My neighbor Meagan gave us two giant zucchini last night, and the girls and I just devoured one of them a few minutes ago because a recipe for Zucchini Parmesan popped up in my inbox from www.sparkpeople.com this morning with very convenient timing. Liberty and Mercy called our snack "Zucchini Cookies" since the slices were about the same size and shape of cookies. I thought I'd share.

Easy Zucchini Parmesan

This quick and healthy snack tastes like a gormet side-dish, but just takes minutes to prepare! And as a bonus, it's an easy way to get the kids to eat their vegetables.



INGREDIENTS
Zucchini, 1 cup, sliced
Parmesan Cheese, grated, 1 tbsp
I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, Original Buttery Spray, 10 sprays I skipped this ingredient, since it's not real food. We don't enjoy eating plastic. :-)
Non-stick cooking spray I used Olive Oil spray which added a trace amount of calories.

DIRECTIONS
Line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil, then coat with some non-stick cooking spray. Place the zucchini slices out on the pan, then spritz with them with the butter spray. Sprinkle on the parmesan cheese and then pop it in the oven. Broil for a few minutes - until the cheese starts to brown. Enjoy it while it's warm!

Make a larger batch for a delicious and healthy side dish for any meal! Your family will love it!

Number of Servings: 1

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Calories 51.6
Total Fat 1.6 g
Saturated Fat 1.0g
Polyunsaturated Fat 0.1g
Monounsaturated Fat 0.4g
Cholesterol 4mg
Sodium 128.5mg
Potassium 460.8mg
Total Carbs 7.3g
Dietary Fiber 2.5g
Sugars 3g
Protein 3.2g
Vitamin A 40.9%
Vitamin B12 1.2%
Vitamin B6 7.3%
Vitamin C 13.8%
Vitamin E 1.3%
Calcium 9.2%
Copper 7.8%
Folate 7.8%
Iron 3.8%

I've got a little extra time before bed tonight, and I decided I'd better keep my posting promise. (If I don't, I'll certainly hear about it from my mommy). :-)

(Do you know how happy that makes me?)

We've had a jam-packed weekend celebrating Independence Day! On Friday, our whole family changed the brake pads on Winny. Jeremy jacked the van up and loosened the lug nuts on the two front tires. Liberty and Mercy finished unscrewing the nuts for him and then decided to pretend the nuts were treasure, and they began hiding them in various places around the garage. I read the owner's manual step-by-step to Jeremy as he took the brakes apart and replaced the pads. Then the girls had to find all ten lug nuts and helped screw them back into place on the tires, and we all cleaned up the driveway together. Afterwards, our neighbors down the street set off a whole bunch of fireworks in the road, and we sat on the tailgate of Tiny Tim to enjoy the show.

Saturday was a day of pure bliss. With absolutely nothing planned to do, we really enjoyed the lackadaisical day. We ate a scrumptious brunch at Cracker Barrel and took leftovers home for supper. We skipped through a Walmart grocery shopping trip. We took a nap -- all of us! Everyone in our family including me! And all day, I kept checking my phone to see if my opponent, TTHWiggles, had taken his turn on Words With Friends, our Scrabble game, so that I could take my turn, but he must have taken the weekend off as well. I hope he had a great Fourth.

On Sunday after church, we headed over to our friends' house for lunch and water fights and snacking and games and more snacking and laughing and more games and supper and fireworks and talking late, late into the night. We didn't get back home until 1:30ish in the morning. Mercy fell asleep at our friends' house around 10 pm, but Liberty stayed awake the entire time, right up until she was tucked into her bed at home.

Today, we all slept in until 10 am! I don't think that has happened since Liberty was born almost five years ago! I woke up automatically at 7:15, but immediately reminded myself it was a holiday and fell back asleep. Then I woke at 8:30, and got up to check on the girls. They were sound asleep, so I stumbled back to my bed and snuggled next to Jeremy. Finally, at 10, Mercy woke up and asked for breakfast. We all slowly arrived in the kitchen for breakfast, then Jeremy fertilized the yard (can you believe it? we really have tiny blades of grass poking timidly up in the sunshine!), Liberty straightened the girls' bedroom, Mercy straightened the toy room, and I organized my Sunday School materials. Around four pm, we walked down to our neighbors' house for another party filled with food, food, food and lots of fun people AND DEVILED EGGS! The girls squealed with their friends in the backyard while the adults ate and talked and laughed together.

