Family

My Own Day of Mourning

Today is 9-11. I know where I was on that fateful day 16 years ago. I’ve mentioned it many times here on the ol blog… But I was yelling at my roommate because her alarm was way too darn loud. We had bunk beds and my bed was on top. I hopped off the bed after yelling at her and went off to the bathroom. We had community bathrooms. As I was walking back to my room to go back to sleep, because I didn’t have class until 11 am, I heard Tom Brokaw’s voice. Not something you typically hear in the morning.

I immediately knew something was up. I wandered down the hallway into Jessie’s room, sat down on one of the beds and watched as the second plane hit the second tower. After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I asked her what movie she was watching. It was so life like. She told me this was really happening.

People all around campus were glued to the tv, and those who weren’t were waiting in line at the gas stations scared to death about what was going to happen.

Okay, What Gives with the Title?

My Own Day of Mourning. That title has nothing to do with the above paragraphs. 9-11-01 has nothing to do with the title. Let me explain!

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7th Anniversary

Hello. We’ve now been married 7 years. Some days it feels just like yesterday that we were dating and other days it feels like much longer. But the thing is…. we still kind of like each other. (haha)

This year our anniversary fell on Labor Day Monday. It does that from time to time. I guess that’s what happens when you get married Labor Day Weekend. Chances are your anniversary will fall on Labor Day Weekend. Totally cool with that, because that meant we got to spend our Anniversary together. Score.

Our morning started off with breakfast at Jimmy’s Egg. Ever eaten at one of them? You should. They specialize in Breakfast and lunch. This… this is good and totally worth every last calorie laden bite. This is the Carnitas Skillet. I’ve tried and tried to find the description and I’m afraid if I tell you I’ll forget something…. so be prepared…. It’s hash browns, eggs, cheese (Monterey Jack), pulled pork, sausage, bacon (maybe, I can’t remember), topped with tomatoes and onions and just all around YUM!

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A Place I Would Live, But Never Visited | Blogging 30

*Via*

I’ve thought and thought and thought about how I would answer this. I finally came up with my answer:

Greece

I know that there was a revolt and uprising recently (within the past years) which kind of makes it a little bit of an unsafe place… But, here’s the deal… My great grandpa came to this country from Greece. My Grandma was half Greek. I’m quite removed, but I’d absolutely love to learn about that side of me. And those views. All photos I’ve seen are always of a similar view. I know not all of the country has this gorgeous of a view, but seriously.

Sugar Cookie Challenge

I’ve been issued a Sugar Cookie Challenge. Let me explain…

When we were in Cozumel this year, Deb and I were talking to one of the owners of Cozumel Marine World. On his shirt was the logo for Underwater Digital Fiesta Expeditions. I asked Alex and Deb what that was. Turns out it is a yearly get together where you learn to take better underwater photos while learning about and testing out the latest and greatest in digital underwater photography equipment. WHAT!?!?!?

If there’s one thing you should know about me by now, I LOVE photography. My underwater photography skills lack quite a bit, but I’ve only been diving for 4 years. In those 4 years, I was off limits in diving for a year because of my cute little three-year-old. So I’ve been diving 3 years. Yes, I have 100 dives in under my belt… but….. They highly suggest you don’t start carrying a camera underwater with you until you’ve at least dove 50 times. Well, I didn’t totally listen to those words of advice, but I always made sure I was comfortable enough diving before I took a camera with me. It’s an added responsibility.

I immediately started talking about how I wanted to go to this photo fiesta. Hubby laughed and issued me a challenge. If I could sell 300 dozen cookies, I could go. Holy cow! That’s not 300 cookies… that’s 300 dozen cookies. That equals math I can’t easily do in my head. That is 3,600 cookies.

Challenge Accepted….

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My 34th Birthday

 

Here we are, halfway through the next month and I still haven’t recapped/talked about my birthday.

I should tell you I hate birthdays. Not because I don’t like getting older. No, I’m fine with that. That means I’m still alive. I just hate the day. In more recent years I haven’t had good birthdays. It’s been forgotten by family and friends (not all, please don’t take offense if you remembered!!!). It gets treated like another day. It’s just not a big deal. And I guess I feel like it should be a big deal? I don’t know. Maybe I’m full of myself… ha.

When hubby and I got together, it seems like he gets week long birthday’s and I barely get a day. I guess I was a bit jealous of that. The reason he gets that is that if his birthday falls during the week, we’re supposed to get Tbug to celebrate, but that doesn’t always happen. So we celebrate on his birthday. I’ve thrown him surprise birthdays. Plus we’ve celebrated his real birthday on a weekend we had Tbug. Multiple times all of this has happened.

This year, my hubby decided to give me a week long birthday. This morning I saw a quote on Facebook:

I know good men still exist because I am lucky enough to have one.

A friend from college commented that she couldn’t help but think back to our Memoirs class and how much she learned about him. Maybe this is something I should have written about in class… Although I’m not far enough removed from it to use for a memoir.

Anyway, let’s quit procrastinating and let’s discuss

my birthday.

My birthday started out the weekend before my birthday, if you ask hubby. I had been wanting to eat at the Japanese Steakhouse for a while. He decided we were eating there and that was the start of my birthday.

