Brother Mark

This is my brother Mark. He is one year older than me. He is now living with us. He reluctantly separated from his mate and misses his son Jacob(picture below, what a doll) terribly. A better soul you will never meet. You can see from looking at him he is quite the character. Standing at a whopping 6'8" tall and weighing a total of 148 lbs. He has the metabolism of a race horse. Always has. He wakes up with a smile on his face and loads of hutspa! He is ready to tackle the day. He runs several framing crews for our other sib Sean.

Most would think that taking on a family member would be an arduous task. Quite the contrary. He want's so badly to please everybody. He has been helping Bobby with drilling the new geo-thermal system we are trying to install. He helps me clean the house from top to bottom every weekend. He accompanies me on Sunday grocery shopping (and has already helped curtail the bill by assisting with coupon clipping, something I never tried before), he is going to build an add on room to the shop for Bobby to use as an office and workout room.


When we built our house, we built the shop first. Bobby wanted to do a lot of the work himself. We built an "apt" in the shop where we lived 6 mos while the house was being built. Mark is now living there. We have an extra room with private bath in our house but he insist on leaving us our privacy.

My heart breaks for him because he LOVES he son so much. He is trying to get joint custody and fears his ex will take him back to the Philippines where she is from.
She refuses to let him see Jacob. We are working on getting that resolved.

I simply felt the urge to share with you guys my reMARKable brother. I am blessed to have him with me. This guy is so hilarious and not a shy bone in his body. I guess from being so thin and a nose that looks like it's been broken all his life, he developed quite the sense of humor. He keeps Bobby and I in stitches.
I sure love him.

Sweet Potato Cheesecake Pie

Sweet Potato Cheesecake Pie

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Sweet Potato Cheesecake Pie
Recipes from the Soul! A prizewinning cheesecake combines the heritage of cooking with sweet potatoes and a love of cheesecake.

Yield: 16 servingsSweet Potato Cheesecake Pie

1 cup Gold Medal all-purpose flour
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 egg yolk
3 medium sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed
1 tablespoon butter or margarine, melted
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
4 eggs

Pecan Crumb Topping:
1/2 cup Gold Medal all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
6 tablespoons butter or margarine, softened
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 cup chopped pecans

Whipping (heavy) cream, if desired

Heat oven to 400 F. Stir flour, 1/2 cup butter, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and the egg yolk until mixture forms a ball. Pat about two-thirds of the dough on bottom only of 10-inch springform pan (with side removed) to make bottom crust 1/8 inch thick. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until crust just begins to brown around edge.

Reduce oven temperature to 300 F. Attach side to pan. Pat remaining dough about 1 inch up inside of pan.

Beat sweet potatoes, 1 tablespoon butter, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, the nutmeg and vanilla in medium bowl with electric mixer on low speed until blended; set aside. Beat cream cheese and 1 cup sugar in large bowl on medium speed about 1 minute or until smooth. Beat in sweet potato mixture on low speed about 1 minute or until blended. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Pour batter into springform pan. Place springform pan in larger pan on oven rack. Pour very hot water into larger pan to one-third the height of springform pan.

Bake 1 hour 30 minutes or until center is set, adding very hot water to larger pan as needed.

Meanwhile, make Pecan Crumb Topping:
Stir flour, brown sugar, butter and cinnamon in small bowl until crumbly. Stir in pecans.

Sprinkle Pecan Crumb Topping over cheesecake. Bake about 30 minutes longer or until topping is set. Cool 30 minutes. Loosen side of cheesecake from pan; remove side of pan. Refrigerate uncovered 3 to 4 hours or until chilled. Serve with whipped cream if desired. Store covered in refrigerator.

Source: Gold Medal Flour, a Reg. TM of General Mills, Inc.

Four Things....

Karen Zemek of "My Funny Dad Harry" blog and "Karen and Gerard Zemek"tagged me for this query!I thought it sounded like fun. So here goes:

Four jobs I've had:
1) Travel Agent
2) Delivering Interstate Batteries
3) Finance Manager for an automobile dealership
4) Financial Institution

Four movies I can watch over and over
1) Happy Gilmore
2) When Harry Met Sally
3) Beaches
4) Sling Blade

Four places I've lived
1) (Since this is the internet, I am changing this one)

Four Pet Peeves:
1) Slow drivers in the fast lane
2) Picking the slowest lane in the bank drive thru, grocery store, Toll booth
3) Paying $5 for a gallon of milk
4) People who are cruel to animals AND Puppy mills.

