Month: August 2014

Tbug & the VDub

So last fall hubby and I bought a 1999 Volkswagon Passat to keep the miles off his truck, plus it gets better fuel mileage than what his truck does so why not, right?

We were really looking for a Jetta Diesel but this one was less than what we wanted to pay and it was still kind of what we were looking for so we were able to get it. Sweet, right?

So there’s that info… now this… So like all kids, Tbug really can’t wait to drive. I learned to drive when I was 4 years old in a hayfield and learned to drive a standard transmission when I was 12. I can’t tell you how many times being able to drive a standard has paid off in life. So I told Tbug before she’s allowed to get her drivers license, she has to be able to do 2 things… 1) drive a standard (she’ll never be stranded that way) and 2) change a tire (again, never be stranded due to that).

So the Passat we bought is actually a standard. Score, a vehicle to teach her to drive one in, right?

Yeah, about that…

So 2 weeks before the Peanut was born, hubby got a phone call about a sale. That day we happened to be out and about in the VW (VDub). Hubby wound up riding home with Robert and Tbug and I took the VDub home. Since we beat the boys to our house, I figured I’d give her a chance to start learning to drive a standard.

We pulled into the driveway, I kicked it in neutral and put on the Ebrake and told her to get in the drivers seat. She looked at me like I’d lost my mind. So she got in, we slid the seat forward and I proceeded to tell her how to take off. Woohooo, we made it down the driveway only killing the car 5 times. Not bad!

We got down by the house, I had her stop, I got out and turned the car around and told her to drive me back up to the head of the driveway. She looked at me like I was crazy again but away we went. She only killed it 5 times this way again. Not bad!

By this point the boys had gotten to the house.

So when we got to the head of the driveway I told her to turn it around. I told her to put it in reverse you have to push down on the shifter and then go to the right and down. She did what I said and we proceeded to kill the car a few more times. No big deal, turn the key off and start back up (remember push in on the clutch!)

We finally got the car going in reverse, and had it going toward the hayfield. Now we don’t have a fence separating the yard from the hayfield which is a good thing because there is a slight incline there and we wound up backing down the hill into the hayfield.

If you’ve never driven a standard, if you have the clutch pushed in and you’re on an incline, you’ll go down the hill unless you have the break on or are giving it gas while coming off the clutch. Hubby asked why we decided to back into his hayfield and I laughed and said, ask the clutch :).

So it was at this point I was telling Tbug she needed to give the car gas to help get off the clutch and back up the hill before we wound up to far into the hayfield. She proceeded to tell me, I can’t see the gas. Dear you don’t need to see the gas… the gas is the far right pedal, the break is the middle pedal and the clutch is the left pedal in a standard. You don’t need to see, just feel for it. You’ll find it easily! Do you ever see me looking for the pedals?

So we get going back down the driveway, as we got up by the house we were headed straight for the tractor that was parked under the carport. She asked me what to do. I said, push on the clutch and the brake. She said I can’t see the brake. I said you don’t need to see the brake, it’s the middle pedal and you need to press it NOW!

Luckily she had the clutch pushed in and we weren’t going that fast because about that time we ran the car right into the big tire on the tractor. Hubby and Robert came running over. I immediately looked at her and asked if she was okay and then climbed out of the car dazed and confused.

Now the reason I said luckily she had the clutch pushed in is we bounced off the tractor tire instead of slamming into it and still going as you would have in an automatic. Whew!

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First Day of School

Today I am sad. Why you might ask? Well, this is my first day back to school after the summer break. After a CRAZY summer school that ended in me having a baby on the day I was supposed to take my final and I wound up having to take it a week later. Then an even more crazy and hectic summer. Today is the first day back to school and I’m torn.

I’m excited to be starting back because there were times this summer I was bored, but at the same time, I have this gorgeous baby girl! Now if you think about it, from the time I had her until now, that was 7 weeks (4 days) ago which makes it a week longer than if I had to work and go back after the 6-week maternity leave that is typical here in the US (although I don’t think all businesses offer that, I don’t really know…)

I’m sad because now I’ll be missing out on 2 nights per week with her. I’ll be missing out on 2 afternoons with her. But my schedule is so great and I know she’s in GREAT hands! But Mommy might just cry today when I drop baby girl off with my grandma. Although I can tell you my grandma is extremely excited about watching her for me!

So anyway I don’t think this post has any great thoughts in it. It’s a little discombobulated just like my brain seems to be right now… so I’ll just leave you with this… (more…)

Top 5 Big Blogs I Read

A few years ago when I started learning what blogs were, I found myself grossly engaged in reading them. I don’t use grossly in a bad sense, just pointing out that I got really involved in reading them. I also need to point out that I read a lot of blogs and I’d love to share them with you. In fact, I have before, not all but a lot of them.

