Simply Norma – Page 138

Tasty Bite

Sometimes, I get a little lazy and I don’t want to cook.

For occasions like this, I usually get something that’s boxed and quick to make. I had tried Tasty Bites before and they were not too bad. I decided to try a new one called Kashmir Spinach.

Tasty Bite Kashmir Spinach

I was disappointed. The envelope enclosed is put in boiling water for a few minutes, then opened and served. The picture makes it look like you get a lot of paneer cheese. If the cheese was there, it had mostly disintegrated. There was a lot of soupy like spinach.

Lucky for them my family was really hungry and we had rice to pour it on.

I don’t think we’ll be buying it again. At least, not this particular one.

Cottage Grove, Mn

While driving around in Cottage Grove, Minnesota, we came across a house we thought might be a possibility for us to view for a possible purchase.

Cottage Grove, Minnesota

The house sits up on a hill on 70th St. S. It looks pretty and next to it, on the right, is its detached garage.

Unfortunately, I think this house was a “hold-out.” By this, I mean that the owners probably received an offer to buy their house and land so that a large development could build on it. Instead, they said no and the picture below shows what the property around it looks like.

Cottage Grove, Minnesota

Cookie cutter houses — built by a large developer — surround the house on both sides.

This reminds me of a house in Seattle where the owner, an elderly woman, refused to sell her house to condo developers. Click here to read that story.

This might be a nice house but unfortunately, we don’t want to live in a house surrounded by a large development.

House hunting in Wisconsin and Minnesota

Our second offer on a house has been denied. Again, they counter-offered but only $5K less and we are thousands of dollars apart.

The sellers can’t accept anything lower than what they priced the house for and the comparable sold homes in the area do not substantiate their price. That’s strike two for sellers.

The house that’s on a treed property with a master bedroom and guest bedroom on the main floor continues to elude us.

We continue to look, but we may have to wait until spring for more homes to come on the market or we’ll have to try to get a home that is already in short sale status or bank owned status.

Life has not been easy as this is getting a bit wearisome. No reason for a buyer in this market to settle though.

Minnesota & Wisconsin House Hunting

This evening we made our second offer on a house.

We are finding a lot of homes that our overpriced. This causes some alarm because we can’t make a full price (or anywhere near full price) offer on a house as the sellers can’t take anything less than full price or they will sell their house as a short sale, i.e. the house will sell for less than what they owe on their mortgage. Nor do we want to overpay for a house in a depressed neighborhood.

Hearing news of many foreclosures coming down the road, this article says some people should consider buying a foreclosed home in 2011.

For now, we will wait to see if our offer is accepted. If not, we will continue looking for a house that is in a neighborhood where the values have not gone down so much. That’s getting a little hard to find.

Hudson, Wisconsin

Driving around Hudson, Wisconsin today, we found a few homes tucked away in the trees.

We’re finding that we like the areas where the homes are tucked away instead of in a large community.

Hudson, Wisconsin on Cover

Hudson, Wisconsin on Cove

Now we just have to find one that’s for sale that we like.

Agave Kitchen in Hudson, Wisconsin

It’s hard to find a good place to eat in the Woodbury, Minnesota area. They mostly have a lot of fast food or franchise-type restaurants.

After viewing a couple homes in Hudson, Wisconsin, we headed into their small town looking for a place to have dinner.

Fortunately for us, the place we were going to eat was having a large dinner party and was closed.

Then it happened. We found the Agave Kitchen located in downtown Hudson, Wisconsin. The food was delicious and was similar to what we are used to coming from Seattle, WA which has so many good restaurants to choose from.

When you enter, there is a bar area with booths off to the left. In the back, which is where we sat, there are more booths. The noise level may have been high had we been sitting closer to the front of the restaurant, but in the back, it was fine.

They have a mini menu that you can order things from (and it’s cheaper) which worked great for me because I didn’t want a big meal.

We decided to start with a couple appetizers. (So much for a small dinner … )

Our first appetizer was the portabella mushroom fries.

Portabella Mushroom Fries

My husband and son ate them up rather quickly so I have to assume they were good.

The second appetizer we had were the onion rings.

Agave Kitchen Onion Rings

The waitress had warned us that the onion rings were not round. So — who cares? What she should have warned us (me particularly since I don’t like spicy food) was that they have a bit of a spice added to them. I couldn’t figure out what it was. However, they were so good, I kept eating them in spite of the spice. Delicious! Even if they are a little greasy.