Four TV shows I love
1) Greys Anatomy
2) The Closer
3) Ugly Betty
4) Saving Grace

Four places I've vacationed
1) Hamburg, Germany
2) Cannes, France
3) Acapulco, Mexico
4) Africa

Four of my favorite dishes
1) Spaghetti
2) Steak and Potato
3) Mexican Food
4) Japanese Food

Four sites I visit daily
1) Yahoo
2) Blogger
3) Entrecard
4) Work site (argh)

Four places I would rather be right now
1) Maui
2) Moms House
3) Greece
4) Independently Wealthy (bahahah)

People I tag

- Lapidary Queen Wannabees

- Tasha's Take

- Vulcan Hammer

- Lilly's Life

- McNelly Family Adventures

(You are all off the hook if you are too busy, some of you have serious blogs and I know you may not want to participate)

Talking dogs

Have your cake and....

I just love this cake and it is way too easy.
A co-worker gave me the recipe some time ago. Then my step mom DJ, made me one this past Saturday for my birthday!

I can't seem to get enough of it. I am more of a fruit and nut kinda gal than a chocoholic. Don't get me wrong, I love a chocolate cake and chocolate icing. But DJ also makes the best Italian Creme cake you will ever eat! And a dead even tie is her Carrot Cake. I think the thing I like the most is she leave huge hunks of pecans instead of chopping em up too fine.

Here is the Dump Cake recipe:

This recipe is designed for kids to bake. It's incredibly easy with no mixing involved. Canned fruits are dumped into a baking pan, topped with cake mix, butter, and nuts, then baked. The result is something in between a cake and a cobbler, and amazingly delicious. Adults will also love this recipe.
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hours,
Ingredients:

* 1 (20 ounces) can crushed pineapple, undrained
* 1 (21 ounces) can prepared more fruit cherry pie filling
* 1 (18.25 ounces) box yellow cake mix
* 2 sticks of butter or margarine, each cut into 12 slices
* 1/4 cup chopped nuts (your choice - optional)

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (325 for glass baking dish). Have a 9 by 13-inch baking pan ready.

Dump undrained pineapple baking dish or pan and spread it out evenly.

Using a spoon, dump globs of cherry pie filling evenly on top of the pineapple.

Sprinkle the cake mix evenly over the cherry and pineapple layers.

Cut butter into slices with a butter knife and place slices evenly over cake mix.

Sprinkle nuts on top if you're using them.

Bake for one hour. Use heavy oven mitts to remove the dump cake from oven or let your older helper do it.

To serve, scoop cake out with a large spoon like a cobbler, and dump it on a nice plate. A scoop of vanilla ice cream is delicious with dump cake. Serve warm or cold.

Yield: about 10 to 12 servings

I love Anatolian Shepherds

The Anatolian Shepherd Dog is a breed of dog from Anatolia (central Turkey) and bred for guarding flocks of sheep from wolves, bears, jackals, and even cheetahs[1].

Wikipedia.com

As you know, my dog Elvis is an Anatolian shepherd. Moms dog Lily is Elvis's daughter. I am getting so sick with worry because Elvis is at least 5 or 6 now and with his weight hovering 200lbs his life span is limited.This is Elvis with a young cow.
With the summer heat so oppressive her in Texas, Elvis spends many an afternoon sleeping on our slate floor under a ceiling fan. Yep, he is spoiled rotten but hey, he didn't ask to be raised in Texas! The breed originated in Turkey.

The breed's ancestors most likely migrated to the area now known as Turkey about 1000 A.D. with Turkic-speaking people, although it is probable that dogs similar to this existed at least 6,000 years ago in Mesopotamia. Over the centuries, regional variations began to develop, although the dogs were collectively known as coban kopegi, i.e. "shepherd dog". In the 1970s, western breeders became interested in the dogs and developed standards for the regional breeds; the Anatolian is one of those breeds, coming from central Turkey. They were originally imported into Britain by author Charmian Hussey.

by Wikipedia.com

I so want to have a puppy by Elvis to keep when he is in his advanced years. I would like to rescue one as well. I will end up rescuing a dog instead of breeding Elvis because it is the right thing to do. Besides, just because you have his offspring does not guaranty they will be the same lover dog he is. I am a firm believe in rescuing animals in lieu of buying from puppy mills. Elvis actually came from a farm that "accidentally" ended up with a litter when their new $1700 pure bred Anatolian Pup bred their Pyrenees/Anatolian dam.

They sold the pups for $100 each. Best money I ever spent.
My mom could go on for hours with stories about Lily. She is quite the celebrity in her neighborhood.

Our place.

Our livingroom. I painted the far wall in a chocolate brown and sponged on some lighter orangey brown to make a leather look. It turned out cute.




Our breakfast area. This was from a family get-together!




View from my back portch of the pond.


View of the back of our house.








My stove. I am proud of the way it turned out. I completely designed every detail. I did the finish on the walls, forced my builder (brother) to build the fireplace surround like area around the stove, picked out the each tile backsplash to form the lovely understated design which mimics the beadboard on our Island. Yes I am bragging but I truly love my kitchen!