April

Reasons Why I Don’t Drink

I’ve stared at this computer screen for over a day now trying to decide just how to word this. I think maybe that title should be reasons why I tend not to drink because I have drank. Every so often I may even have the occasional one, but not very often. In fact, the last one I remember was a year ago in Cozumel. Oh, wait, last fall I had a horrible cold and did a couple shots of whiskey to try and kill my cough. It worked.

Yes, I’ve been drunk, once. It was awful. Bad enough I swore I’d never do it again. I spent the whole night sitting in the hallway with a friend taking turns crawling to the bathroom to go pee. Then we thought it would be a good idea to walk around town. It is a small town, but still… Not our brightest move. The next day I had a hangover and swore I’d never do that again. So far, I haven’t. I was 25.

On my 21st birthday, I was the sober driver. I got everyone else drunk. I choose to be the DD (and not the designated drunk.. haha) so that if something happens, we have a way to get wherever, including a hospital if need be. (more…)

Steampunk Sugar Cookies

Steampunk Sugar Cookies

Steampunk? I didn’t even know such a thing existed. I guess I’ve fallen out of the loop or something… I don’t know.

One day last fall I got hit up about making 4 dozen steampunk sugar cookies. I had to go google what in the world that was. It’s like corsets and balloons and clocks. That type of thing. All dark colors. So Google and the gal who was ordering the cookies told me. I thought, Okay, I think I can manage that.

I decided that I could make flip flop cookie cutters into hot air balloons and I could make a swimsuit top into goggles. And of course gears and clocks could be done on circles. Easy peasy.

I quoted her a price. She never actually said, yes she wanted them… but at the same time she did. It’s really confusing. So I went to making the 4 dozen steampunk sugar cookies. I hit her up about picking them up twice and never got any more words out of her. So I wound up with 4 dozen steampunk sugar cookies that I didn’t know what to do with. (more…)

Ladybug Sugar Cookies

I was going back through all the sugar cookies that I completed last fall and realized there were 2 sets that I didn’t blog. This was one of my absolute favorite sets. A girl I went to high school with that I am distantly related to hit me up and asked me if I could do ladybug sugar cookies. I thought about it and was like, well, of course, those would be not only easy but extremely cute! Heck yeah.

I was so pleased with how they turned out. Absolutely adorable! These were some of my absolute favorite cookies

My Life in France {Book Review}

My Life in France - Julia Child

Oh, Julia Child. I sooooo would have loved to have been your friend in real life! Dang.

So, prior to reading/watching Julie and Julia I knew the name Julia Child, but truthfully I didn’t really know who she was other than a chef. I knew nothing about her. Then I read the book and watched the movie and kind of became intrigued in learning more about her. In fact, here recently I rattled on about the Nicole/Julia project. haha. Truthfully though, after reading this book, I’m even more intrigued in cooking my way through her book. My question is… what will I ever do on the foods I don’t like. Maybe I don’t like them because I haven’t eaten them properly… one may never know…

My Life in France

The bestselling story of Julia’s years in France–and the basis for Julie & Julia, starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams–in her own words.

Although she would later singlehandedly create a new approach to American cuisine with her cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking and her television show The French Chef, Julia Child was not always a master chef. Indeed, when she first arrived in France in 1948 with her husband, Paul, who was to work for the USIS, she spoke no French and knew nothing about the country itself. But as she dove into French culture, buying food at local markets and taking classes at the Cordon Bleu, her life changed forever with her newfound passion for cooking and teaching. Julia’s unforgettable story–struggles with the head of the Cordon Bleu, rejections from publishers to whom she sent her now-famous cookbook, a wonderful, nearly fifty-year-long marriage that took the Childs across the globe–unfolds with the spirit so key to Julia’s success as a chef and a writer, brilliantly capturing one of America’s most endearing personalities. (more…)

The Time of My Life

Over Easter weekend I was able to listen to The Time of My Life by Patrick Swayze and his wife Lisa Niemi. When this book came out in 2009, I remember I just had to have it and wanted to read it. I started reading the intro pages and immediately I put it down because I was in tears. I had a feeling this book was going to be so sad that I guess I never picked it back up. In fact, I gave it to my mom to read, she had the same reaction and neither of us read it.

Jump forward 9 years to the year 2018. Hubby drives a lot for work so he gets books on audio so he can “read” while he’s driving. Me, I’d be jamming to music, but he’s listening to audio books. Smart guy he is! Anyway, he decided he was going to get The Time of My Life. Bingo, that means I can listen to it too! I can’t read in a car. I can barely sit in a car for long drives. So I listened to this book.

Now here’s the thing… if you listen to this book, Patrick Swayze and his wife Lisa are actually the narrators. How cool is that?

The thing I’ve been trying to figure out is… I remember when they did the interview with him as this book was released. I also remember he said he was going to be the narrator. But what I can’t remember is how long it was between the time this book was released and when he passed away. I really want to say just a couple months. (more…)

Finger Lickin’ Fifteen

So truth… I like real books. Point blank. I like the feel of the pages and the smell and the weight and the ability to turn pages. But… I also like my Kindle. Mainly at night when everyone else goes to sleep, but I’m wide awake, I can read in the dark. So I’m torn on which I prefer. Currently, I’m reading a book book and a book on my Kindle. I just started the one on my Kindle last night. And boy was that a shocker. I was updating my Good Reads App and realized I read one more book than I thought. I started to read Finger LIckin’ Fifteen last night and what do you know, I read it last month. Apparently, I just forgot.

