For the last 30+ years, we have had a garden.

For the most part, hubby takes care of the garden. I do help, a lot. But he's the one who is consistently out there planting and watering. 

Our garden started small. It was maybe a 6 foot by 8 foot area with terrible clay soil. Very hard to grow things, but we always managed to have tomatoes at least.

Then one year, hubby was mad because our tomatoes did not yield much and he felt like he was just wasting his time. He said that was it. He was not going to do a garden the next year. Well, I love garden fresh tomatoes. But I also did not like the idea of trying to work with our clay soil. So I decided that I was going to plant the garden the next year, but I was going to do it in pots. I started our seeds in the greenhouse hubby had made from used storm doors (we try to re-use things when possible) on January 1 of that year. I planted 120 seeds knowing that some of them would not make it and the extras we could share. As the plants got bigger, I separated them. I kept them in the greenhouse until after our last freeze. Around here it is generally safe to plant outside after April 1. I got some of those big pots. Some were 1 or 2 gallon up to 5 gallon pots. You know the kind. You get them when you buy a fruit tree. They are kind of flimsy. Not really meant to re-use and most nurseries toss them out. We got a bunch from different places. Yard sale free piles, neighbors, I think we even got some from Lowes that they were going to toss.

Our tomatoes did fabulous that year! I was so happy. I had done it myself, by myself. I watered buy dipping a bucket in our lake and transferring that to a watering can. I could move the pots to different areas based on sunlight. It was awesome!

Hubby saw how successful it was not planting in the ground. So, the next year he planted in pots. We usually just planted tomatoes, green peppers, and cucumbers. During this time, we also learned to plant the cucumbers upright instead of letting them spread out on the ground. This saved space and produced a better yield and this way we could do them in pots also. 

Over the years the trees in our yard and our neighbor's yard grew and produced more shade in our yard. It made it difficult to grow veggies because they require sunlight. Not to mention the roots from all these trees made it impossible to dig the ground. All of our plants ended up in pots because of this. Hubby had a compost bin where we created our own soil. In the beginning we mixed it with potting soil simply because there wasn't enough.

Eventually it became almost useless to have plants in our backyard. Then our neighbor died. His home sat in limbo for a few years while the family tried to settle his estate. His backyard was almost full sun. No trees in the yard itself although there is woods behind it. We ended up being able to buy the property.

We bought a "real" greenhouse and put in raised beds. We also added a swimming pool. We still plant some things in pots though. Every year since buying this property, we have increased our garden. Our garden this year has zucchini, corn, green beans, onions, cucumbers, tomatoes -- slicing, cherry, and grape varieties, lettuce, spinach, radishes, cantaloupe, sugar baby watermelons, green peppers, jalapeno peppers, Big Jim chili peppers, lemons, limes, oranges, peaches, plums, blackberries, blueberries.....there's probably more that I just can't recall right now!! Some things like the citrus, we have to take in during the winter months.

Our garden started out small. Anyone can garden. It does not matter if you live in an apartment or on 400 acres. If you have the desire to garden, you can do it. Start out small. Start with 1 pot with tomatoes or peppers or cucumbers. Or maybe start with herbs. You can plant parsley, cilantro, chives, or basil on your window sill. You don't even have to start from seed. You can buy the plants from the store in the Spring. 

The photos I posted above are peppers and grape and cherry tomatoes that I picked the other morning. I didn't go outside to pick. I went out to cool off after my workout and saw there was more to pick! There is always something to pick!

Tuna Patties

Do you sometimes feel like you don't have the "time" to cook dinner so you just go get fast food? You are not alone! I certainly have fallen in that trap more than once.

From March 15 until June 15 of this year, thanks to the COVID-19 lockdowns and closures, I cooked every single meal at home. That's not a huge deal for me because I enjoy cooking. But I certainly had to plan meals to minimize going out to the grocery store. I tried limiting my shopping trips to every 2-3 weeks because it was just such a fiasco to go shopping; from the long lines to the empty shelves. So, I stocked up as much as I could and made a list of meals. During this time I was still working my job since we own a specialty hardware store and are considered essential, so sometimes I wanted to make meals that were quick and easy.

