The Sin of Gluttony

So it is a Sunday afternoon, I am a bit under the weather trying to recover and be healthy for an upcoming vacation. I gave the options for dinner tonight. Trying to keep it simple because I am not in the mood to cook. Normally Sundays I try to make a nice dinner because during the week it is fast and simple dinners because I have to leave for school before 5 every night. Cheyenne informed me that we should one Sunday make everyone's favorite meal. So I explained that would be more food than any of us could eat, we would look like a buffet. Her response, "How cool would that be!" She began to prepare the menu verbally...listen to this menu..I am exhausted and full just listening to her list it off.

Rachael Ray's Official Website :: Paprika Chicken Stew with Potato Pierogies~ Yummy stew, the longer it stays on the stove the better it is, super easy to make and fairly inexpensive

White Enchiladas- In Utah this recipe floats around a lot but mine is not made with cream of mushroom soup or cream of chicken, there is something so wrong with using either of those in an enchilada dish.

My mother-in-laws gumbo- I have only made it a couple of times, she usually makes it, not hard to make but it took me a couple times to get it to taste like hers. We all gather like scavenging hyena's when she makes it. She also makes an incredible potato salad and stuffing for thanksgiving.

Praline sweet potato casserole- Dessert disguised as a side dish

Homemade Mac and Cheese- Nothing beats the homemade stuff.

Stuffed chicken croissant rolls- Some chicken, onion, mushrooms, and cream cheese all wrapped up in a croissant.

Lasagna- The key is to buy the no boil noodles...saves time and the noodles turn out perfect.

About this time I stopped Cheyenne and asked, "are you done yet?", and she responded by saying, "Don't forget dessert"

Homemade chocolate chip cookies- I add pudding to my recipe, keeps them soft and dense

Banana bars- I make the recipe in a sheet cake pan, it taste like banana bread but then you add a homemade cream cheese frosting that sends it over the top.

Symphony Brownies- Make a packaged brownie mix, pour half the batter in a pan, layer a symphony bar on top of batter, add the rest of batter....gives the brownie a gooey caramel center.

That was her menu, every thing she thinks we should make. I think because we stayed home from church today we should have a lesson on the seven deadly sins, we will start with sin gluttony...........

Really, I Am Okay, I Promise!

I'm sitting here late on a Friday night because first of all I think I drank to many Coke zero's and my caffeine level is reaching dangerous levels in my body but I am also wide awake because for some reason I feel like I should be stressing, worrying, having anxiety attacks...but I am not. Why should I be riddled with stress....Adrian was laid off Thursday.

Several employees have been laid off over the last year at his job. We thought and were told that Adrian's job was safe because he was the only one that could perform his job. His salary was the highest in his department but once again he was the only one that could do his job. Thursday morning the general manager laid off four more employees and Adrian was part of the cut. It came as a surprise to his manger and soon anger and confusion spread through the department because if they were willing to let Adrian go then who else was on the chopping block because everyone's jobs were expendable at this point.

When Adrian arrived back home Thursday morning with the bad news I was not surprised, I was upset because the decision was not logical but there was nothing we could do about it.

So why am I not going out of mind...chewing my nails till they bleed, pacing the floor, curling up into a fetal position in the corner? The minute the news hit me I had nothing but calmness (I keep telling myself its numbness because there is no reason to be calm). I heard that voice saying, it will be okay...that still quiet voice.

I don't know what is in our future, maybe something better or maybe more trials ahead but we will make it through, we always do. We have some options in the work that would be ideal but of course we have a Plan B as an option if those first choice things don't come through, I don't want to think about Plan B but we will do what we have to do. Plan B would involve Adrian on the road a lot and the thought of our family having to be separated that much is painful but if that sacrifice is the plan that has been set for us than we are up for the challenge.

A vacation was planned awhile ago and it is approaching in about 2 and half weeks , we are spending a couple days in Vegas and then headed to the happiest place on earth, Disneyland. So we are going to go ahead with our plans; keep living life, taking it day by day. Continuing to have the faith that it all will work out, and to remain calm, and to always be in tune to that still quiet voice

Belligerent Drunk

This is a short film that is spreading across the internet. First of all if you have ever lived with a baby at this wobbly stage of walking and their lack of cleanliness when eating or drinking you find the humor in this..it is like living with a drunk. I started laughing when I watched this video because of an experience I had with Cheyenne when she was around this age.

First of all, no, I did not get my baby drunk. Cheyenne had a tumor on her ovary which was causing her to go in to premature puberty. She was going through the changes that we all begin to go through at those awkward pre-teen years at 18 months. After many tests they found a large mass on her ovary and we had to immediately get her into surgery to remove it.

