Life Archives | Midwestern At Heart

10 Years

I was thinking about this today… I started this blog in October 2009. That seems like a lifetime ago. This blog has seen me through dating my husband, marriage, having kids, losing my job, grad school, you name it, it’s probably there. That’s a super crazy and scary thought really.

A question that people like to ask is, “Where do you see yourself in 10 years?” I’m torn on how I feel about this question. Back when I graduated high school, I was 17 (going on 18) years old. I truly think it would have been crazy if we would have had to write ourselves a letter that was either sent to us or given to us at our 10-year class reunion. It would have been fun if it had been titled, Where You See Yourself in 10 Years. Could you imagine what we would have written to ourselves?

10 years from high school graduation, I was getting married. Well… technically 9. I hit our 10-year class reunion the same year as my 1 year anniversary. In that 10 years, I never would have pictured my life the way it went. The thought of that almost makes me laugh really. Then 10 years after that… would be this year (I graduated in 2001). First off, let’s address the elephant in the room… WHO would have predicted 2020? Seriously. Not me… that’s for sure. But it could have been interesting to see what I thought would happen in the last 10 years.

I’m pretty sure in my 101 in 1001 I wrote myself a letter that was supposed to be opened and read in 10 years. I’m not sure I want to read it honestly. I really don’t know how I feel about reading it. Last I knew it was in our safe. Maybe I threw it away. If not, maybe I should. Again, I’m a little leary about what I wrote.

This blog has served a great purpose to me. It has reminded me of things I totally forgot about. And I know there are a lot of cobwebs around here. I’ve debated tearing it down so many times. I don’t think anyone reads it. There’s a lot of information I question about having on here these days. Etc. Etc. And it doesn’t help that over Labor Day Weekend my Facebook account got hacked… I lost 2 pages I was an admin on. We’ve gotten one back, the other is gone for good I guess. I get a lot of spam messages on this blog. I’m almost tired of social media-type sites. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. I haven’t gotten rid of them or even quit checking them, but I’ve tried to be a lot more present. I’ve stayed off them quite a bit.

I never could have predicted my life in the last 10 or 20 years. Not even a part of it. Some of it I remember, I was going to go on to be an Ag. teacher, possibly go on and become an ag. pharmaceutical rep. Heck, why not? I also toyed with the notion of going into Ag. Business. It always revolved around agriculture. I was going to be married by the time I was 23-25. 1-2 kids probably. I could go on and on… but I’m here to tell you NONE of that happened that way.

Don’t take my None of that happened that way as a bad thing. On the contrary! There might be a few things I’d like to change. A few things I can’t seem to wrap my head around… but I really like my life. But 2020 and Covid-19 can suck it… just throwing that out there.

Just remember… Yesterday is History, Tomorrow is a mystery, Today is the present. Live in the present!

Cast Iron Pan & Walmart

Over the Weekend I had to question what year we were in… Here’s the story…

Saturday we wound up in Pawhuska, Oklahoma at The Pioneer Woman’s places… (the Merc, her new store, and of course the Lodge where she films her show). You are invited to the Lodge on the days that it is open, you just have to get a ticket at the Merc. We wanted to eat at the Merc, but we had to put our name on the list. It was a 2 1/2-3 hour wait to get in and we arrived at 10:45 a.m. We got our ticket to the Lodge and the guy told us we had plenty of time to go to the Lodge and come back. We were like 68 on the list and at about 15 you needed to head back this way. Cool. (more…)

What to Say?

Here we are again… I sit here trying to come up with words to say and yet they elude me. They are not there.

Just a few weeks ago my family was headed to a tumbling competition. Halfway through our drive hubby got a phone call. A friend of ours needed help and we weren’t able to assist. We weren’t home. That was the last time hubby heard his voice. The last time I heard his voice was a couple of weeks prior to that when he came to my house and I loaded him up with freshly made candied Jalapeños.

When they say life is short, that’s truly how it is… Life is short. There are days when I think, oh I can put that off until tomorrow, but there is no guarantee that tomorrow will come. That is a scary thought. (more…)

Our Snow Apocalypse

My truck was totally cleaned off when I went to bed last night…

Saw this on a friend’s Facebook page… oh so true (haha) (It is meant to be harmless fun…):

Public service announcement for Missouri

All of you transplants that are new to Missouri are about to experience a “Missouri Winter

”. This is 6 or 7 days of cold

, maybe some ice

and snow

with single-digit temperatures and with a wind chill, it will be well below zero. The weatherman will threaten snow

. Know that it may snow

, and it may not and if the weatherman says 2 inches then it could be 10 or it could be 1/2”. It doesn’t really matter how much snow

it is, we’ll all freak out because we don’t see snow often.

The threat of snow

(or ice

) from the weatherman is your prompt to head to the grocery store and buy milk

, eggs

, and bread

. It doesn’t matter if you need these items. It’s just what we do. Everyone in town will be there.