I hate picking a few out and saying I read these more than those because there are a lot of blogs I like for a lot of different reasons. But today I think I’ll share five of the big blogs I read that I really like with you. These are big blogs in the fact that they definitely don’t know my blog exists and only one of them will converse with me, which really is pretty darn cool!

So the First one would be by Amanda Radke who actually converses with me a lot via facebook. How cool is that? Amanda writes Beef Daily. She has my dream job which is to write a blog for an Agriculture publication. She writes for Beef Magazine. When I initially went to school, it was to be an Agriculture Journalist. I then heard that if I went the Agriculture Education route, that I would get a lot more opportunities so I switched my major but made sure to take the Agriculture Journalism classes that SMS offered. Amanda touches on issues that are facing Farmers and Ranchers as well as the Beef Industry today.

While we’re on the thought process of Agriculture blogs, My next favorite is:

The Pioneer Woman. I really have no clue how I stumbled across her blog but I have been reading it for years. Truthfully how can you not love Ree Drummond? I know there are haters out there, but sadly with anything in life there are haters. She has a great blog that has a wealth of knowledge but she also gets out there and has a blog that promotes Agriculture and teaches people about the ways of the Agriculture life. I’d soooo love to have a blog like hers. Ah, to aspire to :).

From there, let’s look at this blog:

Kevin & Amanda. I stumbled across this blog back in 2011 when I participated in the Extreme Mac & Cheese link-up. You were to get a recipe of Mac & Cheese from a blog and make it, then link up.  When I googled Mac & Cheese Recipes I came up with Amanda’s blog and that was the Mac & Cheese I used. Since then I have become obsessed with her blog. Now she has my dream job too! Her blog sends her all around the country and the world taking pictures and traveling. How cool would that be? I really want her job.

From there let’s look at:

Elsie & Emma at A Beautiful Mess. I wish I knew how I stumbled across their blog but I didn’t. However I’m soooo glad I did! They have an awesome blog and that fabulous photography that they take. The give great tips! And the cool thing I found out about a year ago is they are located in Springfield, MO, the town I went to college in. How crazy is that? A local blogger (basically) and they are famous. Nope, I’ve never met them or seen them but hey, we’re like friends, right. Same towns… ha!

And last but not least:

Fat Mum Slim. I actually found Chantelle’s blog via Instagram. She does a daily photo challenge every month. She posts the prompt, then you take the photo and post it on Instagram. I only actually went through the challenge and didn’t forget one time. That’s sad really but I try! Anyway then I stumbled across her blog and she has some great posts and tips on blogging and photos, etc. It’s fun to read her blog. She also lives in the land down under, how cool is that? Yup, that’d be awesome. I’d sooo go down there to meet her, if someone would pay for my trip! 🙂

So there you have it. 5 of the big blogs I read. I wish these people would know who I was and give tips and help my blog skyrocket but I doubt I’m that good sadly. I guess I shouldn’t doubt myself, but I’ll always strive for better :).

So are there any blogs you’d recommend I read? Why??

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The Count Down

So I was reading Angie’s blog here while back and she did this really cool thing so I’m stealing it….

10 Things I Did Today
I ate lunch with my aunt, husband and baby girl.
I went through my kitchen looking for things to get rid of.
Baby girl and I went for a walk tonight.
I went looking for a lens cover that is non-existent.
I continued reading Bringing up Bébé.
I ate an ice cream cone.
I watched America’s Got Talent.
I ate dinner.
I fed baby girl.
I took a shower.

9 Things I loved Today
I love my husband.
I love my baby girl.
I love my Tbug.
I love my family.
I love the puppy dogs.
I love that I got to sleep in. (early mornings and late nights are getting me)
I love baby snuggles.

I kind of love the late night snuggles too.
I love the faces that Peanut shared with us today!

8 Things I Didn’t Love Today
I didn’t love baby girl scratching me. her nails are sharp!
I didn’t love reading through facebook and seeing people arguing about Robin Williams death.
I didn’t love baby girl screaming in my ear. I think I’m going deaf…
I didn’t love running over my toe with the stroller.
I didn’t love waking up at 6am being tired.
I didn’t love Peanut head butting my teeth.
I didn’t love sitting on our hard kitchen floor for so long but it was totally worth it.
I didn’t love that my aunt couldn’t stay longer. (She was only here for a couple hours. I wish she’d have had more time.)

7 Random Thoughts for the Day
My hip itches.
My house is a mess and it’s driving me nuts.
I’m not ready to start back to school next week. I know Peanut will be in good hands but she won’t be with me :(.
I wish I had more time to read.
I hate bug bites.
Peanut smells good.
Yes, we call her Peanut around here.