So here are a few tips that maybe you can use to break that fast food habit.

* Make a list of all of the meals your family likes - add a list of ingredients if that helps you.

*Make a list of meals you would like to learn to cook or test on your family.

*Take a look at your calendar to see what appointments or other plans you have so you can schedule easier meals on nights when you are busier.

*Make a meal plan. Doesn't have to be fancy. Just write down what you plan to make for dinner so you can be sure that if you need to take something out of the freezer the night before, you can.

Sounds easy, doesn't it? Well, honestly it is easy. But you do have to change your mindset a little bit. You know what else? You actually will have more time because it is just as fast, sometimes faster, to make a lot of different kinds of meals at home as it is to go get fast food. In fact, I did order a pizza the other night and it took more than an hour for it to get to us! I sure could have made a pizza a whole lot faster and I wouldn't have wasted the time waiting for one to arrive!

You can also make healthier foods. Even if you are making burgers and fries at home, they will be healthier than anything you get at a fast food place.

So that picture that I included up there is one of the meals my family likes. Well, it is only part of the meal actually. It is Tuna Patties. Some people prefer Salmon Patties. I ain't picking out all those bones! Plus I don't like salmon. So we have Tuna Patties. Usually we have lima beans with our Tuna Patties, but sometimes we will have broccoli, or some other vegetable. My son and I like to squeeze a little lemon on our Tuna Patties, but hubby doesn't.

Here's the basic recipe. So, one thing you should know is that I rarely measure when I cook. I've been cooking so long and I cook to what our tastes are. Any recipe can be altered to suit your tastes.

TUNA PATTIES

(makes 4 patties)

2 cans of tuna. (I use Wild Planet Wild Skipjack Light Tuna.)

1/3 Cup Bread Crumbs. (If I am out of bread crumbs, I crush up Saltine Crackers.)

1 egg. (Egg is used as a binder. If your mixture isn't holding together, just add another egg.)

Salt and Pepper to taste. (I add this at the table since we all have different tastes.)

Olive Oil

Drain tuna and place in bowl. Mix tuna, bread crumbs, and egg together. Make 4 patties. It does help to squeeze the mixture together before patting out the patty. Heat olive oil in pan over medium heat. Olive Oil has a low flashpoint. DO NOT HEAT ON HIGH! Add patties to the pan. Cook until the first side is well browned. Flip over and cook until the other side is well browned. Remove from pan and Enjoy!! (It only takes about 15-20 minutes to make these.)

We've been on vacation all week, which isn't really what you think. Vacation for us means our shop is closed unless we happen to be there doing things, which is every day since we have packages to ship out every day. But it also means our schedule is more flexible.

So we decided to go to the aquarium on Friday. Well, we actually had to decide last week to go this week because you have to make reservations because of the Virus and all that. 

This aquarium is new for us. It is the St. Louis Aquarium at Union Station. It was just finished last fall I think it was or maybe it was early this year. Don't remember exactly. It is a nice aquarium, although it is smaller than I thought it would be. The exhibits they have are really nice ones and if you have young children, there are a lot of hands on things for them to do. We don't have small children anymore. My youngest is in high school. But he enjoyed the aquarium as well.

When we made our reservations last week, I had no idea that a Tsunami was coming!! Tsunami is the beautiful sea turtle in my photo. She actually arrived early this week. She is in the large tank with the sharks and many other fish including a very large Grouper. It was fun to watch her swim around and interact with the other residents of the tank! From what I understand her story is that she somehow ended up in a rehab facility and could no longer be released into the wild. The tank she was in at the rehab facility was much smaller than her new home at the St. Louis Aquarium. I am so glad they were able to give her a larger home. She seemed quite happy.

Here is a little history about Union Station. St. Louis Union Station is a National Historic Landmark train station in St. Louis, Missouri. At its 1894 opening, the station was the largest in the world that had tracks and passenger service areas all on one level. Traffic peaked at 100,000 people a day the 1940s. The last passenger train left the station in 1978. 

