Another Day In Paradise

Strawberry Swirl Cream Cheese Pound Cake

2011-07-24T16:04:00.004-05:00

While hanging at the hospital waiting for my dad to get out of surgery, I rummaged through the magazines and found some pound cake recipes that looked amazing. So I decided to make one of them this weekend. It is an amazing cake and taste like a piece of Heaven!!! Give it a try!!

Strawberry Swirl Cream Cheese Pound Cake

1 1/2 cups butter, softened
3 cups of sugar
1 8oz. package of cream cheese
6 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. almond extract
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2/3 cup of strawberry glaze

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Beat butter at medium speed with a heavy duty electric stand mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating at medium speed until light and fluffy. Add cream cheese, beating until creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time beating just until blended after each addition. Gradually add flour to butter mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition, stopping to scrape bowl as needed. Stir in almond and vanilla extracts. Pour one third of batter into a greased and floured bundt pan. Dollop strawberry glaze over batter and then swirl with a butter knife. Repeat procedure once more and then top with remaining batter. Bake at 350 for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool completely about 1 hour and then turn over to release onto cake pan.

Cream Cheese Drizzle

2 cups of powdered sugar
1/4 stick of melted butter
4 oz. cream cheese (softened)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
about 2 to 4 tablespoons of milk. Just add till you get to drizzle consistency.

Mix with a blender and then pour into a small pan and cook for just a few minutes till cream cheese blends well. Let sit for about 10 minutes and then drizzle all over top of cake.

Slice and serve with fresh strawberry and whip topping.

A little poem to make you giggle. Its by a Cowboy Poet name Joe Kreger.

One of life’s more awesome chores
is follerin’ women around in stores.
It takes good wind and a right strong heart
to accompany your lady through Wal Mart.

You thought us males were meant to lead,
but for shoppin’ trips, we lack the speed.
She’ll bid you “Come” with a little smile,
then she disappears on down the aisle.

She charges ahead—she won’t look back.
She’s in pursuit of the bargain rack.
You foller as meek as an orphan pup,
but she sets a pace that you can’t keep up.

You’re tryin’ to keep her in your sight,
but when you blink, she makes a right.
You make a left, then turn right twice.
You track through miles of merchandise.

You’re makin’ steps that stretch a yard.
You’re sweatin’ now and breathin’ hard.
You shoulda stayed home when she went shoppin’
Your feet hurt bad and your knees are poppin’.

At “Costume Jewelry,” you pause for breath.
What a terrible place to meet your death!
But, there might just be a greater cost.
What if all these folks can tell you’re lost?

It’s time to bow out of this situation,
You’ve had your share of humiliation.
You’ll just wait in the truck ’til she gets through.
She’s bound to be done in a hour or two.

A perfect solution, but dang the luck.
You’ve done forgot where you parked the truck.

Girls Night

2011-07-16T23:42:00.004-05:00

Had a wonderful time tonight with my friends Debbie and Shelley. Its been a while since the 3 of us have had a chance to get together. I have missed hanging out with them. We decided to make some cards.
Shelley's card

Jeanie's card

Debbie's card

My dad is home from surgery. He had cancer removed from his face and then had to have reconstructive surgery to repair the place. Its a horrible surgery and he looks awful, but doctor promises it will look better in a few weeks. Praying everything is ok with him. Such a rough time he is having.

Summer Fun!!!

2011-07-10T21:39:00.011-05:00

Wowsa, I cannot believe its been over a month since my last post. I really stink at blogging. I guess I am just busy living life. I will give you a quick update of whats going on in my life since I posted last.

1. My daughter fell off of a trampoline and fractured her skull and received a pretty good concussion. We spent 2 days in hospital and a week home recovering. All seems good now. She is on low activity for the summer though. No more falling on her head any time soon.

2. I started and finished "Prayers for Agnes Sparrow". Was a great book with a very surprising twist towards the end of book. Did not see it coming. It is the 1st book of a short series and so I look forward to reading the other books. Right now I have put it on hold to read "The Help" before the movie comes out next month.

3. Awesome 4th of July. One of my favorite holidays. The firework show in our town was amazing this year.

4. Swimming pool up and going and we are really enjoying it a lot this year.

5. Working on Raggedies for the summer. Already finished one I started a few years back, completed one for my friends niece, and starting another. I am also going to be making one to donate to the Quilt Guild Fund Raiser in the fall.

6. My friend Shelley is here visiting from California and was thrilled to find out she is planning to move back to Texas. That makes me very, very happy. I will miss her when she leaves but will anticipate her returning very soon.

7. Still working out every day. Curves, Mon, Wed, Fri. Walking at Civic Center Tue, Thurs. No weight loss, but also no weight gain. So all is good for now. One day maybe my body will let me loose more weight, but for now, I will just be happy where I am.

8. Had our 30 year class reunion from Highschool. It was so wonderful to see all my classmates. Everyone looked amazing. I cannot wait till we all hook up again at the end of July. From this, I got hooked back up with one of my B.F.F.'s and we are just having a great time chatting on the phone and visiting with one another.

9. Kadie's Hamster had babies!!! 4 of them. So adorable!!!

10. Our town now has a train that will take us just about anywhere we want to go in the metroplex. We rode it this month and I loved it. Rode it to a nearby downtown square where I did some major fabric shopping. So much fun.
11. I love my husband and daughter. We are having a wonderful summer so far and hope to have many more fun filled days and memories of our family and friends and time together.

Well I guess that is about it for now. I know the summer will be busy so I want promise to post on regular basis. I do promise to post a update though again soon. Until then, May your summer days be long and fun and most of all STAY COOL!!!!

Rock Harbor Series

2011-06-06T21:25:00.013-05:00

Awwww, I just finished the last book of The Rock Harbor Series by Coleen Coble. I am so happy I could just cry...It was wonderful. One of those bittersweet happy endings. The entire series is really, really good. I only struggled with one book, but even it had a great ending. I totally recommend this series if you love reading Christian Fiction with a twist of Romance and Mystery!! ROCK HARBOR SERIES Start with book 1 and read straight threw. Your favorite will be Abomination. I can almost guarantee it!!! When you get to the last book, be sure to visit the website where she has a really great epilogue!!! Not sure what I will read now. I have a list of books I have picked out, but not sure where to go. I love Coleen's book and she has several other series. I might just have to start one of those.

I would like to introduce you to Penelope Ann!!! She is my newest creation. Yes I said "MY" newest creation. I created her without a pattern. The only problem is I did not make any pattern pieces of her and so she is a ONE OF A KIND Raggedy!!! I started her a while back and decided she needed to be finished. I am going to be starting one to donate to our local Quilt Guild Fall Fundraiser Auction next. So keep your eyes peeled for her debut in the next few weeks!!! She will be my best ever!!!