We had planned to stay until dusk to enjoy some fireworks together, but the previous late night crept up on our family, and we decided to walk home earlier. We walked slowly, enjoying the sunset and the comfortable temperatures, and by the time we reached our yard, our next door neighbors were setting off the beginning of their fireworks stash. Now, everyone knows that you cannot just walk away from a wonderful light show in progress. So we stopped and joined them. The girls loved being allowed to light a few bottle rockets and dash away as fast as they could run. They also enjoyed those little popper things that you throw down at the sidewalk and watch them quickly flash and pop. I thought they would like the actual shoot-up-into-the-sky-and-explode fireworks, but Liberty declared, "Mom, that wasn't a very pretty one," after each explosion. The favorites of the night were the "fire fountains."

After all the pyrotechnics were spent, we said our goodbyes and finished our short walk home. Jeremy and I tucked the girls into their beds and briefly considered falling into bed ourselves, but Jeremy had left his Starcraft game from earlier in the middle of a mission, and he wanted to finish it before bed, so he headed downstairs. I considered the peaceful, empty house and our wonderful, friend-filled weekend and decided I'd better blog it for my momma before I forgot the details.

I sincerely hope your weekend was as lovely and laughter-filled as ours!

I would like to announce that we have a very special guest with us! Ladies and gentlemen, my mother is FINALLY reading my blog! Make sure you all leave a comment to welcome her!

After almost five years of "Hey, Mom, I have a blog!" "Mom, did you read my blog?" "Why don't you go read my blog, Mom?" she is finally reading it! Her friends have been reading for years now (hi, Sue! *waves*), but not my mom. It was about a year or so ago that I resigned myself to the fact that my mother would never read, and I stopped asking. (She keeps saying she is too busy to log onto the computer, and considering the fact that she has a V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W dial-up connection, I really can't say that I blame her.) In fact, I think it was shortly after my week-long visit at my parents' white farmhouse in Illinois two years ago (wherein I attempted to blog from that same dial-up) that I gave up asking her to read. Oh, the torture of waiting for a web browser to load. I didn't want to inflict that kind of pain on my very own mother.

But now she's inflicting it on herself! Hooray! :-)

I love you, Mom!

It all started one day a few months ago when she had nothing better to do. She decided to read, and she got hooked. What can I say? I'm very addictive. Now, she checks frequently, and if I haven't posted often enough she calls me to complain -- in a nice way, of course. "Missy, I checked your blog, and I can't find any new blog posts. Are you still writing?"

So I've made an executive decision. I'm going to post more often. Did you read that, Mom? It's just for you! Don't you feel special now?

And, since you haven't been reading all along, and you don't know how to go back to read from the beginning, I'm going to link to a few posts that I know you will enjoy. (Just click on the tan words below called a link, read the post that it takes you to, then click the "back" arrow button on the top left corner of your screen to get back to this post. Repeat for each link below.)

I'm Thankful

Playing Dream House

Drinking Sophistication

Confessions Of A Former Teenager

One of Those Days

What A Day

There, Mom, that should keep you busy until I write my next post!

He used a ray gun to control the weather, but I can do it by following these simple steps.

TO MAKE IT RAIN:

1. Check the forecast online and find out that it is not predicted to rain until late in the evening.

2. Turn on the sprinklers in the front and back yards of your home.

3. Go for a walk with your four year old and two year old daughters around the mile long nature trail behind your house, walking quickly in order to return in time to move the sprinklers to another location without flooding the yard.

4. Get halfway around the pond at the farthest point from your home.

Voila! Instant downpour!


TO MAKE IT CONTINUE:

1. Be sure that your four year old stops as often as possible in the rain to pick grass by the side of the trail. (This is the most important step if you want to ensure a really good steady rain-shower.)

2. Whenever possible, try to get your two year old to beg to be carried and then demand to be allowed to walk and then beg to be carried all while refusing to ride in the stroller that you brought along in anticipation of this situation. She is NOT a baby! This is also very helpful to make sure that the rain does not let up.

See? Only two easy steps!


TO MAKE IT STOP RAINING:

1. Arrive home.

This is the easiest of all. The second you step foot back on your own property, the sun will come out and the clouds will disappear. It really is quite amazing.

