Thursday, April 29, 2010

Passed Excel Specialist: 929 out of 1000! YAY!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Test, Class, etc.

Linda attempted another round of Microsoft Office Word & Excel exams in Glendale, AZ. Passed Word but did not pass Excel. There are too many things on the exam that I can't practice on my version of Office.

Tom & Linda spent the second weekend out of town for CERT training. That's Community Emergency Response Team. Our Lake Havasu City team is awesome and really busy. Not so much with emergencies, although we do assist the fire department at major fires. We provide first aid stations at various city events and we volunteer when we can. The team helped recently at the HavaBBQ, Travis Tritt Show, and last night, the Relay for Life. Now that we've completed Mohave County training, we can work for the county also and be covered under their insurance.

Monday night is the last class of our Citizens' Police Academy, then they provide the class dinner the following Monday night. This will culminate 12 weeks of very informative Monday evenings on the inner workings of the police department. We have never gotten out of class on time but have never minded; each class is very interesting. We've heard from the undercover officers, patrol, neighborhood watch, dispatch, hands-on CSI, K-9 demo, and much more.

We're hosting a geocaching event on May 2 to celebrate 10 years of geocaching. We had one for Pi Day and had a lot of fun playing Jeopardy so we're going to have Geo-Jeopardy, based on the history of geocaching.

Sunday morning, we went to our ham club president's house to see a demo on radio contesting. We also got some information on antennas and looks like we'll be putting our antenna outside soon. It will work more efficiently outdoors rather than strung across the den.

Ice Cream

We have had some yummy batches of vegan ice cream. First we had vanilla with chopped dark cherries. Then two versions of vanilla with mini chocolate chips. The first version was made with low fat coconut milk, 1/2 gallon @ almost $6. Bought it because I figured we'd get four batches from it. Didn't like that one as well because it was less creamy and more like ice milk. Made the same recipe with the canned coconut milk, 1 batch @ $1.37. Along with the Vanilla Almond Breeze, that version was a hit, tasted like Almond Joy. Today's batch is just coconut milk with some leftover fresh strawberries. YUMMY! In the near future (now that I actually have the recipe book there will be many varieties) will be Orange Ice Cream (with pineapple*orange*banana juice).

Thursday, April 8, 2010


Got my new Cuisinart Ice Cream maker ICE-20 from Amazon.com two days ago. Put the bowl in the freezer; couldn't wait to give it a try. Wednesday, after massage, checked the bowl, nice and frozen, started adding the ingredients. Inserted the bowl on the base and put the stirrer in, hmmm, something's wrong and it won't fit properly. The milk is already freezing and the stirrer won't seat properly. Jeez, didn't think it would start freezing THAT fast. Pour out what's not frozen to save for second attempt but have to wait for the bowl to thaw to retrieve the frozen portion. Bowl back in freezer.

Second try on Thursday, after blood donation. Learned lesson this time and assembled the unit BEFORE adding ingredients. Nice since we already know how fast it starts freezing. Added already mixed ingredients (remember we tried this yesterday). We bought some frozen dark cherries but had to locate the recipe for the amount. It was almost done freezing by the time I had the cherries chopped, about 20 minutes. That was 20 MINUTES to frozen dessert! Had to hurry to transfer the ice cream out of the bowl but still lost some stuck to the still FROZEN bowl. Put ice cream in the freezer to finish hardening till after dinner.

During "Survivor" we decided it was time for ice cream, yay! Still a little soft but ready to try anyway. Both of us really liked our vegan cherry vanilla ice cream. Did I say VEGAN? Yes, indeed. A little coconut milk, a little vanilla almond breeze, vanilla, sugar, and chopped dark cherries. Mighty tasty.

I have some fresh strawberries that need to be used. Guess what flavor is next? And after that vanilla with mini semi-sweet chocolate chips (both will be vegan too.) Just waiting for the Lick It recipe book to arrive.