My Very, very Best Friend

2011-06-05T18:16:00.011-05:00

A picture of me and my best friend at the Drive-In movie in Ennis, Texas. I was so thrilled to run into her there. She was hanging out with her brother Andy at the miniature golf course!!! I just had to get a picture of her and I together and of course with Andy. We had such a great time at the Drive-In. I wanted to take my daughter and let her see just what my husband and I did for entertainment as a young couple. You could always find us at the drive-in. I was a very sad person when the decided to close the one in the town we both grew up in. This particular drive-in is very much thriving and I am very jealous its not closer so we can go more often. Ennis is about 1 hour and 1/2 from our town so its not a really long ways, but just long enough that we cannot go often. On this particular night we saw the new Pirates movie and Thor. I would not recommend 3-d at the drive-in, but it was still greatness.

A few more pictures of our fun night at the Drive-In.

Well I know I have not blogged in a while and I apologize for that. I have just been so busy with my life!!! My husband and I just celebrated our 28th anniversary. Its hard to believe its been 28 years. It feels like yesterday. The great news, we are still very much in love with one another and he is my very, very best friend. Yes Annie is my best friend, but he is my very, very best friend. He also is the best gift giver. Most girls want jewelry for their Anniversary, but not me. I already have tons of jewelry. So when he ask me what I wanted, I said a Nook Color. I have in the past year taken up reading and have fell in love with the hobby. Its just such a easy relaxing hobby that requires little effort, but comes with a whole lot of benefit. I started out reading real books and although I feel like there is nothing better than the book itself, I was starting to see that it could be a problem with storage. So my friend recommended me to download the Nook application on my Iphone and see what I thought of reading using a E Reader application. So I did and even though the words were tiny, I loved it. I could lay in bed at night which is my favorite time to read and I did not disturb my husband sleeping with a light and I did not have to fight keeping a book light on. So for the past 6 months I have been reading and I am realizing I read much faster also. I am about to finish the Rock Harbor Series by Coleen Coble. I have read about 5 books on my Iphone Nook Application. So I think that is plenty of time now to know that I would actually get use out of the Nook Color. I felt good about asking for it for my Anniversary Gift. He was thrilled to be able to buy it for me as he really never knows what to buy even though I tell him a million things. LOL!!! So anyway, that has been my newest fun thing and I am loving it and I love him. Happy Anniversary to the greatest husband EVER!!! At least in my corner of the world anyway!!!
I am still busy on my diet. I loss a little and gain a little. Its a never ending process. Not sure if I mentioned I was going to Curves now in my previous post, but if not, I am. I am loving it very much. So much so, that I dream about working there. LOL!!! I know that sounds silly, but I just want to be there all the time. Its just a lot of fun for me. I can really tell that its making me much stronger and I can also tell that I am getting more firm. Not sure when I will loose weight, but I am good for now until its time. I am done worrying about it so much. I just continue to eat as healthy as possible and exercise. I am sure with time I will get the results I need. The main thing is that I feel great.
I joined my area Quilt Guild. I have been struggling with my husbands quilt and its been a slow process for me. I thought if I joined the Quilt Guild it would help encourage me to work on it. I just joined last month so I have not had a lot of time to see any improvements in the area. With trying to finish up school and husband being on vacation, I have not done much. But I am planning a few summer projects. I have started a Raggedy doll which will be holding a small quilt. I plan to make and donate her to the Quilt Guild Fundraising Auction in the fall. So that is first on my list and then I will start working on the quilt that I have struggled with for a while. I do love quilting, its just hard to make time for it. So hoping the summer will give me some time to really get it going. I would like to finish it for his birthday by Nov. Fingers crossed!!!

10 Day Challenge Journal

2011-05-12T09:42:00.000-05:00

This past Sunday May 8th, I gave myself a 10 day challenge. So today actually starts day 3 of the challenge. So far so good. I am really sore though. I think I am using every muscle in my body right now. So the challenge is.... I am doing 1200 calories and Curves and My Leslie Sansome 3 mile walking tape every day for the next 10 days. It sounds crazy, but I know its what its going to take to move the weight in the positive direction. I gained 10 pounds back from the HCG which was not unusual especially since the doctor put me on HRT (Hormone Replacement Therepy), but I worked hard to get to where I was and moving up 10 pounds did not make me a happy camper. So I got on internet and started reading about HRT and realized that if I did not do something, I would only gain more weight. It talked about lots of exercise and low calories and so that is what I decided to do. I joined Curves and got out my walking tapes and gave myself a challenge to get rid of the extra 10 pounds. I have been using My Fitness Pal app. on my phone to track all of my calories. I love this little application. It has become my best diet friend!!! Visit their website at My Fitness Pal So there ya go!!! Thats my reason for the crazy challenge. I think I like doing these mini challenges. I see light at the end of the tunnel this way. I can already feel results just in the 3 days. I do not feel as swollen. I am very sore though.
Ok, so below I decided to do a journal of my 10 days. I thought it would help me see progress and mistakes that I might can change from day to day. Also if anyone is following my blog and wants to do a simular challenge, they are able to see my progress and foods I eat. I would like to think I could be helpful to others by doing this. Its hard to do these things by yourself, but sometimes yourself is all you got!!! So with that said, Here is the start of my journal...Wish my luck!!!

I decided to journal my 10 days in case

someone wanted to follow along with me. You will see that I tend to eat a lot of

the same things, prepared almost the same way. Mostly cause its filling and easy

to fix in my electric skillet. I love mushrooms and eat them in almost every

thing just about. They are full of vitamin D and are a very good filler. I love

all veggies, but my favorite is broccoli. I try and eat it at least 3 or 4 times

a week. I try to get a balance of fiber, veggies, protein, good fats in every

meal. I do not eat a lot of fruit because of sugar. Mostly if I eat fruit it is

a apple here and there. Its really hard for me to get exact 1200 calories. I am

either under or over. I figure with all the exercise, a little over is better

than under. I am trying really hard this week to keep it as close to 1200 as

possible. So come back through out the week if you would like to follow along.