We show up they day of surgery and they take you to pre-op area that had a large play area. The play area is in the pre-op room to distract the children, to relax them, they administer a sedative so that when it is time to go into surgery they will be "relaxed" and not stressed when leaving with the nurses.

Let me set the scene. Cheyenne and another boy were set to leave for surgery about the same time. The other boy in the pre-op area was...well..lets say...extremely ADHD. He was bouncing off the walls and could not sit still. They administer this oral sedative to Cheyenne and this boy. The nurse described the sedative as an equivalent to giving an adult a few alcoholic drinks, calms the nerves. They give instructions to watch your child, they may get wobbly and may hurt themselves stumbling around.

Within a short amount of time the ADHD boy was like jello, he was lying on the floor drooling on himself, he was VERY relaxed. Cheyenne on the other hand was holding on with one hand teetering back and forth guarding the play area. She was shoving other kids around her, taking toys, and not saying kind things to the other children. She did not relax, she turned into a belligerent "drunk".

Of course it was a stressful morning and this broke the ice, I found the humor I needed that morning, I needed to laugh, to take my mind of everything that was happening. My puberty riddled baby turned into a fighting drunk, ADHD child was passed out...it was the laugh that I needed.

That is why this short film made me laugh, it brought me back to that moment, that very stressful moment and it reminded me to always find the humor ...always laugh.

Sisterhood

I was not raised in large family and I have one sibling. We are six years apart in age, she being the oldest. We were mortal enemies growing up, she was mean, and I was a brat. It was her daily mission to exclude me from whatever activity she was doing and it was my daily mission to figure out a way to see how I could include myself in whatever she was doing. Leana went off to basic training for the military about the time we moved to Utah and when she came back I don't know if it was maturity or not having to be around each other for several months but our relationship changed. It was no longer bickering siblings but more of a friendship.

We have watched our families grow up and though we get limited time together we cherish the time we have. I tease her that we will out live our husbands and then we can become the crazy cat lady sisters that live together (only problem with that is I am allergic to cats but I figured by then I will be to senile to know the difference). I will be the sister that will drive because I am younger and she is fairly blind already so I can just imagine what her eyesight will be like when she is 85 and also you shrink the older you get and she is fairly short already so she wouldn't be able to see over the steering wheel anyways. I think I will be the senile one, I will make the jello molds with cat food in it, I will wear my bra on the outside of clothes, and wear my lipstick extending beyond my lip line.

Though I know my sister will probably not see this post because technology is not her friend I want her to know how much I love her. I wanted to be included in everything she did when I was kid because I wanted to be like her, I looked up to her. She is amazingly intelligent with a great sense of humor. She is stunningly beautiful and has a heart of gold. I am blessed she is my one and only sister.

"Sisters is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship within a family"~ Margaret Mead

Mumford & Sons - The Cave

Just a musical suggestion from my eclectic taste in music..love this album...pull it up on I-tunes give it a listen..you may like it...

BFF's!

First of all let me take a breath and exhale. It has been one of those weeks that seems as though it has been a tornado of multiple activities. I want to share my Thursday night activity and it will lead into my theme for February. Thursday night I headed down to the Salt Lake public library. Which was my first visit to this beautiful library, it is amazing inside. I went to go get a book signed by my favorite blogger "Pioneer Woman". If you have not visited her site, stop reading my boring old blog and head over to pioneer woman and you will get lost in her stories, recipes, and photography. Reading her blog is part of my morning ritual and because she shares her personal life I feel like I know her personally and we have been friends forever, which of course she has no idea who I am but I make believe otherwise. She has written a book about her falling in love with her husband. Most of the story is posted on her blog, it is a sweet simple love story that makes you endure yourself to her even more. Her husband, kids, and family are everything to her and she has amazing recipes that include lots of butter and for that reason she always has my attention.


The person pictured to the right in the above photo is Rachelle. I met Rachelle in junior high. We had both recently moved and were fairly new in school. We shared a math class, my math professor always called my name wrong on the role, he called me Michael Beak, and would mark me absent on the role because I gave up trying to correct him so I would not answer him. Rachelle sat on the other side of the classroom with a painfully awkward haircut that we still laugh about to this day and I am not sure if we had a weird telepathic awkward bond with one another but we shared a kindred gawkiness that somehow made us automatic friends. We were inseparable. Our parents came to expect us together at all times and asked where the other was at when we were not together. If our families went out to dinner, shopping, or even vacation we were both there.