I was lucky enough to discover Union Station in 1977 when I was in 5th grade. We had a school field trip where we went over to Union Station (I lived across the Mississippi River in Illinois) and rode the Amtrak Train from Union Station to Springfield, Illinois. What a treat that was! That day, I fell in love with Union Station. It was so beautiful!! Then, the next year, the trains stopped running and this magnificent piece of history just sat there. Fast forward to the 1980s when Malls were all the rage. They transformed Union Station into a shopping mall! They also built a hotel inside Union Station. The old train shed was transformed into parking, a lake, some office buildings out on the edge of the property, and a few restaurants including the KSHE Real Rock Cafe which later became the St. Louis Hard Rock Cafe. I don't remember the details, but there was some dispute with the name and the Hard Rock may have filed a lawsuit. Like I said, I'm not sure on those details. Union Station as a mall thrived for many years, then it started to die off. The hotel was still doing business, but very few shops were left. Again this piece of history was just sitting almost idle until a few years ago when they announced there was interest in building an aquarium inside! Excitement started building again for this historic place and now the Aquarium is open, along with a very large ferris wheel called the St. Louis Wheel, a ropes course, mini golf, a carousel, and a mirror maze. I am so glad to see life at this fantastic place that I have loved since I was a child! If you go in the front of Union Station, there is what is called the Whispering Arch. You can stand on one side of the archway and whisper and someone on the other side can hear you clear as if they were standing next to you! The Whispering Arch is marked with a plaque on the second floor of St. Louis' Union Station, nearest the north entrance. It is totally cool!!

I am so very Excited for this new workout program that is launching next week!!

Ok, so I am a Team Beachbody Coach and have been since 2015. I got great results from the programs I have done but I have to be honest and things got really crazy in my life in 2017/2018 and I was not consistent with my fitness or nutrition. But then in 2019, when it seemed things had settled a bit, I started working on myself again. But I was having a hard time with the consistency because I was still kind of recovering from all of the events that had happened the 2 years prior. 

Just like many others, I thought 2020 would be different. This was a new year and I started working on myself again. Honestly, I had put back on the weight and inches that I was so happy to be rid of, and then some. It is true that it is harder to lose and maintain your fitness after age 50. So, the beginning of 2020 I committed to doing one of our newer programs. I had it all mapped out. I even had planned for the time change because it really effects my sleep patterns and sleep is a very important component of good health.

Well, then things got really crazy with the quarantine and everything and I pretty much was in survival mode just trying to make sure we were keeping our little hardware shop from going belly up and making sure my youngest son was doing his remote schooling. But you all know about the quarantine craziness because you had it too probably.

Let's face it, I don't know about you, but I sure have not been working out and eating right since mid-March. Although, I did cook every meal at home for 3 months and actually lost some weight and inches just by doing that.

But now I am ready to take back control of my life. I am ready to fully commit to working out every day and eating healthier. This new program, I think, is just what I need to get back into the groove of things. I hope you will consider joining me.

This program is a 3 Week Program with Strength-Training and Cardio workouts ranging from 25-35 minutes a day. There are 2 very different nutrition components you get with the special challenge pack. You don't have to choose one, you get both! Plus a year membership to our online streaming workout programs and really so much more!!

If you join me as a Coach, you can get the program as early as NEXT week (July 7)! I have a sample of the workout that I can send to you with no obligations if you are interested. Just let me know!

If this is something that sounds good to you, let me know and we can talk about the details.

Dinner does not have to be time consuming to make to be tasty!!

For the most part, I enjoy cooking. I don't enjoy cleaning up afterwards, but that's another story for another day. Over the years I have experimented with different ways to cook things. Some are very good and some are ok and some are not so great. But that is how we learn. If you want to be a better cook, you have to practice. You have to try things. You have to take risks. 

Making a tasty and healthy dinner does not have to take a lot of time or money. Take the meal in the photo for example. This is what I just had for dinner. I had a couple of hamburgers that I had thawed that needed to be cooked but I didn't really want a burger on a bun. I don't eat a lot of bread. I love bread, but I tend to save my bread eating for really good bread. Hubby only likes white bread, so all we have in the house right now is white bread and white buns.