My 10 Day Challenge Journal

May 9, Day 1--

Breakfast...1/2 cup F Factor Skinnys-n-Fruit

cereal, 1/2 cup Private Select Organic 2 % Milk....Calories=130

Lunch.... 1 tortilla folded in half with

Spinach/Mushrooms sautéed in 1 tablespoon butter,1/8 Monterey Jack

Cheese...Calories=225

Snack...1 serving Rice Chips...138

Dinner...Grilled Chicken Breast covered with

sautéed mushrooms, mozzarella cheese,1/2 tablespoon butter,dinner salad with

feta and light ranch....Calories 520

Snack...1/2 piece Kadie's birthday

cake..Calories 180

Total Calories for the day...1193

Exercise

Curves..Approx. calorie burn...261

3 mile Walking Workout..Approx. calorie

burn...427

May 10, Day 2--

Breakfast...1/2 cup F Factor Skinnys-n-Fruit

cereal, 1/2 cup Private Select Organic 2% milk, 2 boiled

eggs...Calories=270

Lunch...2 Cups of Broccoli, 2 Cups of Mushrooms

both sautéed in 1 tablespoon of Light Smart Balance Butter, 1/2 cup of Part Skim

Mozzarella cheese...Calories =290

Snack...1 1/2 serving of Rice

Chips..Calories=165

Dinner...1 cup Mushrooms, 2 cups Broccoli, 6 oz.

Grilled Chicken, stir fried in 2 tsp. sesame oil, 1 tbsp. smart balance light

butter...Calories...479

Total Calories for the day...1204

Exercise

Curves...Approx. calorie burn...239

3 Mile Walking Workout...Approx. calorie

burn...427

May 11, Day 3-

Breakfast...1/2 cup F Factor Skinnys-n-Fruit

cereal, 1/2 cup Private Select Organic 2% milk

Lunch...1/2 of Southwest Chicken Fiesta Salad, 2 tb. Avocado Ranch Dressing...Calories.. 328

Snack...1/2 pancake, sugar-free syrup...Calories 164

Dinner...1/2 of Southwest Chicken Fiesta Salad, 2 tb. Avocado Ranch Dressing...Calories.. 328

Snack...Kudos bar...Calories..100

Snack...Rice Chips...Calories..165

Total Calories for the day...1215

Exercise

Curves...Approx. calorie burn...254

3 Mile Walking Workout...Approx. calorie

burn...427

Notes: Today I struggled. Maybe cause it was middle of week, but I wanted to eat bad, and I did not want to do the 3 mile walking. Doing the same tape day after day is very hard. I really wish Leslie had a TV show that I could watch daily. Anyways, I managed to hang in there. I turned her volume down and put in my own music and it was much better. I love her, but I have to admit it gets crazy to hear the same giggles and words every day. As for eating, I was craving something sweet all day. I ended up buying the Kudo's bars which was as close to a candy bar as I could get without all the calories. It was hard to just eat one though. They are really good. But I managed to hang in there. It was tough!!! Today marks 4 days of major exercise and 3 days of approx. 1200 calories. 7 days to go to complete my challenge!!! I can already see some results which is a very good thing!!! Thank you God for showing me positive results. With you by my side, I can do anything!!!

.

Time to get serious

2011-04-25T09:38:00.002-05:00

Last week I got started!!! Lots of random thoughts running through my head, so this might sound a little mixed up and it could change daily, but for now I am thinking that This week I am getting serious!!! I have 4 weeks to drop 10 pounds. Ok, so there is no reason, I just gave myself that goal because this is the amount of weight I gained in the last 2 months. Also I am a short term goal setter, as I like to see the end of the tunnel. Another reason is that Curves is month to month and so I might as well set myself a goal each month. This month hoping for 10 pounds. So with that said, I am going to go ahead and make the commitment to join Curves today. I want all the benefits you get as a member and I want to wrap my head around the idea that this is my new way of living for at least the next year if not the rest of my life and I need to go ahead and get started today!! Put the plan into motion!!! I already know I like it, I already know its going to be good for me, I already know I need it, so why wait any longer!!! I know that 10 pounds is a lot to expect, but if I expect big, maybe I will loose big. I figure I will loose a little water weight, and hopefully about 5 pounds of fat weight!!! I want to try and at least loose 2 pounds a week, which I think for me is a healthy weight loss. Of course I will take whatever my body is willing to let go of. Next month I will reset my goals. Ok, so all this said, it could change once I get to Curves. They may have a different idea of what is expected or excepted!!! This is just my own personal goals. No matter what they set my goals at, I will strive to beat them!!! I do love a good challenge!!!

Thought I would share my favorite breakfast. You could actually have this for a lunch meal also!!! You can prepare it ahead of time and put in frig and then just microwave. I like to start the day with something yummy and hardy that will get my metabolism kicking in the right direction and keep me satisfied longer. I am only doing 1200 calories right now, so there is not a lot of room for snacking. So I need to get the most out of my meals!!!

1 cup of pre steamed broccoli=15 calories (best buy is Sam's)

1/2 link of Gourmet Sausage = 50 calories Beeman Old World Gourmet Sausage Smoked Mozzarella W/artichoke & Garlic (only place I found it was Kroger)

1 slice of Vermont Chedder=55 calories (Kroger Deli)

1 egg=70 calories

1 La Tortilla Factory tortilla=50 calories (Kroger deli)

Put all food in a organic sprayed or pam sprayed skillet ( I use a little electric skillet)

Cook till everything is sauteed!!! Heat tortilla on both sides. I like mine a little crispy so I put it in the skillet also!! Put tortilla in a bowl and put mixture on top and eatum up!!! It really is yummy and very filling!!!

Total Calories=240

Total Fat=14 grams

Total Net Carbs=6 grams

Total Fiber=8 grams

I will share some more things I eat as I go!!!

I love Confirmation from God!!