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Eat Like a Gilmore – Luke’s Meatloaf

When my husband and I got together, I was a Friends aficionado. It was sad really… I would quote lines and say things like crazy to the point he had to start watching it just so I didn’t have to explain myself all the time. Now we can call him a Friends aficionado also. He had a couple shows he was that way with too, one of which included Gilmore Girls. I had watched Gilmore Girls on and off, but never really paid a lot of attention. It was just usually on for background noise.

One day I was going through the Friend’s series again. He made me promise that once I was finished I had to watch Gilmore Girls start to finish. He owned all the seasons. I agreed. Man, that show is quite addicting! I really want to be Lorelai. She’s so spunky and the way she dresses. I really want her closet.

6 months to a year ago or so I found out someone wrote a cookbook. Hubby and I picked up the cookbook. I read through it but never really made anything from it. Sadly, that’s the way with most cookbooks I own and I own a lot.  Until now…

Eat Like a Gilmore: Luke's Meatloaf with a side of Mashed potatoes because who doesn't eat mashed potatoes with meatloaf! | Midwestern at Heart

Luke’s Meatloaf

If there is one thing I can tell you about the Gilmore Girls, if you’ve never watched the show… They love to eat. Bam. That’s really all you need to know. ha! Well that and with all they love to eat, Lorelai is skinny minnie. How in the heck. Oh wait, that’s right, it’s TV. Oh and she also lives on coffee. But let’s save that talk for another day, okay?

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Cupcake Diaries

Wow, it seems like here lately I’ve been obsessed with cupcakes. Especially thought with the title of this post. But… I have news for you… I might be. So what’s going on? Well… If I put this out there, 1) I’m afraid I’ll be judged. 2) I might actually have to follow through. 3) I feel like I sound stupid. I keep telling myself I shouldn’t care what other people think. What does it matter anyway. I saw a quote once that said, It’s none of your business what other people think.

Okay, I’m getting a little off track. I think I’m having to give myself a pep talk. Here we go… I’m going to tell you what my plans are. Now help me follow through and please by all means, HELP ME! My plans:

I’m going to write a cookbook.

Over the weekend I focused on a cake recipe. Not just any cake recipe… My cake recipe. We made it from scratch. Totally from scratch. Wow! I researched. And I read. Then I researched. Followed by reading some more.

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Southern Oklahoma – Part 2

And we’re finally back for the rest of the story… aka AC & UB’s part 2. Let’s just start off by saying we had so much fun that I kind of hated to leave. But, let’s look more in depth at the fun we had…

Wednesday

Aloha (that’s the horse) is one of the best, kid friendliest horses but she had one flaw… she’s a PITA (pain in the @$$) when it comes to saddling her. She’s extremely frustrating. UB & Tbug worked on that all week to the point that by mid week Tbug was saddling Aloha by herself. Now that may not sound like much, but that’s HUGE!

AC had Wednesday off. She had a hair appointment while we were working horses. When she was done, we were just finishing up with riding. Remember, southern Oklahoma in July=try to beat the heat working horses. When it gets hot, the horses and cows get tired, hey do you blame them? The summer I spent with AC & UB, we worked horses at midnight so that it wasn’t so darn hot. At least 6am is better than midnight… I think….

Anyway, as we were getting done riding for the day, AC pulled into the driveway. UB decided we needed to run in to town and eat at Scout. This restaurant was interesting, but the food was excellent. This early morning stuff got to Abug and she slept all through lunch.

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A Week in Southern Oklahoma – Part 1

Over a year ago, my aunt and uncle made Tbug a deal that she could come down and spend a week with them at their house, riding horses. Last summer, hubby and I couldn’t get her there. At Thanksgiving they made the offer again. Hubby and I knew we were going to get her there this year, No. Matter. What.

They extended this offer to me when I was a teenager and I actually got to spend a couple different weeks with them. I’m telling you, other than it’s hot in Southern Oklahoma in July, it was an excellent experience and when I told hubby, we knew it would be a good thing for Tbug. Spending an entire week with UB and working on her horsemanship skills. What better way to spend a week than riding horses…

Earlier this spring Tbug’s mom said that she had 3 weeks this entire summer that she had nothing going on. The first was the week of the 4th of July, the other 2 were the first 2 weeks of August. I finally got it worked out between all of our schedules that we were going down the week of 4th of July. Tbug got home from Cheer camp Friday June 30th at 11something at night and we made arrangements to meet up with her mom around 4 something July 1st to head to AC & UB’s.

Friday Night

Friday evening after hubby got off work, we spent the evening checking the running lights/break lights on the trailer. We figured if we were going to be driving at 4 something in the morning and beating the sun awake, we better have lights on and working. Out of like 30 lights, at least half were burned out (or so we thought). We ran to Walmart to buy new light bulbs, when we got home hubby went to replacing lights. Out of all those lightbulbs that “didn’t work” only 2 had to be replaced. The rest were just a loose connection that hubby tightened up. Not bad for a 23 year old trailer.

Saturday

I wasn’t kidding when I said we got up and left before the sun even rose. Who knew 3 something existed? Hubby and I had a pile of stuff to load up first thing, then we loaded horses, ourselves, and headed out to meet up with Tbug and her mom. They were on their way to North Carolina. I guess we’re all crazy… getting up early to drive somewhere, right? Serious, crazy… lol.

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