Update

I'm back home after a twelve hour drive. Our little one seems to be doing well. Thanks to all of you who have kept him in your prayers.


Going to bed now.

Santa Fe

Ojo Calliente was great. I highly recommend it. I did not get to spend much time in the pools but I think I spent a few minutes in every one of them. I feel as if I met a long lost sister in the woman I was sent up there to meet. I am sure that I will keep in touch with her. We have a lot in common and the meeting felt like a reunion.



The Pecos area was beautiful. This is the first time I have taken a vacation by myself. I have traveled for classes and spent a few days at workshops near home, but this is my first trip with no agenda to speak of. I am having fun. I will be glad toget back to Stephen and Lani, though.

Road Trip

I am sitting in a coffee shop in Santa FE, not the most wired city. The trip out was great....80 mile an hour speed limit on I-10. Wooohoooo!!!. I thought that people might be driving 90mph but they weren't. Everyone was staying pretty close to the posted limit. There was not much traffic on Sunday. I was really surprised by the lack of big rigs. It made for a pleasant drive. I left the interstate at Ft. Stockton and took US 285 the rest of the way in. I saw lots of Cooper's hawks once I left the interstate. I was on the road about 12 and a half to 13 hours. It is about twenty degrees cooler here than in Austin.

Yesterday, I went downtown and looked around in the shops on the plaza. I am not much of a clothes horse but I could spend thousands of dollars on the clothes they have in those shops.

Today I am going up to Ojo Calliente to meet a friend of the friends with whom I am staying. She is going to show me around the area and I will definitely get in a good soak.

Tomorrow my host is going up to Pecos with me so that I can check that area out. I had planned to visit museums on Thursday and come home on Friday. However, my best friend is in Flagstaff right now. Her first grandchild was born prematurely and is now trying to decide if this is the planet he intended to land on. She is having a tough time and I may drive on up there tomorrow afternoon and spend the night with her. If that happens, I'll be leaving Flagstaff around mid-day on Thursday so that I can be home by Friday evening. I ask that everyone send up prayers, energy or however you express the requests you send to the Universe. There is a little baby boy and his family in Flagstaff who could really use your positive thoughts.

Peace and happy trails.

Crystalized Ginger, Day 5, The Finished Product

I had to be at work early this morning so last night, I strained the syrup through a coffee filter.

As I was pulling my massage table across the mezzanine at the Driskill, my phone rang. It was the delivery man from the appliance store telling me that he would like to deliver the new stove between 11:00am and 2:00pm today. Since Stephen was at home, I told him that that time would be fine. We have the world's best landlord!

When I got home, I put the syrup through the coffe filter again. Then I put it in a pan on the beautiful new stove and set it to medium heat. While it was getting up to a boil, I got out a plastic shaker container with a screw on lid. I put a small amount of ginger in it, added a heaping table spoon of sugar and shook it up and rolled it around. Then I poured the contents back onto the rack. I repeated this process until all the ginger had been coated with sugar.

I let the syrup reduce to between a third and a half of the volume I started with. I may have used more water than necessary when I started this process. This was due to the size of my pot. It took a lot of water to cover the ginger and have an inch and a half or so on top.

I will put some of the ginger in a white paper bag and make a cutesy label for it as part of the gift basket I am putting together for my friends in Santa Fe. They will also get the nice bottle of syrup. There is still plenty for us. It is in a small jar. The syrup has quite a bite so I think it may be a good idea to mix it with maple or cane sugar syrup to use on pancakes or waffles. It may be a little bit too hot by itself. The ginger has the perfect texture and a nice bite as well.

Thanks for all your help, Mistrel Boy.

Crystalized Ginger, Day 4

I had to get started early again today because my afternoon was booked with a corporate massage gig and Lani has to have her walk as soon after Stephen leaves for work as possible. If her leash were kept where she could get to it, she would probably try to put it on herself and drag me out the door.

I took the lid off the pot and brought it to a slow boil. Then I turned the burner down to 5 again and pretty much followed the same procedure as yesterday. I think this took about 45 to 50 minutes. I then extracted the ginger and placed it on the rack. I strained the syrup through 2 different strainers but it still looked a little cloudy. When I returned home this afternoon, a lot of sediment had settled to the bottom. I am going to strain it through a coffee filter tomorrow. I may heat it up and boil it a few more minutes. I think it could be a little bit thicker. This is actually a 5 day process anyway. Tomorrow I will put the ginger pieces in a bag with some course sugar and give it a good shake.

In the meantime, here is what it looks like.

In case you noticed that I have not been adding a sound track to these posts, there is a reason. I refer you to Harp & Sword's Friday Random Ten.

Thursday 13

MY 13 favorite blogs (in no particular order):

Christine Kane

Heart In San Francisco

Harp & Sword

Blog It Like You Mean It

Truth Cycles

I Gallop On

Littlel Pea

The Road Lester Traveled

Soul Collage Journey

Open Window

Little Wing

Running on Empty

As If You Care

I did not put links to these because they are all on my side bar.

Sound track : Get By With a Little Help From My Friends Beatles or Joe Cocker, your choice.

Crystalized Ginger, Day 3

I got an early start on this project today because my landlord was scheduled to come by at 9:30 to look at the stove. He is getting me a new one. Yeah!!!!

Here are the instructions from Harp & Sword:

Day 3 - Uncover and bring to a boil again. Stirring often, add in 1 cup sugar and reduce heat to a simmer and stirring often, simmer 30 minutes. Bring heat back to a boil slowly, add in the last cup of sugar and stir until completely dissolved. Remove from heat, store covered at room temperature overnight.

This is pretty much what I did. I managed the simmering the best I could by setting the control on the burner on 5. This usually gets me a slow boil but more than a simmer. I stood over it and every time I saw a bubble start to form, I stirred.

If you have been reading the comments on this series, you know that MB has been mentoring me through this process. I did consider his suggestion to use the crock pot. However, there is no way that my crock pot will hold a pound and a half of ginger pllus the water and other ingredients.

I was sure I had seen what I thought was Lyon's Golden Syrup at World Market so I stopped by and picked some up. When I got home, I realized that I have Lyle's Golden Syrup. It has a lion on the label. I bet it is close to the same thing. I also bought a large cooling rack, something I needed anyway.