2011-04-20T14:34:00.012-05:00

Ok, so I decided since this was going to be so long, that I would just write it in a note. So most of you who have followed my post in the past 8 months know that I have been trying to loose weight. It has been a struggle. I lost 20 pounds on the first round of HCG and then during the maintenance period lost another 7 pounds. Then I did HCG a second round during the Christmas holiday and lost only 5 pounds. So all together I lost 32 pounds. Well then my doctor put me on some hormone drops and I quickly gained 10 pounds back. I was not a happy camper, as I worked hard to get the 32 pounds off. So I tried to do the HCG a third time and had no luck at all. Of course after 3 times it just became way to hard and I could not maintain my energy at 500 calories. If you know anything about HCG, you know its hard to only eat 500 calories. I have way to many things to do and have to have my energy. I was good that first time, but it became much harder on the 2nd and 3rd try. I finally decided to give it up and try something different. Something I could live with. So I read and prayed, and read and prayed and decided to go back to Fiber 35 and do interval walking. I figured I could do 20 minutes of interval walking rather than 45 minutes of just walking. Over the last few weeks I have slowly started getting some energy back. The HCG had totally drained me of most of my energy. The walking has really helped with feeling in better shape, but still no weight loss. I needed to really get in control of all areas if I was going to see some weight loss. I am fighting so many obstacles with the hormone stuff. I had to kick it up!!! So Monday I woke up with a renewed spirit. I need more exercise. So I thought and thought and decided to see how much Curves would cost me. I figured it was a great place to start. After talking to the girl on the phone, I went up and joined their free week. Funny thing when I got home, I opened my email and there was a advertisement of Curves free week. Confirmation #1 Today I have already lost 1.5 pounds which is not surprising as I fluctuate 2 to 3 pounds day to day. So I am not real excited about the loss just yet. The excitement will come when I loose about 5 pounds without fluctuating!!! But where I am going with all this is the journey itself and the Confirmation that God has given me. 2 years ago my Doctor put me on a yeast diet. If you have ever been on a yeast diet, you know there is very little you can eat. So although I was not on low calories, I was restricted on the foods I could eat. I had great success on getting rid of the yeast, but lost no weight as fat was one of the few things I could have and so I ate plenty of it. So when I started HCG, it was very easy for me, as I already knew the restriction part and so I thought wow, the yeast diet was just part of the plan to prepare me for HCG. Well then after doing HCG, I realize it was part of the plan to prepare me for this next stage. Through my journey I have learned to restrict certain foods and to stay within a certain calorie range. Yes there are days I eat things I should not and go over my calories, but I also learn that those days I cannot expect any change in my weight. I still have about 50 pounds I want to loose, so I know I got to get busy. Confirmation #2, When I joined Curves this week, I found out that you have to sign a year contract. I do not like signing contracts. So I have been thinking a lot since just yesterday on should I or should I not. I mean really my health is worth 42.00 a month, but I tend to slack off and would hate to waste the money. So Last night I went over to my nieces house and we were playing around on our phones and she showed me a really cool app called "My Fitness Pal". So I downloaded it and waited till I got home to check it out. Well funny thing is when I signed on, it said welcome back JeanieBeanieBaby!!! I was like how did it know my name/nickname. What I come to realize is that I had signed up to this place on my computer a while back. I guess I did very little with it, cause I do not remember it at all. So I played around with it and thought what the heck, I might as well give it a try. It keeps up with all of your calories/exercise/water. Everything really. Pretty cool app. Then I thought to myself, I know pretty much how many calories I can add for walking, but how will I know how many calories to add for Curves. Hmmmm, not sure at all. Looking under the strength training section it had all the machines. I thought my goodness, am I going to have to go through each machine each time and add them separate. So today while at Curves I was thinking I would write down the name of each machine. I really was willing to do each one separate. Well guess what, today while scrolling through the app under Cardiovascular, there it was "Curves Circut Training". All you do is add the minutes performed which I just added 30 and it =227 calories burned. I actually did it longer as I followed my friend Allisons advice and did 3 reps on each machine, but I did not keep up with my time it took me to do that. So I just put in the 227 calories burned. So there you are....Confirmation!!! I totally feel like for the first time in a long time, that I am doing the right thing at the right time. I have this cool little app to help me keep up with calories, water, and exercise thanks to my niece, and I have my walking in place, and my cardio/strength training. For the first time in a very long time, I will be doing everything the way I am suppose too. No fad diets, just following a good sensible diet that will allow me some flexibility on occasion and a good exercise plan. All I need is this hormone stuff to even out and I will be good to go. Whats really cool about the My Fitness Pal is that it tells you what you can expect in 5 weeks. At this rate I can expect to loose about 20 pounds. Now not sure they are counting the hormone issue, but hey, I will be happy with 10 or 15. Just think how much better I will feel!!! That right there is the best part of all!!! Ok, so we can now establish from all of this, that I am not a great writer and my spelling is the pits, but hey, I have lots of determination!!! I think most people would have given up, but I just keep pushing forward. Non of this would be possible without God. He gives me my strength, my determination, and hope, and great family/friends to support me!!! Be still and Listen and Know that he is God!!!

Curves to help the Curves!!!

2011-04-18T16:05:00.003-05:00

Well I decided today to up my game!!! I have been walking every day for the last 2 weeks and woke up today thinking I needed more. So I went up to our local Curves and signed up. I did this about 5 years back and I really enjoyed it, but just like everything else, I got bored. Well after talking to the girl today, she said there are so many challenges now, that they do not let you get bored. Plus they have a Zumba class, and I have been wanting to do that class. So we shall see. I got a week free and then I am going to do the 30 days for 30.00. Then I will decide if I want to commit to the 42.00 a month. I am going to give it my all for the next 30 days. I would like to loose about 10 pounds just so that my pants are not so tight. Then I can reset my goals with the help of the Curves staff. Hoping that doing this and sticking close to my Fiber 35/low carbs/low fats/low sugars will give me the results I need!!! Something is got to work right!!!

I am famous!!!

2011-04-17T13:42:00.003-05:00

Ok, so maybe that is over doing it a little. One of my scrapbook layouts has been published on one of my favorite Digital sites. I sent her a picture because I thought she would appreciate seeing her cute little doodles being used on a layout different than her own. I was so surprised when she wrote back and ask if she could put the layout in her Gallery!!! She also sent me a free farm doodles kit. I thought that was the sweetest thing ever. I was so surprised!!! She seems like an amazing lady. Her art talent is awesome. I will for sure be purchasing more of her doodles in the future!! So anyway, just wanted to share that really quick. You can see my layout which I posted in a previous post on her page Digi Doodle Gallery
I really do love these doodles. They make scrapbooking so much fun. I look forward to making my next layout using her farm kit that she sent me.

Beans, Beans!!!

2011-04-08T14:59:00.004-05:00

Beans, Beans the magical Fruit
the more you eat, the more you toot.
The more you toot, the better you feel,
so eat your beans at every meal...

Since I have been following Fiber 35, I am singing this little tune almost daily. The reason for this is I have been eating lots of beans. All kinds of beans, but mostly Black beans. They are my favorite and I eat them on everything. I eat them plain, I eat them mixed in my favorite salsa, I eat them in soup, I eat them in salad, I eat them in roll ups, I eat them for breakfast. They contain lots and lots of fiber. And after reading this article on Black Beans, I am discovering they contain a lot of other good for you stuff. I am so happy I love Black Beans!!! They are now part of my every day eating!!!

Just thought I would share!!!

Here is a little soup recipe that is amazing. Its quick and easy!!!

black bean soup.

