Memories

Loss for Words

You will teach them to fly, 
But they will not fly your flight.

You will teach them to dream,
But they will not dream your dream.

You will teach them to live, 
But they will not live your life.

Never the less, in every flight,
in every life, in every dream,
the print of the way you
taught them will remain

                       ~Mother Theresa

I truly am at a loss for words. The person who has spent most of her life talking about something… or so I get teased. And while I was shy as a kid, if I knew you, I’d talk your leg off. I’m still shy but I’ll still talk your leg off. Don’t worry.

I have spent the last few days engulfed in a man and his family. It’s hard to believe this man was only in my life for 6 years. 

7 years ago January, my husband and I got the chance to try SCUBA diving. Honestly, I was so apprehensive that first day that I almost didn’t go. I thought it was a special thing that some friends were doing because of their family and that we were just inviting ourselves in. Turns out, it wasn’t that at all. We had so much fun that first time, we went the next month to try it again.

In June that year, we wound up going to the lake and helping out during one of their Underwater Safari Hunts. Of course, we weren’t certified SCUBA divers, so we could only help on land, but we jumped in no matter what and helped when/where we could. The next week we were signed up for classes. 2 classroom classes, 2 pool classes, and 2 days in the lake and we were officially certified SCUBA divers. (more…)

Life Lately…

And just like that, it’s the middle of June. I have now slept in my house, overnight, 2 times. WHAT?!?! When did that happen? Well, I’m glad you asked. It happened Friday and Saturday night. Now, here we are Sunday night and I’m sitting in bed at my house. I was in the shower a few minutes ago reminiscing the last couple of months. Wow, it has been a whirlwind.

We have had tball practice, tball games, ended tball, made a trip to Kansas City for a weekend, made a trip to Kansas City for a day, had the last dance class for the year, had dance rehearsal, had dance recitals, had dance pictures, had tball pictures, bought furniture, put said furniture together.

The furniture consisted of (but not limited to) 3 desks, 3 beds, 6 chairs, 1 bench, 1 coat rack, 1 coat bench, 1 storage bench, 2 bookshelves, 1 vacuum cleaner, and whatever else I’m forgetting.

We have slept in our house, put pictures on the wall, restained a floor, put down new flooring, replaced tiles, found new tiles to replace, washed umpteen million loads of dishes, washed 548,912 loads of laundry, most of which happened this previous weekend.

Then we ended preschool, had preschool graduation postponed, had preschool graduation canceled, had flooding, had tornadoes, had more rain, had severe thunderstorms, driven into severe thunderstorms, hid in the basement during tornado warnings, started summer school, about to finish summer school and then… (more…)

I Baked an Angel Food Cake (The Kitchen)

Woohooo… go me, right? Oh… but… here’s where I mention that I baked an Angel Food Cake IN. MY. OWN. KITCHEN. WHAT!!??!!??

Yes! You read that correctly. I baked a cake in my kitchen. In my oven. So super exciting if you ask me!! Today I think I’ll focus on said kitchen. Then the next post will be about said Angel Food Cake. Deal?

The Original Kitchen

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Smoke off Prep

I’m pretty sure these days I meet myself coming and going. I try not to but dang. Anyway, last week I mentioned something about a BBQ/Smoked meats thing. Well here are the details… FINALLY! 

So we started hanging out with our dive friends in 2013 when we met them. It wasn’t an immediate BAM, we’re friends, but pretty darn close. So throughout the last couple of years, hubby and Jared have been smoking different types of meats for different events. Events include just a night in with friends to dive club meetings to events for the Red Coaters at Chiefs Stadium. The big leagues… in our books anyway.

They have been honing in on our their meat preparations. Wow, that sounds weird. ha! Anyway, last fall they went to Kansas City to a Chiefs game and actually cooked for 60+ Red Coaters and family. Then the leftover meats, they tried passing out to passer byes. A lot of people around our hangouts really like their brisket and pulled pork and chicken, etc, so they told them they needed to start entering contests. (more…)

Remodeling Journal: The Vanity

So… here’s a little back information for you about me and Vanities because I’m sure you wondered… My whole life I’ve never had a vanity with drawers. There, I said it.

