solve the financial crisis. But these sorts of partisan caricatures can only make the task more difficult."–by Joe Miller and Brooks Jackson.

Scary stuff.

LDS church temples

See this truly amazing slide show of 126 LDS church temples. How many have you seen? Attended? Here is a list of the current 128 operating temples in the world now.

Here is my list of been on the temple grounds

Buenos Aires, Argentina
Cardston, Canada
Chicago, Illinois
Denver, Colorado
Manhattan, New York
Portland, Oregon
Monticello, Utah
Newport Beach, California
Redlands, California
Rexburg, Idaho
Vernal, Utah
Washington, DC

been inside and attended-

Albuquerque, New Mexico
Boise, Idaho
Bountiful, Utah
Manti, Utah
Oakland, California
Ogden, Utah
Mount Timpanogos, Utah
Mesa, Arizona
Preston, England
Provo, Utah
Idaho Fall, Idaho
Jordan River, Utah
Laie, Hawaii
Las Vegas, Nevada
Lima, Peru
Logan, Utah
London, England
Los Angeles, California
St. Geroge, Utah
Salt Lake City, Utah
San Diego, California

I'm looking forward to going to the new Twin Falls temple on our next visit to Rupert.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints revealed more details Monday about the locations of five new temples announced by President Thomas S. Monson at the church's General Conference this past Saturday:
The Philadelphia temple will be built in downtown Philadelphia at Spring Street and Broad Street.
For the temple serving the greater Kansas City area, the site will be in Clay County, Mo., on residential land within the Kansas City limits that is already being developed by the church. The development is known as Shoal Creek.
The temple in Cordoba, Argentina, will be situated on the Belgrano meetinghouse site, next to the present mission home of the church.
The Calgary temple will be built on church-owned land next to an existing chapel in the northwest part of the city, at the intersection of Rocky Ridge Road and Royal Oak Road.
In Rome, the temple will occupy part of a 15-acre church-owned site near the ring road skirting the northeast section of the city.

I love to see the temple.

I'm going there someday

To feel the Holy Spirit,

To listen and to pray.
For the temple is a house of God,

A place of love and beauty.

I'll prepare myself while I am young;

This is my sacred duty.
I love to see the temple.

I'll go inside someday.

I'll cov'nant with my Father;

I'll promise to obey.
For the temple is a holy place

Where we are sealed together.

As a child of God, I've learned this truth;

A fam'ly is forever.