I then had my “dinner” which were the filet mignon sliders.

Agave Kitchen Filet Mignon Sliders

I had never had a “slider” before. These were tiny and served with carmelized onions and bleu cheese crumbles topped with green olives. Again, delicious. I was not disappointed that they were tiny either because they filled the empty spot in my stomach just fine.

My husband had the chicken enchilada.

Agave Kitchen Chicken Enchilada

This looked way too cheesy for me but … it got eaten. The enchilada has shredded chicken mixed with a creamy verde mushroom sauce, covered with more cheese and then baked. It also came with rice and beans. The sides looked a little dry to the eye.

Overall, the best place we’ve eaten since our move to Minnesota. Hudson is right across the St. Croix River so it’s not too far to get to.

The Life of Jared Loughner

This Washington Post article details Jared Loughner’s last day prior to the Tucson shootings portraying him as being scary and acting odd.

The FBI is trying to piece together the life of this alleged murderer to try to understand what caused him to kill 6 people and injure many others.

His parents came forward and stated “we don’t understand why this happened” and they are being blamed for not being good parents, not reporting his strange behavior, not seeing the possibility of a mental illness gone awry.

We try to find reasons behind things that happen when sometimes we just simply can’t know. There are simply too many variables.

To try to put blame on his parents is shameful. How many parents haven’t had children who have disobeyed or done things that caused shame to the family? Growing up, a lot of teenagers do things that are unsafe and unwelcome in society. Yet, we don’t have a “place” to put them until they grow out of it.

I always think back to Adam and Eve. They had a perfect Father in heaven. One who created the earth and universe. One who could speak and things just came to life. One who cared about His relationship with them and walked with them in the garden.

And then? They disobeyed and decided to choose a different lifestyle. Shall we blame the Father? Shall we say that our God was not “good enough?” Absolutely not.

So many things can and do go wrong. First, we don’t have manuals on how to raise children. A lot of how we raise our kids is based on how we were raised. Some parents hit their children so the children hit their children, and so on. Some children who are hit are intent on not hitting their children.

Every person’s mind is different. And then we have to throw in the dynamics of sin in the world. The wiring in some of us has gone awry. Mental illness is rampant. I liked this article in USA Today that speaks to this directly.

I can’t imagine what the parents are feeling right now. Especially with people wanting to fault them for not doing enough for their adult son.

My response is not to blame them but instead to lift them up in prayer.

There is enough hurt in this world already.

Chernobyl

Haven’t seen or know what’s going on in Chernobyl recently?

My son went there in May 2010 and has posted comments and pictures.

Click here to view.

Minnesota Living

While looking at homes, I saw a house that had this humongous bathroom in the master suite.

Minnesota House Bathroom

The master suite had a door that you entered through to get to the bathroom. The bathroom is as large as a small bedroom and had a huge tub. The window is plexiglass so that you can’t hear any noise from the bedroom.

The last time I saw this style bathroom was at a hotel in Long Beach, Washington called the Inn at Discovery Coast. Which is a very nice place to stay, right on the beach, if you’re in that area.

The closet (which I don’t have a picture of) was even larger than the bathroom and could easily be converted into a combined closet and nursery.

Minnesota Snow

Woodbury, Minnesota

I am standing in a parking lot looking up at the trees.

The snow bank is really high as we’ve had many days of snow.

This January we have had snow every day except the 12th. Not a lot of snow — just a little at a time.

The sun is trying to peek through the clouds and the bare trees.

The clustered evergreen trees look like they are standing aloof from the bare ones.

I find beauty in the bare trees, the white snow and the cold.

In the seasons of our hearts, we sometimes go through periods of barrenness and the heart turns cold and loses it’s feelings of warmth. Then the purity of Christ comes to us to give us warmth and to make our cold stony hearts into hearts of flesh.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

Psalm 73:26

We are no longer bare because the Son of God has infused us with His goodness and love. His character. And then we see the beauty and the transformation that has taken place.

We cannot negate the journey through the barrenness. It has a beauty all it’s own and we are never left without the presence and purity of God.

We just have to open our eyes to view His beauty.

I will give them an undivided heart and put a new Spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Ezekiel 11:19