6 People I Talked to Today
Hubby
Peanut
AC
My mom
My FIL
The waitress at lunch.

5 Things I’m Praying About
That hubby and I are making the right decisions.
That I’m not doing something wrong with raising Peanut.
Health for my family.
Finances.
That Peanut will start sleeping through the night. (yes, that’s very self centered, but I’m a tired momma.)
4 Things on Tomorrow’s To Do List
Love Hubby. (That’s it so he says)
Love Baby. (he’ll allow that to happen too)
Price Garage sale stuff.
Go to the doctor.
3 Things I’m Thankful For 
A Fantastic Husband.
A healthy baby girl.
A Roof over my head.
(and a 4th… My awesome family)
2 Things I Ate Today
Cashew Chicken
Bacon Cheeseburger

1 Last Wish for the Night
World Peace 🙂       

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Mystery Loaf unveiled

Do you remember back in our/your school days when the cafeteria would serve Meatloaf for lunch? I remember when the kids used to call it Mystery Loaf. I wasn’t ever scared, but maybe that’s because my mom made meatloaf for dinner a lot? Of course I guess they could have been calling it that because you never knew what the school used to make it… I dunno.

A couple weeks ago I was at my grandma’s house. She was helping me finish up a blanket. About the time I went to leave, it was about time for dinner and she started making Meatloaf for her, my uncle and my uncles girlfriend (does that sound juvenile?). She made some extra and sent home for us to have for dinner as well. Since then I’ve kind of been feeling the Meatloaf. We’ve had it twice since then. I thought I’d share how I made tonight’s meatloaf which was a bit different because I had to substitute ingredients I didn’t have for ingredients I did. Let me just say… YUM!

Ingredients:
1lb hamburger
1/4-1/2 of an onion depending on the size and how much you like onion
2 tbsp Italian Seasoning
1/3 Cup Milk
1/2 sleeve Ritz Crackers (I used the Garlic Butter flavored)
1 Egg
Salt & Pepper

Crush your crackers. I used my fist because they crumble easily but you can use a pan or a meat mallet or whatever you need. It’s a great release if you’ve had a terrible day!

Place all your ingredients in a bowl along with the hamburger.

I went with half a medium onion. We like cooked onions… If you aren’t big into the onions, you might cut back a bit.

Once you mix it all up, place in a loaf pan and place in a 350 degree oven for 35 minutes.

Once the oven time goes off, make up your own bbq sauce or use a store bought.  I made my own:
Ingredients:
1/2 cup ketchup
a couple big handfuls of brown sugar
a tsp of dried Mustard
A splash of hot sauce depending on how spicy you like it.

Mix all ingredients together and spread over the top of the meatloaf. Then place the meatloaf back in the oven for 10 minutes.

Once the timer goes off, give your meatloaf a couple minutes to rest and serve with your favorite side dish. We went with extra crispy tator tots (we had to take care of an explosive diaper situation… so the tots got extra crispy).

All I can say is YUM!

Country Fair Blog Party

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Repost – Our Story Part 3

Repost from June 23, 2010

Part 1 Here 
Part 2 Here

*********************************************

So thinking back to a year ago, the next few days get a little hazy because I was on day 2 of no sleep. Add in there the fact that the night before lead to a lot of “talking” through text messages if you want to call it that because I couldn’t speak to this person on the phone without one or the other of us yelling at each other.

So now we are at the Tuesday after Father’s Day and still no sleep and still beating myself up over all the turmoil. Then it really starts, I get emails from the guys sister. Oh Joy… Me, I ignored them. It was best that way. She was just stirring up more trouble than any of this was worth.

***Ok so the next bit of information, is a little off topic, but it is important to the rest of the story so I need to break in to inform you of some information!***

I mentioned yesterday that most of my friends had moved on with their lives. Well I eventually made new friends that I hung out with a lot. The best part about this was I’m a country girl and well, they weren’t country… but we got along GREAT! These friends on the other hand were techy’s. And what do Techy’s have? Techy’s have iPhones! And what did I have? A Pantec Duo.

What's in a Name?

Prior to the serious discussion on having a baby, I told Mark that I really liked the name Aurélia. If you’re wondering where I came up with the name, it is from the movie Love Actually. She was the Portuguese house cleaner for Jamie, the English author. Hubby said he liked the name as well so we thought if we ever had a girl, we’d probably go with that name.

After we found out that we were actually going to have a baby, we started discussing names. When we were talking about the girls name, I kind of said, I still love that name, but I’m just not sure about it anymore. Hubby agreed with me. So we were back to the drawing board and tossing around names. Call me crazy but I’m kind of against nicknames for some reason. When people find this out, especially my Mother in law, they tease me because Tori is short for Victoria. My response is, I had no part in her name.