Ingredients
1/2 cup fresh tomato salsa (plus extra for garnish)
1 (15.5-ounce) cans black beans, drained and rinsed (I try to always cook my beans fresh so that I do not get as much salt in my diet)
1/2 can fat-free chicken broth
2 tablespoons fat-free sour cream (optional)
2 teaspoons fresh cilantro

Instructions:
Heat the salsa in a large saucepan over medium heat, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes. Stir in the beans and broth, then heat to boiling. Reduce heat to low. Cover and simmer 15 minutes. Cool slightly, then spoon half the soup into a food processor or blender and puree. Be very careful pureeing hot liquids. Return the pureed soup to the saucepan and heat through. Serve with 1 tablespoon of sour cream per person, cilantro, and additional salsa.

Camping Album

2011-04-03T14:22:00.012-05:00

As promised in previous post I am finally adding the layouts I have been working on for my camping album. I am coming along pretty good. I have finished 2 camping trips and now working on another. These layouts were really a lot of fun. I used lots of things I already had and created things I did not have. I used several different page sketches and then actually created a few on my own.

This layout is the start of our camping trip we took in Turner Falls way back when Kody was only about 11. Kadie was not even born yet. In this layout I used stickers. It was great to use some of the many stickers I have collected over the years. Always makes for a cute layout and I wonder why I do not use them more often.

This layout below was fun!!! It was a little out of my camping theme colors, but I had to do it this way cause the pictures were about how my p.j.'s matched my sheets that I was using in the camper. Not even planned. The Moon and journaling were all done on my PSE 7. The moon was actually a digital embellishment that I printed and cut out. I am learning to do so much with my PSE 7 when it comes to my scrapbooking. Its a never ending process!!!

This layout below was the funnest layout I have done in a long time. I found the cutest little digital kit online at Digi Doodle Doo that allowed me to color the camper to match our real camper. I did all the sizing and journaling on my PSE 7 and then cut out the pieces. Just turned out to be so adorable. Digital embellishments ROCK!!!

Nothing real special done to this layout. I just used stickles and punched some flowers. I did change the color of the camper to match mine. It started out orange, but with some prisma pencils and stickles I managed to change the colors.

This layout below was another fun layout using digital embellishments. I found the pieces online and cut them out and popped them up and then put some Diamond Glaze on them. It is very hard to find game pieces in the store. So glad to find them online!!!

The layout below is using stickers. I just popped them to make them more fun. I used my Cricut to cut the neat piece out for my background and the tag!!!

Used more stuff from my stash to create the layout below. Made the cute little journaling box on my cricut!!!

More goodies from my stash and more Cricut cuts!!! I love my Cricut especially since I discovered the program "Make The Cut" Of course I will not even discuss how I feel about Provo craft sueing "Make The Cut" and now we cannot upgrade. That stinks...want go there on how I feel!!!

Crcut letters and fun stickers make the layout adorable below!!! Easy Peasy!!!

More Cricut cuts and brads!!! Fun stuff!!! My brothers x-wife Chera would probably kill me if she saw this picture of her. I had to use it cause it was so much fun!!! This was a really fun camping trip!!!

Loved the background piece I cut from my Cricut and "Make the Cut" Too much fun!!!

My Kadie girl was so little in these pictures!!! Where does time go!!! So glad to have so many great pictures of our camping trips. Cannot wait to finish the book!!!

Thats it for now. Happy Scrapbooking!!!

Putting the brakes on!!!

2011-03-29T13:57:00.003-05:00

Screech, diet coming to a halt. Making yet another change. I know, crazy. This time the change is for life!!! I do believe that God has spoken to me!!! He said that I needed to get back to healthy eating and exercise, and stop obsessing over all this diet stuff that is only going to be a temporary fix. It is a crazy roller coaster that I am on right now, and I just need to get off, and gain balance!!! Stop pan icing over a little weight gain, and just get busy being healthy. So I am sorry to report that I want be able to help those on HCG figure out the best way to eat and loose weight, and not feel like you are starving. God is telling me otherwise right now. I really thought it was the answer, and still really believe mixing it with Fiber 35 could possibly work better than starving for 21 days, but I am too far past HCG now to even try and find out. I have to eat good calories now, and I believe at this point HCG would be a hindrance rather than a help. I did take off about 3 pounds this past week if that gives you any idea. I do have to give the credit to Fiber 35 though and not HCG. Proof is in the toilet!!! Yes I know that is a little TMI, but its true. Eating all the fiber has for sure got me going to the bathroom on a regular basis. That is something I have not been doing for about 4 months now. So I think that is why I have dropped 3 pounds. Again I think HCG is a great way to start a diet, cause you do get results fast, but if you want to continue loosing, you have to stop after 21 days and start eating good calorie foods and exercise. This is the message I am getting from God, and its time I listen to him. Let me explain a little further. Thinking about the Bible days. What kind of foods did they eat? Unleavened bread, fruits, veggies, grain fed meats, and fish. I would say they led mostly a plant based diet with some good grain fed animal protein. What got me to thinking about all of this was a Plant Based protein sample that I bought at the health food store a few weeks ago. I was there comparing protein powders trying to find something that was equal to the Fiber 35 protein drink. I can only seem to find it online and that is just not all that convenient for me. So while looking I found this one protein drink that was Plant base. Protein that comes entirely from plants. Then I remember years ago a doctor telling me that because I only have one kidney, I should be getting most of my protein from plant base foods. Hmmmmm, how weird that this information is coming back to me a second time. I obviously did not listen to him back then, but after trying the samples, I did decide to look into this a little further. I first looked up the protein powder and did some reading from there. After spending some time on the website, I was convinced that the doctor I spoke with years ago was right. This is the route I need to take. Plant based food!!! After all, I love veggies and grain. Then I got to thinking about God again, and the bible, and everything that he talks about in scripture. He tells us time and time again that he will provide everything we need. Not to worry!!! Mathew 6:25-34. This one being one that really made me think the most Mathew 31-- “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ 32 These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. 33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
Seek the Kingdom of God!!! He will give us everything we need. There it is...That's the answer. That is why Fiber 35 has stuck in my heart and continues to come into my mind at every turn. Because Brenda teaches you to get all of your nutrition from veggies, fruits, grains. All these foods God has provided since the beginning of time. All I need to do is follow his plan first and combine it with her plan, and get my body moving and I will be ok. So with that said, I am going to continue on my journey with Fiber 35 and stop the insanity!!! Good eating and exercise!!! So going back to where the light switched on, the website about plant based protein, I decided to purchase some more samples of this protein and have decided it will become a big part of my daily intake for the next 30 days. I say 30 days cause that will give me time to tell if it is working. Here is the website so you can read for yourself. Vega This stuff provides, well, EVERYTHING!!!!
•Promote optimal health and increase energy and stamina
•Meet 100% of recommended daily intake of vitamins & minerals
•Meet 60% of recommended daily intake of fiber
•Support the development of bones & teeth
•Ensure healthy thyroid and hormonal function
•Enhance digestion and gastrointestinal function
•Preserve good cardiovascular health
•Support eyesight, skin health and immune system
•Maintain proper muscle function
•Encourage healthy weight loss by improving metabolism, increasing feeling of fullness and controlling blood sugar
I cannot think of anything else that I have ever tried that will do this. Its everything I need and more. Using this protein and Fiber 35 diet plan together should provide me with all the fiber and nutrition I will need to get me on the road to total health. I have already tried chocolate, berry, and Vanilla chai. Of course Vanilla is my favorite. I mixed with blueberry's and strawberry's, 2 packages of Truvia, 1/2 cup almond milk and 1/2 cup water, ice. It was really great!!! You can mix it with many other fruits. Maybe even some yogurt would be good. Will need to try that. Check your local health food store and see if they carry samples for you to try. Remember its not going to taste like a Cheeseburger. Its a high fiber, low fat protein shake mix. Nothing will taste like a Cheeseburger, except for a Cheeseburger. This drink will taste like something very healthy. Maybe a little better than cardboard!!! However if you drink it daily, you might be able to have that cheeseburger on occasion!!!
On the website you can sign up free to Thrive in 30 Thrive in 30 He will send you free videos and teach you about plant based nutrition. Its very good information. Maybe you will be convinced enough to give it a try!!! I will keep you posted on my new plant and fiber based journey!!! 30 days should give me plenty of time to know. Wishing you all Good Health!!!

