Temple Grandin

This past week was one of the busiest weeks I've had yet. Something was planned every night of the week, which was fun, and made the week fly by! On Wednesday I went to see Temple Grandin speak. If you have no idea who I am talking about, read below, watch the movie, and read one of her books. She is incredible.

The Temple Grandin presentation was very inspiring. Temple was diagnosed with autism in the early '50s when the term 'autism' was just beginning to come around. She didn't speak until she was 3 1/2 years old, and obviously had several challenges ahead of her. Doctors said she should be institutionalized, but her mother was dedicated to helping Temple achieve more in life. Despite those challenges, Temple is a leader in the autism world for her incredible intellect (she has her Phd!!!), is a professor in Colorado, and has discovered humane ways to care for cattle that almost 1/2 of the U.S. slaughterhouses use today.

That's Temple. She is always wearing something 'ranchy'. : )

A characteristic of autism is that of fixations. Temple was fixated on a machine that she would try to dream up that would offer her a stimulating feeling that she longed for from human contact, but because of autism, would reject any physical contact made. After working on her aunt's ranch in Arizona, she saw the cattle being put into this cattle chute to hold them and to calm them down if they needed vaccinations or branding or something like that. This device fascinated Temple and she literally made her own cattle chute for herself to calm her nervousness and anxiety, and that would later help her accept and give physical contact to others, and also help her understand her emotions.

Temple speaking. It is really incredible how far she's come.

Temple signing someone's book!

Temple signed my book! : ) And I only have 2 chapters left! Who wants to borrow it?

It's an incredible story. The thing about Temple is, is that she is so aware of herself and her thoughts. She thinks in pictures, which most of us do. But with Temple, if you say the word 'shoe', she literally can picture any shoe she has actually seen and know who was wearing it.

It was really neat; at the end there was time for questions and a lot of people in the audience on the autism spectrum went up and asked her questions.

I would highly recommend everyone watch the HBO film about her life, called Temple Grandin. It stars Claire Danes, who does an incredible job of taking on Temple's voice influx and mannerisms.

Well, I hope you are enjoying your weekend as much as I am.

My creation!

I was all set and ready to make a peach ice cream smoothie, but only to remember there was no more vanilla ice cream. I didn't think mint chocolate chip or cookie dough would be very tasty with peaches, so I thought about going to the store- keyword, thought.

I decided to be bold. To be brave. To go where no one has gone before. To do the unthinkable. (not really at all... but fun to think so) I looked up some alternatives to making peach smoothies without ice cream, and then decided to just whip out my own lil' version.

In a blender, I started with some ice, then sliced up the peaches. (which was a good thing too, because they were beginning to get all kinds of soft and stuff...) Added the peaches, threw in a whole container of raspberries- 1. because I LOVE raspberries, and 2. because I was worried that later in the week they would end up looking somewhat like the peaches, with mold or something. Anyway, ice, peaches, raspberries, a splash of milk (my splash was very small, you probably could not tell I even added anything), a drizzle of honey, and then one of those personal, small sized yogurts from HEB that was peach flavored. (why not?!)

And what came out of this adventurous start was a yummy, fruity, refreshing peach/raspberry smoothie!

Pretty, huh?

Oh yeah! It was tasty!

Lisa's Peach-Rasp Smoothie

some ice, maybe 2 cups? maybe more...

2 peaches

a small container of raspberries

a splash of milk

a drizzle of honey for about 3-4 seconds

a small container of peach yogurt

I know, I think writing and creating recipes is my gift. Enjoy!

Our Home in Bryan

Bryan's slogan is "A Great Place to Live". And I would have to agree with that. I really do think it is pretty great. We are becoming members of the church we have been going to on Sunday, so that is exciting, and have been learning our way around town.

One day, I got lost for 30 minutes. I'm not even kidding.

Here is a look into our lovely apartment. Enjoy!

This is the view from the front door of our living room.

We have a lot of books... and a very small TV we bought especially for the VHS player. That's right, I said it, the VHS player. Oh yeah, be jealous.

Our fun little vintage, 1960s Neiman Marcus mannequin from Miranda-the-Great, currently sporting my rehearsal dinner dress.

A view of our dining room from the living room. Looks a little messy right now... that's because it is.

Another view from of our dining room. Those are awesome built-in shelves! I have one shelf just for all my cookbooks. Glorious. And yes, that is the book Music Teacher from the Black Lagoon. : )

We also need 3 shelves to house all our board games.... we love board games. You should come over and play with us sometime. The Life, Risk, Careers, and Monopoly that is at the very bottom are from my Mama Kay's house. They are from the 60s and I love them. If you have never played Careers, you need to get over here! It's one of Mike and I's favorite!

Our kitchen that is small, yet still MUCH bigger than our last one! (If you can believe it!)

More kitchen. That door leads out to a patio we have. It would be nice to go out there, but I don't like sitting in 110 degree weather...

Our guest room. The most 'unfinished' of all the rooms.

Mike's Star Wars shrine, uh, I mean collection, yes there we go, resides in the guest room. : )

Guest bath. (I think it looks better than our own master bathroom!)

And our room. Very plain right now. We still need very much so to print wedding pictures out and hang them on the walls. I have a feeling though that won't happen until Christmas Break.

Anyway, so that's our place! You are invited over anytime!!