Growing up at my parent’s house and now back there again, my bathroom sink doesn’t have drawers. I do remember when my parents were building the house I asked for vanity sink drawers, but it didn’t happen.

Moving on to the dorms at school… The sink was sort of free-standing in a way. It just hooked to the wall. It wasn’t completely down. Plus the one in our room I had to share with a roommate. It was the kitchen sink as well as the bathroom sink. It also had… you guessed… NO drawers.

We had community bathrooms in the dorm I lived in. They didn’t have drawers either. I was like vanity drawer deprived.

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Christmas Tree 2018 (And a Surprise)

Finally, the tree went up at our house over the weekend. I’ve been pretty much chomping at the bit (horse term) to get that tree up. I would like to say it went up without any hitches, but it didn’t… NOT. AT. ALL. In fact, I think the term hitches is a nice way of saying how things went on Saturday when we put the tree up. Sad day! Part of me wants to jot those memories down and part of me wants to forget it ever happened. No use in dwelling on the past, right? Let’s just say, Christmas is my favorite holiday (followed so close by Thanksgiving and all of the rest of the holidays) and I used the phrase, I Hate Christmas. Sadly, I try to teach Abug not to say hate. It’s something I try to instill in Abug, don’t hate. Yet I was so frustrated I kept saying HATE. Hypocrite! (that was directed at me, not you :))

The Tree

A few years ago we bought this tree at Lowe’s on sale after Christmas. Best purchase we’ve ever made when it comes to Christmas trees. It goes together so nicely and yeah, I love this tree. Plus, I’m a white light girl and hubby is a colored light guy… This tree flashes back and forth between white lights and colored lights. Best of both worlds!

My friend Harriett told me I needed to make a tree skirt for my tree, but it was too late to start it when she suggested that… so next year. I’m holding you to that Harriett! So Abug decided she was going to put the tree skirt on the tree… (more…)

Strawberry Lemonade French Macarons

I have been on a French Macaron kick lately, but I guess when you make French Buttercream, you have a lot of egg whites left over. If you didn’t know, French Buttercream is made with egg yolks. Don’t worry, they’re cooked! But we’re not really talking French Buttercream right now… we’re talking French Macarons. Hey, just a thought… Do you think that French Macarons and French Buttercream were made to be compliments so you don’t waste eggs? Just a thought.

But since I’ve had so many egg whites lying around, I thought French Macarons were in order. I love making them. I don’t have them perfected just yet… And practice makes perfect. Plus at our last dive club meeting, I made my friend Danielle a deal that I’d make her French Macarons if she’d make hubby some deviled eggs. He loves them and I’m not a fan so I don’t typically make them. In fact, I’ve only made the once in my life. It was fun boiling the eggs and then seeing if I did it correctly to see if the shells would peel correctly.

Speaking of Deviled eggs, I saw a deal at the grocery store where you crack the egg, pour it in, boil it, and it makes a perfect deviled egg. Interesting! (more…)

Family Fourth of July

I’ve talked about our Family Fourth of July quite a bit this week between the Spumoni Cake, the Wacky Cake, and the Chocolate Chip Cookie Ice Cream Sandwiches. A lot of food talk huh? I also made a Greek Pasta Salad. Holy Yum! But hello, where are the pictures of the fireworks? I’m so glad you asked!

I spent quite a bit of time coming up with what desserts we were going to take. Then making sure I had all the ingredients. Finally, the execution.

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The Birthday Party

This sweet little girl is 4 today. 4. How did that happen? I seriously don’t know. It seems like just 4 years went by in the blink of an eye. I’m sooooo proud of how she’s turned out and some days she leaves me shaking my head wondering how her mind got where it got!

Only having her sister around certain times and with trying to plan a birthday party around our hectic at times schedule, we actually wound up celebrating her birthday 2 weeks early. Hey, a girl is allowed to celebrate her birthday for a month, right? I think so!!

The Birthday Party

I knew the theme was going to be Unicorn’s since sometime last fall. It’s random. It’s so totally her! I did some research online looking for party decorations. I started to order offline but then went to town to Party City to see what they had. They had everything I wanted and I could walk away with it in hand so I went ahead and changed up the unicorn pattern a little and bam, we were set! (more…)