I still plan to post my scrapbook pages I have done this past month. Keep checking!!!

Call me crazy!!!

2011-03-24T09:09:00.010-05:00

I would be the first to admit to it. I am a little crazy and a lot of obsessed!!! Ok, so I said in my last post that I was not going to do any more HCG for a while, if ever. Well that has changed. My mind changes often depending on the day. Anyways what changed my mind was that I actually gained 5 pounds, and that freaked me out. It was very sudden, and I still am not sure why, but I think it has to do with the progesterone that the doctor put me on. Yes, its that time of my life where all the hormones go crazy. I am estrogen dominant, and so she is giving me the progesterone to bring that down. She actually started me on it last year, and I got bored of the cream she gave me, and stopped using it. Big mistake. I am sure then I had gained weight on it, but did not pay attention since I was not on my diet obsession yet. So in December when my body started going nuts, and Aunt Flo visited me twice, I thought I better get back going on it again. I called to ask about other ways to do the progesterone rather than cream, and she told me about drops. So January I started the drops, and Aunt Flo left town for almost 2 months. When she returned, she brought back with her extra luggage (aka weight gain). I figured after she left, she would take her luggage with her, but she left, and then decided 6 days later to come back. I was like WHAT THE HECK?? Problem being she not only took her luggage, she brought even more. Then when she finally decided to leave again, she left all her luggage. All 5 pounds of it. Darn her!!! So I decided to get on the Internet and find out what was going on. Seems to be when you first start the progesterone, you can gain some weight until everything gets normal. Meaning until I am progesterone dominant which could take 6 months or more, I could gain more weight. A few of my friends who have never had weight problems, are also experiencing some weight gain. It really stinks big time. However, I am going to do everything in my power not to let that happen. With proper diet and exercise, it can be controlled. I have worked hard to loose this weight and I am not about to give up on myself now. Aunt Flo can come and get her luggage, cause there is no room in my house for her stuff. So with that said, I got down all my books and started reading. Fiber 35, the best diet in the world in my opinion of course, lets you eat a certain amount of calories, and lets you subtract the fiber you eat. For instance if you eat 1200 calories, and lets say you ate 45 grams of fiber that day, then you get to multiply 45 x 7, which equals 315. You can now subtract the 315 from the 1200 and that leaves you 985 calories. That is the amount of calories that you will actually use and the rest is flushed out of your body through well your...... you know..... Poop. Anyways, I got to thinking about HCG. HCG only allows you 500 calories. So if I ate more calories, which are mostly from fiber, would it work the same way. Lets say I ate 900 calories, and ate 50 grams of fiber. 50 x 7 is 350, minus the 900, leaves me 550 calories that my body actually uses. I am actually getting more food this way. I could live on 900 calories a day, for a month very easy. It would give me the energy I need to exercise during this time, and I would not feel like I was starving. In fact I would feel very full, cause of all the fiber. Do you see where I am going with this?? So I just had to put the theory to the test. This is day 3 of the plan, and so far I am down 2 pounds. I think it might be a little slower this way than just doing the 500 calories of limited protein and veggies, because with HCG the first week you loose a ton of water. The first time I did HCG, I lost like 13 pounds the first week. Well I am not going to loose a ton of water this time with whats going on in my body right now, so I am good with slower. Slower is better right. In fact anything going down the scale, is better than going up, no matter how slow it is. Also doing it this way, maybe once I get done with the drops, I want gain cause I did not deprive my body of some of the good grain carbs. I am really hoping this works, and if it does, I will let you know either way. I am sort of excited about it to the point where I do not mind doing it. Wish me luck!!! Here is a cereal F Factor that is low in carbs, low in fat, and high in fiber. The F Factor diet works a lot like Fiber 35. The difference is that they focus on low carbs and Fiber 35 focus on low calories. I believe either way would work great. I think it depends on the individual. For me, I do better with low calorie, cause it helps control my fat intake. I tend to eat too much fat on low carb. Anyways, after reading both, I think eating lots of good fiber is the key. I am sure I have blown your mind with all of this, but if you are interested in it, look up HCG diet, which I have posted links on previous post, and also look up Fiber 35 and F Factor. Do some reading for yourself. I get just a little carried away with all of it. I really do realize that I missed my calling in life. I should have been a health nutritionist or something in that field. Only problem is, I have a ton of knowledge, and know what I need to do with it, I just want to figure out the easiest way possible, so that I can have my weight loss and ice cream too!!! LOL!! Surly there is a way to do that!!!

As for the crafty stuff, I have been scrapbooking. I am working on camping pages and I will get some pictures of those and share. They are turning out so awesome and I am loving that I am back into my scrapbooking. I have missed doing it so much.

Diets, Cards, and Books oh my!!!