 (Anybody have a favorite Multi-grain Bun?) 

This meal literally took about 15 minutes to make. I washed and cut up 2 small red potatoes and tossed them in a skillet with a little butter. I placed the hamburger in the same skillet but on the other side. I added salt and pepper. Then I was standing there looking at the food cooking, thinking "what can I add to this to make it more interesting?" I remembered that I bought portabella mushrooms at the store today so I grabbed a couple of those, washed them, cut them up and added them to the potatoes. The hamburger and the potatoes and mushrooms finished cooking at basically the same time, which was great. I placed the burger on one side of the plate and the potatoes and mushrooms on the other side as you see in the photo. I added some Mexican Cheese, which is a mixture of 3 different cheeses that melt really awesomely. I placed a lid on top of the plate at this point to capture the heat so the cheese would melt. Took about 1 minute, if that. The final touch was the jalapeño peppers.

1 Hamburger Patty -- This is what I had on hand. You could totally do a chicken or turkey patty or a black bean burger or whatever other substitution you like.

Quick Tip: Pat out burgers ahead of time and freeze them. I freeze them in a freezer bag with parchment paper in between. Then I can pop one off the stack if I just want one or I can thaw the entire stack (I usually make a stack of 6 burgers) in the fridge if we will be using them up quickly.

2 Red Potatoes -- Again, this is what I had on hand. Sweet Potatoes would be amazing with this and when our Zucchini start coming in, I am sure I will be making this with Zucchini. I often use Zucchini in place of potatoes for myself. I just like them a lot. I like potatoes too, but I do try to limit myself.

2 Portabella Mushrooms -- You could leave these out if you don't like mushrooms. Or you could use Peppers, Onions, Celery, Carrots; anything you like. You should always cook to your tastes. I don't think I have ever made a recipe exactly as the author wrote it. I always add my own touches.

Mexican Cheese -- Use whatever cheese you have. Cheddar, Mozzarella, Colby Jack, Pepper Jack; they all would work and taste amazing. 

Jalapeño Peppers -- I used some from a jar, but when the ones in the garden start producing, I will use those instead. I love fresh garden produce!

It literally took longer for me to type out all of the ingredients I used than it took to make this very tasty meal. It certainly took less time than it would have taken to drive to a fast food place or even have food delivered. It was also way, way better than fast food.

I challenge you to try new things, especially when it comes to cooking. It doesn't matter if you have never cooked anything before ever. Just give it a try!

One of my favorite things to do is take pictures. I mostly take pictures of landscapes or things in nature such as flowers, plants, animals, etc.

Mushrooms are so fun to photograph! There are so many varieties: all different shapes and sizes. Even the same mushroom will change every day.

One thing to remember when you are taking pictures of mushrooms is that you have to get down on their level. If I had taken this picture from standing, it would have been alright, but by getting down on the ground, the picture is so much better.

You don't need anything fancy to start a hobby of photography. Sure it is fun to use the "fancy" cameras, but in a lot of cases, your smart phone will do just fine. I took this picture with my phone. It shows great details and has good depth of field. This may well be my favorite mushroom pic of 2020!

Growing up, as a kid I had to fend for myself for breakfast. So most days it was cereal. I think cereals were a tad bit healthier back then than they are these days, eh, who am I kidding? We got the cereal for the cool toy inside, right? Anyway, I never was much for the classic bacon and eggs for breakfast. Yes, I like bacon and yes, I like eggs. Just wasn't my thing for breakfast. Sure, I would have the occasional scrambled eggs, but mostly I ate cereal. Even pancakes or waffles seem to be better for dinner than for breakfast. Besides, cereal is quick. Quick to make and quick to eat and leaves very few dishes. So cereal it was.

