Jalapeño-Beef Stew

I know, I know, I haven't blogged here in forever, and realize I have a lot of catching up to do, but I promised Thomas that I would post my recipe for Jalapeño-Beef Stew. It's a recipe I created after hunting around on the Internet for some ideas to use up the stockpiled canned goods we have leftover from the winter. I merged a couple of recipes I found online and added or substituted ingredients I had on hand, which somehow always manages to create the best dish! My picky-eating 14-year-old son loved it; he had two servings the first night and then two servings of leftovers the next! This was cheap, easy, and delicious. The only thing I could find fault with was that you would not want to eat this if you were on a low-sodium diet.

Jalapeño-Beef Stew

• 1 12-oz. can of roast beef in beef broth, undrained (can you tell I shop at Costco? LOL!)
  
• 1 15-oz. can of corn, undrained
• 1 15-oz. can of stewed tomatoes (I used Italian-style), undrained
• 1 15-oz. can of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/4 c. jarred sliced hot jalapeño peppers, drained and chopped (avoid touching your eyes or face while doing this and wash your hands well after chopping)
• 1/2 can (about 1 cup) of water (I rinsed out the stewed tomatoes can and used it with all the good juicy tomato bits in it)
  
• 2 T. powdered beef soup base (or the equivalent of beef bullion cubes)
• 2 t. chili powder
  
• dried oregano, to taste

Empty all ingredients in a quart-sized sauce pan. Heat thoroughly on medium-high, then simmer while your muffins or cornbread are baking! I got about 6 good-sized servings from this.

Would taste great with shredded cheddar cheese and/or sour cream on top.

Merry Christmas from the Midkiffs

It's a Jib Jab, Wonderful Life, starring Norm, Miriam, Missy & Matt, with a little help from Norm's brother Mike and Miriam's dad, Bryan.

Don't send a lame Holiday eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

Homecoming 2007

Tonight is Missy's Homecoming Dance. The first two photos were taken on the day she purchased the dress. The one with her boyfriend was taken this evening, right before they went to dinner. How grown up she's getting!

(To zoom in, choose a photo and keep clicking on it...you'll be taken to several other pages in the process.)

A New School Year

I haven't posted any news in over two weeks...I've just been so darn busy! Labor Day weekend was filled with back-to-school shopping. We also had some distant relatives visit that Monday, which was very enjoyable.

Matt really is enjoying all his classes as an 8th-grader at his middle school. He has a 10th-grade honors math class at the neighboring high school three days a week (because they have an A-B schedule). The other two days he has a study hall period back at the middle school. He also has Health and Fitness (P.E.), Life Skills (required class - home ec., sex. ed., etc.), Honors English and History, and Science.

Missy is a junior this year, and continues with Stage Crew during zero hour for the second year in a row. The school decreased the amount of drama classes available, so she is taking Leadership instead, with the same teacher who taught her past drama classes and current Stage Crew class. She also has a second year of German, Honors English, AP American Studies, Human Biology, and Pre-calculus. The homework load is heavy this year...typical for a junior year. She started working at Cinnabon tonight and will be working three or four days a week, mostly evenings the latter half of the week and on the weekends.

In my classroom, we have only 13 students, none in wheelchairs for the first time ever. Five--or about 38%--of our students have some sort of autism spectrum disorder; three of them quite defined. One of our teachers is out on maternity leave, having given birth just a few days before the school year started. Her long-term sub is a mom of three, expecting a fourth. Two years ago, one of the assistants was pregnant. So we've had a pregnant staff member in our classroom three years running. I'm not drinking the water (or talking to the water boy)! I was able to slip right into the swing of things right away. First period is a combination of Technology and Social Skills (keyboarding several days a week in the library, social skills the rest of the week). Second and third periods are math and reading, respectively. Each of us staff is leading a different part of math; mine is measurement. Fourth is vocational training. We gather the recycling products around the building (paper, aluminum cans) and take care of the rags used to erase the white boards (gather dirty ones and do the laundry; fold the clean ones and replace the dirty ones with them). We also shred confidential papers (those particular students either can't read or can't comprehend what little they can). After lunch, I assist two of our higher-functioning students in a Humanities (Language Arts - Social Studies) two-period block.

Tomorrow our class will go to the Spokane Interstate Fair, something I look forward to every year. We don't do rides; just look at exhibits and animals, and enjoy our lunch. We usually see old friends (students and staff) from other special ed classrooms in the district.

Matt has some sort of injury or inflammation in his right foot. It started Labor Day weekend, and he ended up missing school last Thursday because he couldn't walk on it. I took him to the doctor and he couldn't find anything wrong with it. It still wasn't better on Monday, so I took him in again. His "knuckle" on his big toe was pretty swollen. They took X-rays of both feet for comparison; no fractures. They also ran blood tests to check for arthritis and synovitis (inflammation of the membrane that lines a joint). The results came back negative. He was given crutches to use if necessary, and it seems to be slowly healing.

His bowling league started up last Saturday, and he enjoyed hanging out with his old gang from elementary school all day.

Norm's been putting in his second week of overtime in a row. He also worked a full day Saturday. So not much has been getting done on the house, and I keep telling him not to worry about it; he needs his rest. He anxious to get things done before the cold sets in. He's just about got all the flooring done, so we can use the front door again. I got a new camera, but I haven't taken any pictures yet...I'll try to do so this weekend and get them posted here.

Both units in the duplex next door are filled: a couple on the south side and a mother with children on the north. Everyone seems quiet, so far, and friendly, so we are grateful!

Please keep my mom and dad in your thoughts and prayers. My mom's health has not been so great lately, and I know it is tough for my dad.

My sister just finished her classes and received her LPN certificate! I'm so proud of her! She just needs to take her state exam to be an official nurse. She'll continue on in school towards her R.N. degree.