2011-03-08T10:47:00.012-06:00

Today I wanted to share a couple of things with you. First I want to tell you that I am no longer doing HCG. I decided a few weeks ago that I needed a change in my diet. So after doing some research I am going to do a combo type diet. I am doing Calorie shifting, high fiber, and exercising. Hoping that the combination of the 3 will help me in loosing more weight. The HCG is a really great way to get you on the road to weight loss, but I find it is not something you can do forever. There comes a time when you will not get the results you are expecting. I was eating very low calories, but not seeing good results. So I figure my time with it is done for now, and I need to move in a different direction. The high fiber diet is one that I have mentioned, and have done before. It is called Fiber 35. Even though I did not have great success with it before, my fault as I really did not try, I feel like it is truly the best diet available. The book has so much wonderful information about the importance of fiber. Has exercise tips, has a sample menu. Everything you need to get you started. I have only been on it now for a few days and already I feel so much better than I did a few weeks ago and have started loosing the 5 pounds I gained after stopping HCG. A little bloated and gassy from all they fiber that I am not use to eating, but I have more energy. Being on HCG was hard because I was on so little calories. I felt run down a lot and certainly was not eating enough calories to exercise. But I am feeling much better now and ready to see some results.

The Calorie Shifting part that I will be doing is basically figuring out how many calories you should eat at the size you want to be and then shifting those calories around differently every day. I want to be 145 weight, which gives me about 1300 calories a day. So I times that by 7 which is around 9000 something. Then I divide it back up into different amounts each day. What this does is keep your body from realizing you are on a diet. If it does not know you are on a diet, then it want go into starvation mode and store fat. Your metabolism will continue to burn the fat and hopefully you will not have any plateau's. If you want more info on calorie shifting, do a search. There is calorie shifting, calorie swapping, calorie zig zagging. I found a bunch of info on Sparkspeople. I realized after reading the Fiber 35 book again that they do some calorie shifting on their meal plan. So perhaps that's all you need to do is follow their program. By doing so you will eat a high fiber, low calorie, low fat, low carb diet and shift your calories all in one. Really it is a perfect diet to follow. Lets just hope it will work!! I will keep you posted in the weeks to come.

Now I want to share my lasted swap card. I love this little card. It is a card idea I got from Split Coast stampers called Gate Fold It is very fun to make and very easy tutorial to follow. I love the videos on Split Coast. Videos are the way to go when you are a visual person like me. Anyways, the little frog stamp I used is from Digi Scrap Kits. Right now all of her stamps and clip art are on sale. I paid 1.00 for this little digi stamp and I can use it over and over again. You can color an image and then all you have to do is copy it on your printer to use as many times as you wish. I just made a little file folder and I keep the originals in the folder. I do love digi stamps the best of any stamps I have ever used. When I have some time, I am going to get all my rubber stamps down and stamp them and save the images. Then I will be able to get rid of the 12 containers of stamps I have on the shelf. More space in my room!!! Yoowhoo!!! Notice the bling on my card. For some reason I just cannot make a card without bling!!! I put on some stickles and a cute little rhinestone!!! Then for the inside of card I just took away the frog in my paint program by erasing him. Then I put it all together using my photoshop elements 7. Awesome and fun!!!

DIGI STAMPING ROCKS!!!

One more thing before I leave, wanted to give you a update on my latest book I read called

This book was a really great book. Here is a little description of the book

On a rainy spring day in Seattle, young software tycoon Micah Taylor receives a cryptic, twenty-five-year-old letter from a great uncle he never knew. It claims a home awaits him on the Oregon coast that will turn his world inside out. Suspecting a prank, Micah arrives at Cannon Beach to discover a stunning brand new nine-thousand square foot house. And after meeting Sarah Sabin at a nearby ice cream shop, he has two reasons to visit the beach every weekend. When bizarre things start happening in the rooms of the home, Micah suspects they have some connection to his enigmatic new friend, Rick, the town mechanic. But Rick will only say the house is spiritual. This unnerves Micah because his faith slipped away like the tide years ago, and he wants to keep it that way. But as he slowly discovers, the home isn’t just spiritual, it’s a physical manifestation of his soul, which God uses to heal Micah’s darkest wounds and lead him into an astonishing new destiny.

My review...this book grabbed me in the beginning, lost me a little in the middle which is easy to do for me, but then grabbed me again in the end. It had some happiness, sadness, and even a little scariness!! It showed me that your very own thoughts could be your worst enemy and that you yourself cannot always be trusted!!! Definitely a Spiritual journey and one worth reading. It goes into my favorite read catagory. My next book is another Coleen Coble "Without a Trace" we are introduced to the people of Rock Harbor. This is the first of her Rock Harbor Series. Earlier we read Abomination which was an extra book written after all the others. So now we get to go back to the beginning. Only on chapter one and its looking real good!!!

2 Amazing Dessert Recipes

2011-03-01T14:07:00.008-06:00

I am going to share 2 really amazing dessert recipes with you today. These are in no way diet anything. You eat these at your own risk!!! But they are worth every bite. Once Richard Simmons said that if you are going to eat something bad, make sure it is the best tasting thing you have ever put in your mouth. Do not waste those precious calories on something that is sort of good!!! Well these desserts are the best tasting thing you will ever put in your mouth. So enjoy!!! The first one I got from the Women's World Magazine. There is no name listed to give credit.

Raspberry Cream Cheese Pie
Crust...
1 1/2 cups chocolate graham crackers
2 tbs. sugar
1/3 cup butter melted

Filling....
8 oz. cream cheese softened
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
3 tbs. lemon juice
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 cup fresh whole raspberry's cut in halves

Glaze...
1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy cream

Crust... Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat a 9" pie pan with cooking spray. Combine graham crackers, sugar, and butter. Press mixture on bottom and up side of pan. Bake 10 minutes. Cool 30 minutes before adding filling.
Filling...In Medium bowl beat together cream cheese, condensed milk, lemon juice, vanilla, and egg. Layer raspberries in cooled crust. Pour cream cheese mixture over raspberries. Bake 30 minutes.
Glaze...In small pot place chocolate chips and cream over low heat stirring constantly until chips are melted. After you remove pie from oven, drizzle glaze over the top. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving. Overnight is better.

The next one is from a really awesome website Cookie Madness. This is one of my favorite places to come when I need a great recipe. These brownies are the best I have ever eaten and I have eaten a ton of brownies through the years.

Caramel Filled Brownies

1 cup whole pecans (more or less, RR uses 1 ½ cups)
12 ounces bittersweet chocolate chips or chopped up chocolate
2 sticks unsalted butter (8 oz)
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 (14 oz) bag of caramels
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (or more if you like)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place pecans on a cookie sheet and toast for 7-9 minutes or until aromatic. Let cool. When cool, chop.

Meanwhile, line a 13×9 inch pan with Release foil or parchment paper. You could also just line with foil and spray the foil. Make sure to spray the sides so the caramel won’t stick to the sides.