Fast forward to a few years ago. I wasn't happy with the weight I had put on over the years and had a health scare that thankfully turned out to be a minor thing, but it made me really think about my health. That and the fact that I was inching ever so close to that 50 mark. So I joined a wonderful health and fitness organization and loved it so much I became a Coach. This post isn't about that though. I'll talk about that another day. 

This fitness organization has workout programs that include nutrition guidelines. So, in trying to eat more healthy, I was also trying to follow those guidelines. I started eating eggs for breakfast. I'd have eggs and toast. Then I switched to a multi-grain bread for my toast. So it was 2 eggs, over-easy with a slice of multi-grain toast. But I noticed it didn't make me feel great. Every day, a few hours after eating eggs, I would be in the bathroom wondering why I was feeling so bad if I was eating better.

I had also been trying to buy healthier foods. We grow a garden every year and in the summer, we have a lot of vegetables from that. We also have fruit trees and strawberry plants and blackberry, raspberry, and blueberry bushes. I had been buying organic foods when I could and had even looked into grass fed beef, but there was no place to buy grass fed anything around here at that time.

During my search for the grass fed beef, I found a local farm that raised chickens on pasture. They sold the eggs and they also harvested the chickens and you could buy fresh chicken. I decided to check them out. I stopped buying eggs at the grocery store and was only eating eggs from these pasture raised chickens. The difference was amazing!! Not only did they taste better, but I didn't have to worry about finding a bathroom after I ate them. Total game changer. The fresh chicken and turkey that I buy from them is awesome too, but that's another story.

That was about 5 or 6 years ago, I believe, that I found that farm and I have eaten eggs for breakfast almost every day since. No, it doesn't raise your cholesterol eating eggs if you are eating the right kind. My cholesterol actually dropped as did my triglycerides. 

That brings us to that picture up there. Two eggs, over-easy. Fresh from the farm. From chickens raised on pasture. Some days, I still have multi-grain toast. But most days, I have vegetables with my eggs. Now, I do NOT like omelets. Do not mix anything in with my eggs please. So I was not sure that I could eat vegetables with eggs. I started with spinach and it was awesome! Occasionally I will have potatoes, usually red because we grow those in the garden, but I prefer zucchini.

I started eating zucchini for breakfast by making zucchini patties. I shredded the zucchini and cooked like you would shredded hash browns, sort of. But that takes a lot of time and mornings are crazy busy so I switched to just cutting the zucchini in cubes. Game changer! Some days I have mushrooms with the zucchini, some days I will add onion, some days it's just the zucchini with the eggs. 

What I have found is that by adding a vegetable to my breakfast, I feel better all day long. It takes about 10 minutes to cook the breakfast in that picture. Sure, that's about 8 minutes more than making cereal and it makes more dirty dishes, but it is so worth it!

So, how do I cook that? Super easy. Add butter, real butter from grass-fed cows (I use Kerry Gold) to a pan. Add the cubed zucchini. How much is up to you. I often eat a whole 8-10" zucchini at breakfast. Add sliced mushrooms. I use portabella or white mushrooms. When the mushrooms start to brown and the zucchini starts to break down, move them to one side of the pan and cook your eggs on the other side. I like over-easy, but do them how you like them. Of course if you poach them, you will need to use a different pan. When the eggs are done, put it all on a plate, add salt and pepper to taste, and ENJOY!!

If you've never eaten vegetables at breakfast, I challenge you to give it a try. Also, find a local farm in your area that raises chickens on pasture. The difference is remarkable! Let me know what you think!

Wow! It's been a CRAZY long time since I have posted in this blog. Where the heck did the time go?

Lots of chaos has ensued since my last post, both personally and in the world in general. But today is a new day and I renamed my blog Cyndy Wise: Random Chaos because well, that's what it is. Hubby and I are always saying "It's just random chaos." when something happens, good or bad. So, I thought that would be a great name for this blog. 

I don't even know if anyone ever reads this blog. I started it as kind of a place to keep and share my recipes, but I never really posted too many of them; just a few random ones here and there. Random Chaos! See? 

Ok, enough for now. It is too nice of a day out to be sitting in front of this computer! 

Have an AWESOME day!!