That's all I can think of. We've been busy!

Nice Matters Award - Part 2

This is my third attempt to complete this post. There's a bit of a storm blowing in the online genealogy world, so I've been compelled to blog-as-it-happens on my genealogy blog, AnceStories. As I said a couple of days ago, I received the Nice Matters Award, and I'm eager to pass it on! Here are my nominees, and the reasons why I chose them:

• Mauro C. at 1 Million Love Messages has a great idea: post one million love messages from around the world. Can hear you hear the music? "What the world needs now, is love, sweet love..." Mauro's been doing a great job making sure the love gets passed around and thus making the world a better place. Head over to his site and spend some time reading. Then send him an e-mail with a message for your sweetie, and he'll post it.
• Dawn Meehan of Because I Said So recently became a Famous Person. As a mom of six kids (yes, they're all hers!), her hilarious description as to why she was selling her son's Pokemon cards on E-bay received thousands upon thousands of views at the auction site. She was instantaneously jet-propelled into national and worldwide attention, receiving 100,000 hits on her blog and 10,000 e-mails IN ONE DAY. I'm awarding her the Nice Matters Award because she is using her fame to help others, by placing ads on her blog so people can donate to breast cancer research and St. Jude's Children's Hospital.
• Vienne, of Eavesdrop Writer, deserves this award for compassionately, yet frankly, writing about the little dramas she daily overhears or views: the proud wife of a blind man, the intolerance of teens toward a homeless woman. Reading her observations makes me stop and think about ways in which, perhaps, I'm not so nice; and determine to do better.

Nice Matters Award

Francis over at Caught in the Stream nominated me for the Nice Matters Award. I blogged about it on my AnceStories blog. I'm also going to post more about it here, and nominate some of my favorite non-genealogy blogs...but later.

Today was my first day back at the district...six hours of training in de-escalation and soft restraint. I'm pooped and would have gone to bed a few hours ago, but Missy is at an Indians game with her youth group doing post-game cleanup, and I am waiting for her call to pick her up.

Stay tuned!

A Different Kind of Family

This is a duplicate of something I posted over at my genealogy blog, AnceStories, this morning:

This really doesn't have anything to do with genealogy, but this morning my dad instant messaged me about an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that he knew I'd be interested in.

A new totem pole was dedicated at The Center for Wooden Boats...a 24-foot pole that was carved by five young carvers (including at least one girl) from my hometown of Klawock, Alaska, to return the favor of a gift to a man who had created a canoe to honor the community where his wife once lived. These teens were trained by none other than my "Indian brother," Jon Rowan, a master carver and teacher at my childhood community. A celebration involving other Tlinget communities, as well as Haida, Tshimshian (both also from Alaska) and Duwamish (Washington state) tribes, took place yesterday as the pole was raised into position. Each figure on the pole tells part of a story, and I'm sorry to say there aren't better photos of the pole, nor was their anything really written about the story behind it. According to what I can tell, the top figure is a wolf, the next-to-the bottom figure is a killer whale, and the middle figure is holding a canoe.

The article is located here, and there is a photo gallery link you can click on (photo 9 includes a shot of Jon). The Heenya Kwan dancers are the troupe from Klawock. When I was in elementary school, I was a part of this group and had a beautiful black-and-red button dress and blanket made by Jon's grandmother. In ancient times, the buttons were made of abalone shells, but now they are purchased plastic pearly-colored buttons. I also had a headband that I had beaded myself with blue, red, black and white seed beads. (I'll try to find a photo later and add it to this post). Looking at these photos, I can hear the drum beating and I know which native Tlinget songs are being sung. The last sentence of the article mentions one of my favorite treats: smoked salmon. Yum! If I had known this celebration was taking place, I would have made an effort to take the 6-hour drive over to Seattle to be present!

My family was "adopted" into the Tlinget community, with my father being a Raven and my mother and siblings and I being Eagles. Jon, his mother and his siblings were also Eagles, so we were considered siblings, too. It's a complicated sort of family structure, created--no doubt--to prevent incest by the ancient ancestors of the Southeast Alaskan natives. In the old days, the tribe was divided into two clans, the Raven (who has supernatural powers) and Eagle (his friend). There are also sub-clans. For instance, the Wolf is a sub-clan of the Raven, and the Killer Whale is a sub-clan of the Eagle (my blanket had killer whales on the back of it). You could not marry another person of the same clan; it was considered incest, no matter how far apart you may have been related. In this matriarchal society, the children of a couple were considered to be members of the mother's clan, and her brothers and male cousins would take on the father's role and help to raise her children. Her husband, meanwhile, would instruct and care for his sisters' and female cousins' children.

Chiefdom was passed on to the nephews on the women's side, rather than from father to son. And the tribe had its own form of Social Security: old widowed people were married off to young men and women, who were young and strong enough to care for their elderly spouses. When their spouses died, they could pick someone of their own choice (provided their spouse wasn't of the same clan), knowing that when they were old and alone, a strong, healthy teen would be assigned to care for them in their elder years. Of course this system was obsolete by the time we arrived in Klawock in February 1971.

One of the things I think my father enjoyed the most about being a minister to this community was his visitation duties: checking on the sick and elderly, he loved to sit for hours at a time (which was considered proper and respectful) and listen to the old people, who still could speak the native language, tell the old legends and how it used to be. One elder, told my father of the three wives he had had during his lifetime (I just checked the Social Security Death Index, and he was born in1900). The first wife was an elder, and he cared for her when he was young. The second wife was a woman he fell in love with from his own clan. He married her, but the elders came and took her away from him. He always referred to her as the "wife I loved." After this, he found a woman from the other clan. I've always thought this was a tragically romantic story!