Frugal, Healthy-ish Cookie Recipe

I will be trying these later today...

Carrot Cookies

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup butter 1 cup white sugar 2 tablespoons orange zest 1 egg 1 1/4 cups grated carrots

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 pinch salt 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease cookie sheets.
2.	Cream butter and sugar until very light and fluffy. Add egg and orange rind. Stir to blend.
3.	In a separate bowl, combine flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon. Add to butter mixture alternately with grated carrots. Mix to form a dough.
4.	Drop by teaspoonfuls onto greased cookie sheet. Cookies will spread slightly. Bake for about 12 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned around the edges. Loosen cookies with spatula. Cool on rack.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2008 Allrecipes.com

Much Ado About Garbage

Ok, you read this and tell me if I'm being an unreasonable American here.

Our garbage truck comes around every other week to collect our trash (that in itself is a tragedy. Every other week? Come on!). Sometimes the driver of said garbage truck fails to announce his presence when passing by our gate.

Now, normally I'm not a paranoid, "conspiracy theory" type of person and I do try to give people the benefit of the doubt. BUT, I am the only foreign person in my entire neighborhood and I do deal with racism on some level almost on a daily basis, so could the garbage truck driver not caring about my garbage possibly have anything to do with the fact that I am an American and he's afraid to deal with me because he thinks I may require him to speak my native tongue?

Man, that was a long sentence.

Back to the garbage guy.

Two weeks ago they came by to collect our trash and since they had breezed by two weeks before that without stopping, we literally had a garage full of maggoty, rotten... there are just no words, believe me, for what was piled up in there. I was frustrated to tears because I couldn't get the lady (a lady--and I use that term lightly- usually goes with the truck to collect the fees.) to understand that we needed them to actually pause and blow the horn at our gate in order for us to hear them. She refused to admit that anything was amiss and she kept saying over and over again that she pounded on the gate, blah, blah, blah.

Hetee came out and tried to reason with her and she quieted down a little. I'm tired of getting chewed out by people who are supposed to be quiet and just collect my garbage and garbage money. I mean, I'm not asking them to do it for free!

So anyway, apparently they still have not understood the concept of blowing the horn on the big loud truck they have (I think that they think it will use more gas or something ??) because today, lo and behold, I hear a banging noise at the gate and a woman screaming at the top of her lungs: "Khogoo uguurei!!!!!!!!!" (Give me your trash)

Oh, and they had a new set of shenanigans all planned for me today, as well. I handed the garbage man my bathroom trash can to empty into the truck, just like everyone else does and what does the idiot do? He throws my entire trash can into the truck! I said, "Hey, give me my can!" He laughs and says, "We're taking it." At that point, it had been in the back of a garbage truck so I probably should have parted with it right then and there.

The guy did gave it back though, and I'm still trying to work up the nerve to bring it inside and wash it. Disgusting.

On the other hand, I guess it's a good thing I only have to deal with them twice a month. Any more than that would just be torture.

Thanks, everyone, for remembering Nate in your prayers. He is doing much better, praise GOD. Things did get worse before they decided to get better but let's just say that emergency surgery in a government-run hospital was not necessary after all. What a nightmare that would have been!

We did have to see a dentist in UB to clean the tooth out yet again and put in a temporary filling. This dentist was really rough and pretty much undid all the hard work I'd put in to Nate during previous dentist visits to keep him calm and cooperative. She insisted on giving him a shot to numb the area and, well, it didn't go well (even though he was prepped for the possibility). She tried tricking him and it just made it worse. Nate had a melt down and I almost did, too.

We got back to Darkhan and went to our dentist (whom we like VERY much) who checked him and cleaned the tooth again. She said that the swelling/infection was gone. All that was left was to put in the permanent filling. When she went for the syringe-looking thingy to fill the tooth up, Nate freaked out and clammed up. We explained to him that it was not a needle and that it wouldn't hurt. I let him hold it and squeeze it and everything but he just wouldn't budge. I pleaded, groveled, and bribed all with no luck. We left (after 45 minutes of unsuccessful cajoling) with yet another temporary filling. I'm praying to God it holds for a while. At least until he forgets what a syringe looks like. Yeah, right.

This whole experience has left me exhausted. I sooooo appreciate the prayers and encouraging comments. I personally have been through the ringer lately. I won't go into detail here because I'm saving it for my book. Tee Hee...

Teeth Wars

Ok, so the dentist cleaned Nate's tooth out again today and was impressed that some of the swelling had gone down. There really is no other choice but to wait and see if the amoxicillin, carrot juice etc will work. She said that since some of the swelling had gone down in the past 24 hours, she was willing to wait and give it a few more days before doing anything drastic like cutting the gum and letting it bleed out (*shivers*).

We stepped up the carrot juice (vitamin A for fighting infection) to 4 + glasses a day and Nate has been such a trooper, drinking it even when he felt like he'd had all he could stand. I love that about Nate; when the going ets tough, he never backs down.

Right now, he still has a knot on his gum and his face is still a bit swollen but he doesn't have much pain. He's practicing his violin right now without a care in the world. He's my HERO!

Nate still has a hole in his tooth where the dentist cleaned out and drilled. She taught me how to change the cotton in it and clean it out. We're doing that every few hours or so. I'm so thankful that I found a Mongolian dentist who is willing to work with Nate and doesn't want to jump into doing something so invasive as pulling the tooth or cutting the gum.

Thank you all for your prayers and encouraging comments. I really appreciate you all taking the time to pat me on the back. I really have no idea how I'm supposed to treat something like this. I had my first and only cavity so far when I was 17 and it was not bad at all. I know the infection in Nate's mouth needs to be dealt with quickly but I want to give his body a chance to heal first so that he's not traumatized unnecessarily. Any thoughts on this? Am I doing the wrong thing?

We still need to finish this deal so please continue to pray for Nate through Monday. Hopefully (prayerfully) the swelling/infection will be gone and she'll be able to fill the tooth and we'll be DONE.

What's Been Making Me Smile...

1. My English students
2. Fresh root vegetables
3. A good chunk of beef from the market (I prayed for favor before I went in)
4. A handmade dollhouse in the works for Abi's Christmas present. Shhh.....
5. Kenny and his "big boy" underwear
6. Abi putting Kenny to sleep
7. Fresh, organic yogurt
8. People who pray for us
9. Babies, Babies, Babies; everywhere I look!
10. My new dress boots

This past week was a tough one for me. Lots of lessons learned about faith and resting in my heavenly Father's Word. But I'm glad to see that I still had at least 10 reasons to smile.

Please keep our family in your prayers. Nate awoke yesterday morning with a swollen cheek and a toothache. Come to find out, one of the cavities he had filled last Spring was not cleaned out completely and it got infected. We put him on antibiotics and carrot juice right away and waited for the swelling to go down before taking him to the dentist. The swelling didn't go down and now the dentist wants to possibly cut the gum and let it bleed out. We are all terrified and are praying hard that come tomorrow at 9 am when we see her again, the swelling will have gone down so that such drastic measures won't be necessary.

I feel really terrible. When will I stop blaming myself for every bad thing that happens to my kids? Or is it really my fault? Either way, this feeling of guilt doesn't help. All it does is stress me out and gives me a headache.

Did I mention that Nate brushes at least once a day, usually twice? And that my kids don't eat very much candy and that we seldom drink fruit juices, much less carbonated drinks? They eat healthy foods with calcium (maybe not as much as they should every day, but still!)

Why is this happening to him!?