Guest Post with Pricilla the Goat from Happy Goats Farm

Hello let me introduce Pricilla the Goat. She is guest posting today and I am sure you will find her quite adorable and entertaining. Feel free to pop over to her regular home to see more of her life and antics.

With a big welcome-Here is Pricilla.

Hi there! My name is Pricilla and I am the SpokesGoat for the Happy Goats Farm. 

 I live with Mallory, Abby and Matthew(he's erm, fixed) in the doe pen.)

 

 The love of my life, Luke the buck goat lives in the pen across the yard. 

We are all Happy Goats because our publicist takes very good care of us. We all live in Western Montana were we have a beautiful place to graze in the summer.

In the winter we usually have snow on the ground so we have to eat a lot of hay.


Except for Mallory we are Nigerian Dwarf Goats; Mallory is a Toggenburg goat. The publicist milks us and makes rich soap with our milk. She sells it in my shop, Happy Goat Soap. 

She also makes cheese but she and the male person eat that. She has also been known to make caramel with my milk. 

We love our life on the Farm and are spoiled there; we get grain in the morning and apples at night. I couldn't ask for a better place to live.  If you have any questions about us goats the publicist posts Goatucation on Mondays on my blog, The Maaaa of Pricilla.


I am most honored that Esme has asked me to post on her blog. I enjoy reading it and have learned a lot from her - even if I am a vegetarian goat.
 

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http://www.brokenteepeedesigns.com
http://www.gethappygoatsoap.com
http://www.brokenteepee.blogspot.com
http://www.pricillaspeaks.blogspot.com

Tea with Hezbollah by Ted Dekker and Carl Medearis

Tea with Hezbollah: Sitting at the Enemies' Table, Our Journey through the Middle East is Ted Dekker and Carl Medearis's account of their trip to the Middle East in 2008. They were in search of one thing: to find out if it's possible to love your enemies, as illustrated in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

I must confess that I have never read one of Ted Dekker's books and probably would not have read this one had it not been provided to me by the publisher. I have always thought of Dekker as a horror writer which is a genre that does not appeal to me.

Dekker and Medearis books tells there story about sitting down with leaders and ordinary people in the Middle East. In his book he tries to break the stereotype many individuals have about the Middle East and its occupants. Before they leave for the Middle East Dekker is very apprehensive and secretly seems to be wishing the trip will be canceled.

The book takes the form of a narrative, historical background and transcripts from the interviews. One side story is that of Nicole. Nicole is a young woman born to a Lebanese mother who studied in the United States. From her mother's death bed Nicole finds out her father was not the man who raised her and sets out to Lebanon to find out who her father is. I found Nicole's story to be the most interesting part of the book.

While I think I understand what the authors were attempting to achive in this book, I am not sure if it was accomplished. For those who are so narrow minded to think that every person from an area of the world or religion are all alike they will probably never read the book. I did not glean much from the transcripts that were provided in the book. The book is an interesting review of their time spent in the Middle East but for me it just was not there.

I received a free review copy of this book courtesy of Random House.

It's Monday What are you Reading?

Sheila from Book Journey is hosting this meme which has been passed along to her from J. Kaye.

I have been reading in a schizophrenic fashion. Why? Started something it is in my car, I have a momement to read. Oops the book is due at the library and the wait list is too long to wait to finish it. Ohhh, I love audio books I can listen to them in the car. So here it goes.

I finished The Art Thief Audiobook.
Trying to finish The Forgotten Garden to set back to the library.

Started One Amazing Thing.

Listening to The Memory of Running.

Could not resist peeking at Fireworks over Toccacoa.


Read a few poems From the Shadows.

CSN Store and a Review

The other day I found a wonderful email in my mailbox. It was from Jason at CSN Stores asking me if I would like to review one of their products. I clicked on the link and long and behold I was in shopping heaven. Their store has everything from cooking products, office supplies, household accessories, bookshelves, pet accessories and shoes.

I have been doing some renovating around the house and if I stayed with my current kitchen design I could probably use some new stools. Depending on how I re-design the kitchen they may come in handy.

If you follow my blog you know that I chose something for the kitchen to review. I chose a pan from La Creseut. I can hardly wait to try it out. I must have spent hours scrolling through the site deciding what I was going to try. Half the fun was selecting something, the other half was figuring out what color I was going to choose.

Lentil Salad and Weekend Cooking

This Monday will be Week 6 of trial. It has been a long winter. Fun, exciting, hard but tiring. Trial is difficult. Emotions run high, clients have expectations and there is work to be done. I made myself a promise at the beginning of this that I would eat healthy. It is the only way I was going to get through. Eat healthy and working out. The working out has been therapeutic. It gives me energy when I do not have any. Clears my head when it is all clogged up. And I always feel better walking out of the gym than I did walking in.

I decided that I wanted a lentil dish. High in protein it would get me through. Most cafeterias are the same horrible. The cafeteria at the courthouse is no different. Just plain bad.