Now where was I? Oh yes, the white paint was drying, and I was returning the green paint for red or black paint.

http://www.examiner.com/family-recreation-in-fort-wayne/germanfest-s-family-fest-a-day-the-whole-family-will-enjoy

You don't even have to read it. Just click it.

"Pay the Missy!"

Can we start a chant?

This morning, my two year old, Mercy Jane, farted unexpectedly, and it was a long chain of loud farts. She gasped; her eyes got really big around, and she quickly grabbed her little bottom. Then in a tone of wonder she said, "Mommy! I have a motorcycle in my pants!"

My second article is up!

http://www.examiner.com/family-recreation-in-fort-wayne/taste-your-summer-at-auburn-s-strawberries-the-park-festival

You guys! I AM AN AUTHOR! OFFICIALLY!

Now, it's not the children's book that I'm still hoping to find a publisher for; it's something else. My friend Brenda sent me a link a few weeks ago about getting paid to write articles on the internet. I did a lot of research on the subject, and I finally found a website that I felt comfortable with. There are a lot out there, but not all of them "felt" either reputable to me or that I might be a good fit for. I was also leery of sites that accepted just any article from any person.

Anyway, I finally applied for a job with one website, but I was extremely nervous because they gave me five different mini writing assignments during the application part. Many people, well, many of you all have complimented my writing style, but it is something completely different to send my work to a professional editor hoping that it is good enough to get me a job. My tummy was a mess!

I screamed so loudly when I read my acceptance letter late at night last week, that I woke Jeremy up, and he popped up from his pillow punching, ready to defend me from anything. (My Hero!)

For the last several days, I've been attending some online classes to become oriented with the website, it's goals, the article guidelines and what-not. Then I accepted my first writing assignment and began researching the information for the article I would be writing. It's a lot more work than I expected, but I'm really enjoying the feeling of having my brain in gear again.

I finally had all of my research finished and organized, and I was ready to write my first article. I've been having trouble with my computer lately (I think it's been ever since I upgraded to Internet Explorer 9), and I just knew my computer would freeze again while I typed. It's been freezing every few hours, and I lose whatever I'm working on -- horribleness! I determined to save after every paragraph, this time. (I usually forget to save, and my only redemption are the autosave features on many websites.)

Imagine with me my horror when I found that there was no save button AND no autosave feature at my new site. !!!!! So, I needed to work as quickly as possible. The synapses in my gray matter were firing quickly and creatively. It felt so good to WRITE!

And then it happened. My mouse quit moving, my computer quit responding. I was over halfway through, and all those hyperlinks I had put in...I went into mourning even before the computer had finished its reboot. I knew it would all be lost. There was just one chance! If only the site had somehow, miraculously kept the information somewhere.

I logged back on, hoping. Hoping. HOPING.

No. It was gone.

And now my computer is too.

(Just kidding.)

I finally submitted my first article around 1:15 am last night, and I waited and waited for the verdict from my editor. I wasn't sure how he would respond, either by calling me, or emailing me, or if he thought my article was good enough, would he just post it on the website? I've been checking email and the website ALL. DAY.

And just now, The Email came. I saw his name in the Sender line, and my heart stopped beating. It really did. (I am actually typing this post while I am dead.)

(You should probably print it and keep it somewhere safe since it is a medical miracle and will be very valuable someday.)

He said, and I quote (because I am not above bragging), "Congratulations on posting your first article as the Ft. Wayne Family Recreation Examiner! I had a chance to review it, and I thought it was excellent - a solid read with a nice mix of information and insight."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Can you believe it?! He liked it!!!! In fact, he published it! Hooray!!!!

I am SO EXCITED! (Did you notice?)

So now, I am off to the website to see if I can find my article. I'll probably attach a link here so you can read it too, if you want. It's geared towards people who live near me, and it's informative rather than interesting, so all of you far away people won't get much out of it, but I think the number of clicks or reads I get affects my paycheck, so feel free to click away.

In fact, I'll go get that link now, and put it up here. (I like bigger paychecks!) :-)

This is my website http://www.examiner.com/family-recreation-in-fort-wayne/missy-sherron

This is my first ever article(!) Memorial Day Weekend 2011: Ft. Wayne's guide to budget-friendly family fun