I could do pages and pages of the stuff we used to do considering our history with one another goes back 20 plus years. Our husbands grew up together and were childhood friends, of course we did that on purpose so that we didn't have that awkward dynamic of my husband not liking my best friends husband, they already knew each other so that made things much easier (please know that I am joking, we did not set out to marry a set of friends it just happened that way).

Anyways...what I love about Rachelle. I could not imagine her not in my life. I lived out east for several years and even though we had a 1000 plus miles between us I always referred to her as my best friend and always tried to give her a call when I got a chance. We are both married and moms and have full schedules and we don't always get a chance to talk to each other very often but when we get a chance to be together we pick up right where we left of and we turn back in to giggly junior high teens again. I know I could call her at anytime and she would drop whatever she is doing and be there for me. She listens when I need someone to unload my neurotic woes on and she will share some of her neurotic woes with me.


Everyone needs that one friend in their life that you know will be there till one of us parts this earth. We know each others past and we care about what the future has to bring to each other. Rachelle is an amazingly beautiful person inside and out and I am so blessed she is part of my life. This quote is for you Rachelle,


"Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think"~ Christopher Robin to Pooh

What Don't I Love about You!

Staying with my February theme of what I love about those in my life I figured my kiddos had to be my second post. I will start with the youngest, Makenzie. She is a force to be reckoned with. She is amazingly animated and takes the word "drama" to a whole new level. She makes me smile the minute she walks in the room and I can always count on Makenzie to make me laugh. The other day I asked her a generic question that should have had a yes or no answer but instead she began the answer with the response, "sit down, let me tell you the story". She questions everything and observes every tiny detail around her, nothing gets by her. She will always be my baby girl even when she turns 40.

My shy, shy. She is shy and meek and hesitant. She likes to stand back and observe, unlike her younger sister she just wants to stay neutral and blend in. The first time she had to perform in front of a crowd she got so nervous she threw up and refused to go back out again. She has a spirit about her that is so sweet that you cannot be mad at her for long. She is always first to give me a hug and ask me how my day was, she always is making sure everyone else is okay. I am not sure how to put words to it but Cheyenne has such a sweet soul, a soul that rarely blesses this earth, she is truly someone special and I am so proud to be her mother.

My Kaity Bug, and my oldest...by six minutes but she is technically my oldest. She was the reason the twins came early, she was determined to come out no matter how hard the Dr's tried to keep her in. She still has that fighting spirit, when she focuses and decides she wants something she does not stop until she gets it. She is as stubborn as her mother and she is first to express her opinion when she feels you are wrong. I love when I get time alone with her, she talks your ear off, she usually keeps to herself when we are all together. I enjoy my alone time with her because I get to see what an amazingly smart girl she is and what an amazing young woman she is turning into...she is truly just "amazing"

What I Love About You

February 1st......the month of expressing our love. I thought why not write this month about those I love and what I love about them. I figured I should start with the hubby. In March we will have been married 17 years. Our weekdays are busy, like everyone else, we are all going in different directions. Adrian heads out of town and I seem to be always at the school and the kids are coming and going in the middle of all of it. Friday night I come home from school and the first thing I do is go to Adrian, give him a big kiss on his bald head and a big hug. It is my way of saying, "Hi, I missed you this week".

Seventeen years later and I look forward to the time I have with him, I look forward to just being able to spend a few uninterrupted hours with him. Sometimes we are 50/50 in the relationship some times one of us is stronger than the other so it is 70/30, we always balance each other out somehow. Without a shadow of a doubt he is my best friend.

We are both so stubborn and we bicker and disagree but we seem to let these disagreements be short lived and we both move on and forgive quickly. On occasion we have to remind one another that an apology is owed and we usually give our smirks and eventually say, "I am sorry".

He calms me down, I am a worrier and I seem to be hesitant and pessimistic when life keeps beating us down but he always reminds me that we will make it through better and stronger. We have had a rough few years with a lose of job, benefits, and financial stability. We are surviving, we just get more creative on how to stretch our minimal budget and we know things will get better but this is our trial for now and we deal with it as best as we can.

He is the first to encourage me do something and never forgets to tell me he loves me. If he ever has an opportunity to buy me a gift whether small or large he will, he has never been selfish and will always make sure I have everything I need before he buys for himself.

He loves his girls and I think he is a wonderful example to them on how a man should love his wife. He is the first to say something if he feels they are being disrespectful to me. We always try to stand a united front when it comes to decisions about the kids.

This is the man I married seventeen years ago. I could not predict where we would be back then and I still can't predict where we will be in another seventeen years but at this moment and at this time I am blessed with someone that I truly love with all my soul.......