What recipe book was I going to browse through to find my recipe. That was the easy part. I knew author Tessa Kiros would have a recipe in one of her books. Sure enough I found my recipe in Falling Cloudberries. When an author comes is born in London, has a Cypiot grandfather, Cypiot-Greece father and a Finnish mother, was raised in South Africa and lives in Italy, of course she is going to have a recipe for lentils. Falling Cloudberries is one of my favorite cookbooks. The photos are absolutley gorgeous. Even if you do not like the ingredients, the photo will convice you to just give it a try.

In less than thirty minutes I had a lentil salad, with one of my favorite vegetables, tomatoes. As author Kiros said "You can add to, change, mix up , or use a recipe exactly as it is, but the way you put it on the plate and give it away is yours.

Lentil Salad (adapted from Falling Cloudberries)

1 yellow onion chopped up
5 tablespoons olive oil
2 large garlic cloves
1 large ripe tomato
2 cups lentils
1 small chili
1 teaspoon cumin

Heat 3 tablespoon of the oil in a sucepan. Add the chopped onion and garlic and saute until golden. Add the tomato and season with salt and pepper. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Rinse the lentils and pick out and hard bits. Put the lentils in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Drain, then return to the saucepan. Add about 5 cups of hot water and chopped chili and cumin and bring back to a boil then lower the heat slightly and cook, uncovered for about 20 minutes. Add the tomato and onion mixture and simmer together for 5 minutes. If you need more water add some.

Serve and enjoy.

Weeekend Cooking is hosted by Beth Fish Reads and is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, fabulous quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. To see who else is participating today, click here.

Totally Toned Arms in Twenty-One Days By Rylan Duggan Review

Since her husband ran for president, Michelle Obama has been known for her arms. Who would not want them? Personal trainer Rylan Duggan has given us Totally Toned Arms in Twenty One Days-get Michelle Obama's arms.

Let's admit it, no-one wants arms that have the possibility of taking off. Totally toned arms are sexy on a woman. Do I have them? No! Do I want them? Yes!

So what do I have to say about this book. The book is broken down into three categories 1. Eating, 2. Cardio and 3. Weight Training. I am not a huge weight training person. I find it boring. What author Duggan has to offer is a fun workout. The exercises are both challenging and fun.. For the first week you are doing the same exercises with the intention of building your strength. This week of exercises was hard. Hard yet challenging. When I woke up the next morning I had the satisfaction of feeling sore. Now I must confess that I have not stayed on the program. Not from boredom, but from being tired and unbelievably busy. I have progressed through the exercises I just have not done them for 21 days straight. What I have done has been a good challenge.

One aspect to the weight training exercises that I have enjoyed is some of them are a good cardio workout also. They get your heart rate strong and you are sweating by the end of them.

The cardio work outs have also been a good challenge. Duggan has you doing interval training. This is something I have never done before. I usually go straight for a period of time at the same heart rate. I like the idea of getting your heart rate up and then lowering it and getting it back up again.

Will I continue with this book. ABSOLUTELY. I need to start from the beginning when I am not in trial for 5 weeks straight. Duggan has provided readers with a variety of exercises that it is impossible to get bored with. The other advantage is all the exercises can be done both at home with a few aids or at the gym.

The book is also a good size to take to the gym with you. It is small enough to drag along and not notice it with you.

You may wonder why I have not mentioned the EATING aspect of the book. Duggan gives good eating suggestions, but I strongly believe that no-one can teach you how to eat properly. You can read all you want about how to eat properly but you have to want to do it. Most eating advice has been heard before. PS he also recommends only one cup of tea a day. That is tough for me. ALthough I have been trying to drink more water.

One can always learn knew exercises or variations on the cardio.

So how would I rate this book. I probably should not talk about a fresh chocolate croissant in the same post as a health exercise book so imagine a great fresh apple. I think this is a great helpful book whether you want arms like Michelle or need some new exercises.

Thank you to Hachette Publishing for providing me a copy of this book for review.

February is the time for Love

Who is Your Valentines?

For me it is my husband. Love and affection are the little memories that remind you why you are with your mate. I have been in trial since January 4th. Let me tell you it is exhausting. This past weekend I worked both Saturday and Sunday-not a couple hours of works, but a solid 8 hours each day. At 10 p.m. I have just closed my files. Trust me, I am not one to brag how many hours I work each week. It has been a long month.

Every evening I enjoy a cup of tea. My husband asked me if he could make me a cup of tea. At this hour I settled for Ovaltine. That is why he is my Valentine.


This year I have thrown in a twist for Valentine's Day. Of course once again I have taken to circling all the chocolates in the See's catalogue I would enjoy finding in my box of chocolate. You must think that I am always eating chocolate. Not really I am rather strange-I love hoarding chocolate in my freezer. There is something quite enjoyable about finding chocolate in my freezer when I least expect it.

What is the twist. What goes well with chocolate? A book. I suggested to my husband that I would like a book-a book he gets to choose that he thinks I would like. It shall be interesting to see what he comes up with.