Some of the names we considered:

  • Abby/Abigale
  • Andrea
  • Bryce
  • Katie
  • Caitlyn

Then out of the blue, we came up with the name Addison. I actually threw out Addy and then said, actually I like Addison. Mark agreed. So then we started contemplating middle names. What the heck goes with Addison? We were at a loss. Then Mark asked what mom’s middle name was. I said Mae. He said wait a minute, we can’t use that because she doesn’t like it does she? I said no. So then he asked isn’t Aunt Connie’s middle name Marie. I said yes. He said, what about Addison Marie?

So long story short, Addison Marie.

p.s. Then just today (like a minute ago) hubby said, I don’t think I ever told you about Ainsley. Now you tell me… lol. Oh well she’s Addison!

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Day in the Life of

Tuesday was a rough day at our house. Poor baby girl didn’t feel good. On a good, normal day we might wake up at 2am, definitely 4am and sometimes 6am… but Tuesday morning was different.  If you’d like to check out 2 of my other days go here (January 8, 2013 and May 12, 2013)

2am. We woke up at our 2am hour, the difference was, she didn’t want to eat. Like at all. And she wouldn’t quit crying. I tried and tried to comfort her but there was no comforting her.

3am. By 3am I was tired and cranky myself. Hubby woke up and said let him try to comfort her. He tried to feed her and again, she wanted nothing to do with eating.

4am. I knew hubby needed to get sleep so I took her out of the bedroom into the living room. I tried holding her, rocking her, putting her in her swing… nothing seemed to work, at all! Hubby came out of the bedroom and said to let him try. She stopped crying for a few minutes but then started right back up. Still nothing seemed to work, so I took her back and told him to go back to bed.

5am. I turned on the tv and camped out in the chair hoping that I could get her to settle down. Finally hubby said to bring her to bed, he’d try to get her to sleep again. I laid her down in bed with him and she immediately stopped, closed her eyes and went to sleep. I just about broke down and cried. Hubby told me to go take a shower. I was swearing at 5am that baby girl didn’t like me, in fact she hated my guts at this point :(. It made me sad!

6am-9am baby girl and I snoozed.

10am. We finally woke up and had a break down again. I figured she would be hungry at this point. She still wanted NOTHING to do with eating. It was the weirdest thing. So I picked baby girl up and rocked her and sang to her and finally got her to burp and that put her back to sleep.

11am. Baby girl just slept and slept. Every now and again she’d wake up, I’d burp her and she’d go back to sleep. I just stayed in bed with her. It was obvious she didn’t feel good at all.

12pm. I settled in and watched tv. Baby girl just needed mommy time I guess. Maybe she does like me… that or I was her only option… lol.

1pm. I was able to lay her down and get myself lunch finally. I noticed she has her mommy’s thumb. Some people have what is known as a hitchhiker thumb. You know, their thumb is like double jointed or something and bends back like that. Mine does, daddy’s doesn’t.

2pm. We were still in bed. Baby girl didn’t feel good at all, poor baby but I took advantage of the baby snuggles.

3pm. I finally was able to start blogging. At least reading blogs that is.

4pm. Around 4pm she finally decided to wake up so I took advantage of this time and we went to the kitchen. I decided that I had cherries in the fridge and a pie crust ready to go so we made our first (we, she… I’ve done this before) Cherry Pie.

5pm. We went on watching tv to kill time and you know, more baby snuggles. Once we started watching Family Fued the timer went off on the pie.

6pm. Hubby ran to my parents house to do chores to help mom and dad out and when he got home we headed over to the poles to go vote.

7pm. On Sunday my grandma made hubby and me this awesome meatloaf. When we got home from the voting poles we asked what we were going to have for dinner. (we asked as in we asked each other…) I told hubby that the meatloaf we had was awesome. He said we had hamburger so I called my grandma to ask her how to make the meatloaf. Again, yum but Grandma’s was better.

8pm. After dinner we had dessert… The awesome cherry pie. YUM! Baby girl slept through that part… One of these days she’ll have to try a pie she makes, just not today I guess… 🙂

9pm. I really needed to wake her up and start getting ready for bed, but the poor thing still didn’t feel good. Her belly gurgled and churned all day long. She farted and burped. So we just let her sleep. Sometimes sleep is the best remedy.

10pm. With the help of hubby we finally got her ready for bed. It was easier to just give her a shower with one of us in the shower and the other washing her so she got a shower. She loves those showers, way better than her bathtub. That’s okay baby girl, mommy and daddy like showers too! She gets so relaxed in our arms in the shower.

11pm. We got her out of the shower, dressed, wrapped up and fed and she was out like a light, that is until 2am the next morning but the next day was a much better day. And she woke up hungry almost every hour…

This was quite an interesting day for sure but we made it through with lots of baby snuggles. I definitely wouldn’t change that for the world but I sure would change it and make baby girl feel better.

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