I mentioned before that these books are all kind of the same but different. You just have to remember if Stephanie and Joe Morelli are on or off in that particular book. The rest is similar but different. LOL. But I like them because they are quick reads. And after I realized I had already read this book, which by the way I thought was fourteen… I remembered how much I laughed because of Lula farting. Read it. That part will make sense. (more…)

Self Doubt (through Sugar Cookies)

Do you remember last fall when I discussed the Sugar Cookie Challenge? It might have even been late last summer. Well, I’m here to tell you, it was going well… and then it wasn’t. I knew it was kind of a long shot to do 300 dozen cookies, but I was willing to give it a shot. I think I actually forgot to blog a few of the different batches. I’ll go back and make sure, and if I didn’t, I’ll add them. It may not be that important but it is so fun to look back at the years on this blog and see things. Things I had otherwise forgotten… like the post on wedding dress shopping.

So where does the title fall in? Easy… When you are going along, selling dozens of cookies and then all at once BAM! cookie sales stop. You begin to wonder what happened. Then when you very seldom have repeat customers, you begin to question things again.

Were the cookies not good? I did create my own recipe. Did they not meet or exceed people’s expectations? I’m not sure. Do I just suck? Maybe. So much self-doubt creeps in. It is enough to make a person question everything. I mentioned the other day that I used to be the total optimist just like Sue Heck (the character from The Middle), but after being put down and called naive your whole life, it starts to wear on you.

New Sugar Cookies

The week before Easter I decided I was going to make some sugar cookies. It really stemmed from this whole blog. Explain? I’m glad you asked! Well, I was looking back through Easter posts on the blog looking for recipes we had used in years past. I stumbled across a post where Tbug and I decorated sugar cookies way back when. It was actually a kit I bought from the good ol’ Walmart store. The cookies were hard. Who knows how long the icing had been in the package. But it was super easy and super fun!

I decided I needed to do something like that with Abug. But the Walmart store didn’t have those kits the day I went there. So that meant I needed to make my own sugar cookies to decorate. (more…)

Easter 2018 (Better Late Than Never)

Easter 2018

Yey! Easter has come (and gone!). This year we made a trip to my aunt and uncles in southern Oklahoma for Easter. It is a 5 1/2 hour trip down, so we left Friday, celebrated Easter (with dinner) on Saturday and drove home on Sunday. Luckily this was our year to have Tbug with us too! Woot woot!

We weren’t able to get Tbug until something like 1:30 on Friday and my dad wasn’t able to get off work until closer to 3ish so by the time we got out of there, it was closer to 4 or 5. I can’t quite remember but does it really matter?

On the drive down I listened to the book, The Time of My Life by Patrick Swayze and his wife Lisa Niemi. I can’t read in a car. I get car sick just sitting in one if I’m in the back seat, so reading is totally out of the question. But Audible to the rescue! It wasn’t a total loss, yey! I’ll have to do a “book report” on that in the coming days. So totally worth reading (or in my case, listening to).

We stopped in Oklahoma City for dinner. Technically Norman at a restaurant called Salt Grass. So totally YUM! Oh and don’t worry, I sent my friend Camille a picture of the water tower. I didn’t forget her on my way through… although I never got a response. In the words of Stephanie Tanner, How Rude! haha.

We got into AC & UB’s close to 11 pm. Abug told UB she was going to get up the next morning at 7 am and do chores with him. (more…)

Sue Heck and The Middle

the middle's cast

Lately, I have been thinking of Sue Sue Heck (yes, that’s her first and middle name. She’s a character from the tv show The Middle). Part of this may stem from the fact that I guess the Middle is on their Farewell Season which makes me sad. I like this show… every now and then they have a weird episode, like one here a couple weeks ago. They wasted a perfectly good episode with a battle between the Hecks + the rest of the neighborhood and the Glossner’s to get Sue’s Car back. It was almost like a weird scene from the battle scene out of the last Twilight film.

But anyway, I’ve been thinking about Sue Heck a lot. Unfortunately, I relate a lot to this character, which maybe bothers me a little. That may be why I’ve been thinking about her a lot. Wow, that sounds weird I’m thinking about a female character… haha. No, but seriously, I relate to this character a lot.

She’s seen as socially awkward. The older I get, the more I swear I’m getting socially awkward. I was very much a nerd in high school, although I tried to cover it up. She was a nerd. Heck, she even had a friend who they made out to be a gay character. Oddly enough, I was friends with a guy in high school who later in life has gone on to be gay. One difference, we didn’t stay close friends later in high school like she did with Brad and I never kissed that guy I was friends with. (more…)

Writing

Here’s an interesting topic that has been on my brain today… Writing.

Seriously, who thinks about writing? Well, obviously I do. But why? Writing has kind of a negative connotation. I think some of that stems to school when you are required to write papers. Papers on things you don’t want to write about. Required to write X number of words on a topic you may or may not know anything about or care about. But writing is a unique quality.

It is a way to convey a message. When you read a piece of writing, it can make or break what you are trying to say. Heck, think about texts. They are a form of writing. It’s a form of communication. You type something one way and someone takes it another and BAM! you have a fight on your hands. That’s the interesting thing about writing. Some people spend years honing in on that talent and ability. The ability to speak and write. If you read a lot of job descriptions, they want you to be able to communicate effectively and efficiently and that includes having the ability to write.

In a job, you’ll write memos, emails, meeting minutes, notes, etc. In those, you have to be able to convey a message to multiple groups of people. And two words about that are Quickly and Effectively. (more…)