Me
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….
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.
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…
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?
Baking Challenge – Checkerboard Cake
I’ve mentioned a few times that I challenged myself to the “cupcake” challenge this year. You know… the Food Network January/February 2017 cupcake for every month challenge. Then a couple weeks ago I was talking to the hubs and told him that I needed a challenge for next year. He laughed at me saying, “But Nicole, you still have the rest of this year. We’re only at July.” I know, I know, but I’m thinking ahead. My idea was to do a pie for every month. Come on… who doesn’t like pie. And I may still persue that… who knows…
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.
Root Beer Float Cupcakes
Every so often I wind up looking up National holidays. Not the big ones that we all know like Halloween, Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc… I’m talking the little ones… Like the one that hapepned on Sunday. What was Sunday? I’m so glad you asked. August 6th is National Root Beer Float Day. Nothing big, but still kind of fun to acknowledge.
Last week I wound up on a blog while doing some research and saw a recipe for Root Beer Float Cupcakes. I got it stuck in my head I needed to make those on National Root Beer Float Day. It combined 2 things in to 1. Root Beer Floats and cupcakes. And since I’ve been trying to teach myself how to make cupcakes, what better thing than to put my new fangled knowledge to work, right?
So nothing unusual about the beginning of these cupcakes… mix the dry ingredients in a bowl and set aside. Easy peasy… But then comes an interesting part… Place the liquid ingredients in a sauce pan over medium heat and melt together. Oh, and some of the liquid… none other than Root Beer because hellow, these are Root Beer Float Cupcakes, right? All of this was done in a bowl with a whisk… as in no electric mixer required for this step. This step=the making of the cupcakes.
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.
33 in Year 33
What is more? I’m a year older. I really haven’t touched on my birthday yet. I’m sure more will come on that when I can find the right words… But until then, let’s review last year’s goals.
There really is a reason I don’t set goals. I think I’m afraid of failure. I never set a New Year’s Resolution. I take that back… I set one this year. This years resolution was to be happier. I thought I was doing well and then the other day my dad said if I was ever happy, he’d be shocked, as in he wouldn’t know what to do. I guess that’s another story for another day. Back to the
33 in my 33rd Year…
1. Pay off my car.
I did this. What? But I don’t drive a car. That’s right. This is the second vehicle I’ve paid off and almost immediatly sold. haha. The last one was my Mustang. We paid it off two days after I traded it in. This time around, at least we paid it off and I drove it around for another 3 months before we traded it off…
2. Break Abug’s mare, Little Pi, to ride
Fail. Not even close. I have found someone to break horses now, so maybe… but really we have her up for sale and would prefer to sell her and buy an already trained mare for Abug.