You’ll also need to make a mad dash for faucet covers and finding them and getting out of the store will be like an episode of the hunger games. You’re in the redneck district.

Don’t look for a sled

. You won’t find one. In the rare chance, we get enough ice or snow to sled grab some cardboard or a trash can lid, and go find the nearest hill. You may become alarmed by the fact that you’re “sledding” towards a ditch, fence, tree

, or maybe into a road. Just go with it. You’ll be fine.

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Look for the Good

Here we are… the last day of the year. We’re about to complete another trip around the sun. And while there is a lot to be upset about in 2020… there’s a lot of good that came out of 2020 as well. What?

One thing that keeps coming running through my mind was a fight that my husband and I had. It revolved around time. Not enough time. Not enough time to do what we wanted. It was a bad fight and I truthfully don’t want to go into detail… but still… it was a bad fight. I can’t remember when it happened. I know it was after Christmas, but before the shut down in March.

You know when they say, will the fight matter in an hour, a day, a month, or even a year, should you fight for it? This particular fight really did seem to matter. It kind of feels like it still matters. (more…)

I have Covid-19

It’s taken a while to convince myself it is okay to say that. Why? There is a certain stigma around it… It feels like I am the plague. Not that I have it… but that I am it. People want to avoid me…

Ooo you didn’t follow the “rules.” Oooo you’re dirty. You aren’t clean. You don’t know how to wash your hands.

Really, whatever else someone might say. There are a lot of things out there too. But I’m here to tell you… I’m personally on the verge of being a germ-a-phobe. I’m not quite one but I might as well be… My hands are so dried out from washing them sooooo much. I carry hand sanitizer in my truck, in the pocket of my pants, always.

The mask you ask… what is my stance. I think it’s stupid. BUT before you yell at me, I wear it. I don’t want to… but I do. I get pissed off every time I have to put the damn thing on. I have it in my back pocket at all times. I spray it down with hand sanitizer every time I take it off because, Hello… I don’t want all those germs up against my face all the time. Think about it… you go to a bathroom, especially a public bathroom, a toilet flushes… particles fly as they say. You breathe in and it gets on your mask and bam… you’re walking around with other people’s shit on your face. Congratulations whoever thought masks were a good thing. I hate public bathrooms in the first place. Then that thought makes me want to gag.

Through the 7 stages of grief… I bounce around as many people do.

Shock/denial
Guilt
Anger/Bargaining
Depression
Upward turn
Reconstruction
Acceptance

Shock/Denial

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Black & White Photos

If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a hundred times… there’s something so classic and beautiful about a black and white photo. I recently watched The Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. Spoiler (but it’s an old movie so…)… at the end of the movie he photographs his brother’s wedding. All the photos they show were in black and white. I’ve always wanted to photograph a black and white wedding. Now, would I only want black and white wedding photos, probably not… BUT!!!!

October 10th, I got to photograph my husband’s friend since junior high’s wedding. It was pretty exciting. And while I edited all photos in color… I turned them all black and white too.

Oh… and if you notice below I have 3 cameras… I’m NOT a professional videographer, but I got to play and make them a video too. It was a lot of fun!

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A Wedding Cake

Making a wedding cake is STRESSFUL! Anyway, it is stressful in my opinion. If it stressed everyone out, we wouldn’t have wedding cakes. haha. Most everyone I talk to agrees (with each other) that the reason I get stressed out with a wedding cake is I’m too much of a perfectionist.

Up until here recently, I had only ever made 1 wedding cake that was for an actual wedding. The second wedding cake (or technically first) was for the cake decorating classes I took back in 2007 or 2008. That one didn’t stress me out other than I had to figure out how to do them for the class. Otherwise, easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

That’s why back in roughly that same year I agreed to do a wedding cake. I can’t find pictures of it right now, but it was a disaster. I cried and cried. I cried to the point I swore I’d never make another wedding cake… until 2020. I guess the year 2020 is a year of many weirdnesses. (more…)

1 Sugar Cookies

The third set of sugar cookies I’ve made this year. They were so easy and so much fun.

I love the bright colors. They initially wanted a llama, but I didn’t have a llama cookie cutter and I didn’t have time to figure out how to do a llama. So since it was a first birthday, we went with the colors of the party and a 1 as well as MJ is one.

These colors were soooo pretty in my opinion. So happy I got to do them. (more…)

How to Get Rid of Squash Bugs

Squash bugs are enough to drive you crazy. You walk out and your garden is growing just fine one minute, and the next there is a crapton of some weird bugs that will drive you mad. Squash bugs seem to appear out of nowhere. One minute nothing and the next BAM! I have no clue where they came from or how they found me, but they did. Stupid bugs.

What are Squash Bugs?

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