A Sad State of Affairs

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great root veggie dish

I saw someone make this on the show Victory Garden and tried it last night and was very pleased with the results. You can really use any variety of root veggies for this and it would taste awesome. The name of it "Root Vegetable Casserole" is a little deceiving as it comes out more like a soup. Also as you will see the recipe calls for kale. I used collard greens instead and it was great.

Click here for the recipe

Exciting News!

Jamie and I are starting a small t-shirt company called Redbird. It's all DIY (in our basement) and we're having a lot of fun getting all of the groundwork set to start up printing. Right now we are working on some designs, and we just bought our domain name Redbirdclothing.com which means I will also be working on a website. I think we're going to start out selling them on Etsy.com

More info to come soon...

Man this blog keeps getting more random by the day

It seems like in the last year or so I haven't been acquainting myself with new music. I have my old favorites that I love so much I don't feel the need to add more...but, I stumbled across Coconut Records the music of Jason Schwartzman and loved it. Here is the video to one of the songs called "West Coast." I guess the footage wasn't intended for the video but it fits pretty well besides the fact it's just awesome footage anyway.

New study says 151,000 Iraqi dead

One of the biggest surveys so far of Iraqis who have died violently since the US-led invasion of 2003 has put the figure at about 151,000.

This is about a quarter of the figure given in a disputed Lancet article, but nearly three times higher than that of the Iraq Body Count campaigning group.

The result is based on interviews with over 9,000 families across Iraq carried out by the health ministry for the WHO.

The survey says more than half of all violent deaths were in Baghdad.

The World Health Organization study looks only at the period from March 2003 until June 2006.

Researchers interviewed households right across Iraq, in towns and the countryside, and asked the head of each one for details of all deaths in the group.

They say violence became a leading cause of death of Iraqi adults; among men between 15 and 59 it was the main cause of death.

Click here to read more...

I'm insured!!!

Yea!  This is a very exciting day for me after about 6 years of living without it I finally have health insurance!  This has been a huge weight on my shoulders for years.  Every time I'd ride a bike or go in the ocean or have a car pull out in front of me I'd think about what would happen if I got hurt and how would I pay for it.  

Like most uninsured people I was just never able to afford it before.  I've worked the whole time I've been uninsured and I wouldn't call myself poor, but I'm nowhere close to being well-off either.  I'm just an average person to whom insurance was a luxury I couldn't afford.   Honestly I'm still not really able to afford it as I am self employed.  Luckily my lovely boyfriend had a great plan through his union that covers me.  

While I am very happy today knowing that I am covered by a good plan I'm also really mad that I like so many millions of others was put in such a bad spot for so long.  When is our government going to catch up with the other industrialized  countries and realize how valuable it's citizens are?

YUM!

I made Quinoa Vegetable Paella tonight off of the "Fat Free Vegan Kitchen" website and I'm very impressed!  It's super hearty and just what I needed to warm me up (I think I'm coming down with a cold)

Anyway if you want some yummy healthy food give it a shot!

How Caucuses work

Ever wondered how caucuses work?  Since the Iowa caucus is upon us I did a little research on how they work.  Since we have a primary here in Oregon I never really bothered to learn about it.  If you're interested you can check out the info here.

Crazy

... but I didn't even fulfill last years resolutions

Another year officially down the drain, and time to screw another one up!  We started it off with a bang at Carrie's house.  This year the party got a bit too crazy for us old folks and we headed home pretty early.  As you can see it was standing room only.  Kudos to Carrie for throwing a great party. 

P.S.  Carrie, fix your dang mask.