Place chocolate and butter in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high for 1 minute. Stir and repeat until smooth. Let cool for about 5 minutes. While chocolate cools, in a separate bowl beat sugar and eggs on high speed of an electric mixer for 3 entire minutes. Beat in vanilla. Stir chocolate mixture into the egg mixture. Using a mixing spoon or wire whisk, stir in flour and salt. Pour about half of this batter into the lined pan and bake for 20 minutes.

Cool for 20 minutes. While first layer cools, prepare filling.

Unwrap caramels (ack! Why don’t they make unwrapped caramels!) and put them in a saucepan with the 1/3 cup of cream. Heat on medium low, stirring often, until caramels are melted. Stir about half of the chopped pecans into the caramel. Pour the caramel mixture over the brownie layer.

Spread the remaining brownie mix over the caramel filling. It is kind of tricky, so do your best, but don’t worry about covering all the caramel. Scatter chocolate chips and remaining pecans over the top.

Bake at 350 degrees for another 20 minutes or until the top batter appears set but not dry. Allow brownies to cool completely (this should take a few hours). I like to cool them and then chill them because it makes slicing easier.

Lift brownies from pan and place on a big cutting board. Slice into whatever size you feel like.

There are very few recipes that I leave exactly. I always tend to change something to my liking, but this recipe is perfect exactly the way it is. I will not change anything. Love it!!!! She has a much better picture on her page than I have. They are as delicious as they look. AMAZING!!!

HCG and Valentine

2011-02-02T14:00:00.009-06:00

Very excited to tell you that I have started back on my HCG. Day 3 of 23 days!!! This time I am using this eating plan. HCG Ultra Pro It gives me a few more food options and I get to have some breakfast. I have not ever used the drops from this site, as I get my drops from my doctor, but they might be a good one to try. The info on the site seems very informative and well researched. Anyways, I am doing great so far. I have had a few sweet cravings, but that is to be expected. It takes probably a week to get those out of your system. I just drink my 25 calorie hot chocolate and that seems to help a lot. Looking forward to seeing the end results. Last time was not as great, but then I tried to do it during the holidays, and so what did I really expect. I am glad however, that I did not gain any of my weight back from the first 23 days. So if anything, it helped me from putting on any extra weight during the holiday season. Now I will just pretend that I have not done this 3 times, and that this is only my 2nd time, and keep moving forward. I really do hope to loose another 20 pounds this time. I realize it will be harder as I go, and my loss will not be as great each time, but I am good knowing that any loss is better than no loss. It seems each round lowers my blood sugar by 3 or 4 points. So that is really great. I just would like to get my blood sugar back to normal range, and keep it there. It really takes a lot of focus, effort, and discipline though. I have figured out that the hard part is not loosing the weight, but keeping the weight off. It tends to want to sneak back on after a while. So I am ok with the fact that for the rest of my life I will always be having to watch what and how much I eat. Its a lifestyle change. Keep me in your prayers cause its a bumpy road at times!!!

Yesterday and today we are pretty much home bound because of cold and icy roads. So I have been working on my Valentine swap cards. It was hard deciding what I wanted to do cause my valentine rubber stamp collection is so limited. Just have not felt like spending money on more stamps. So after scanning some of my favorite blogs, I decided to give the Digi Stamps a try. They are much cheaper to purchase and there are lots online for free. I just went to google and typed in free digi valentine stamps and then clicked the images tab and all sorts of images popped up. So then I got went into my photo shop elements and played around with the images and figured out how to place them on my cards. Too much fun for sure!!! So then of course I had to go and search for more images and it started several days of image collecting. I think I collected every free image on the Internet. Then I ran upon this website Whimsy and Star Studio and she had some of the cutest digi stamps ever. The one I purchased was little Valentine Girl She is so adorable dressed in her little valentine suit and all the cute little hearts in her hair. Now you can see why I just had to make a purchase from her. After all it was only a few dollars, and now I can use the image as much as I want. Best part, I do not have to store rubber. Thank goodness right!!! My room runneth over already with stuff. Anything I can store on my hard drive is excellent, cause then I can take my stuff with me everywhere I go. So cool!!! Laptop, hard drive will travel. Ok, so then I had to choose a card idea. A while back I made the buckle card
that I found at Splitcoast Stampers This card is so much fun to make. I think it is probably my most favorite card technique!!! So with cool digi stamps and cool card technique, this is what I created...
The little Happy Valentine sentiment on the inside is just a valentine image I found on the internet. I loved that I was able to place it in the exact spot I needed it using my photo shop elements. Just so cool!!! I think I am now in love with digi stamping. Just one more aspect of digital that I love!!! If you live in Texas, stay warm!!! See ya soon!!!

Blog-A-Hoppin'

2011-01-27T18:21:00.012-06:00

I really do love blogs. I spend a lot of time on them visiting and getting lots of great inspiration and ideas. Everybody always says you are so creative. Truth is, I am just really good at re-creating someone Else's creations. So I thought I would share some of my favorite blogs and give the credit to those that really deserve it!!! Do some blog hopping and see some of the great creations out there on the Internet for free!!! Thanks to everyone for sharing your creativity. You are ALLl my favorites!!!

Can you Say Scrap Addicts
Just my Sketches
Card Patterns
Confessions of a Ribbon Addict
Creative Scrappers
Fat Cat Stamper
Friday Sketchers
Inspired Blueprints
Jen Tapler Designs
My Life
My Sketch World
Oh Bumble is Me
Oodabug Alley
Paper Pleasing Ideas
Pickled Paper Designs
Pink Tulle with Feathers and Sequins
Poetic Artistry
Pencil Lines
Sketches {by Tamara}
Sketch This
Stamp a Little Love Baby!
Stampin'in the Prairies
Stampin' Pretty
Stampin' with Di
Stamping A Latte
Stampin Stuff
Stamping for Sanity
Stamps, Paper, Sissors
Susiestampalot
Taylored Expressions
The Creative Closet
Treasure Oiler Designz
Mojo Monday
The Sweet Shop

There ya go!!! Enjoy all the sites and hope you find something to inspire your creative side!!!

R.I.P.

2011-01-25T11:40:00.005-06:00

Well this past weekend I spent Celebrating the Life of one of my high school friends Doyle Walker. It was a bitter sweet celebration. Bitter, because it was hard to say goodbye to him and it was hard to see his mother and wife hurting so much. I think the hardest thing was realizing that we are now getting to the age where these sort of things will happen more often and that life is just so short and we cannot waste a second. We cannot put off till tomorrow. We must do it today. A few months ago several of us from our school had a get together, thanks to face book, and we talked about getting in touch with Doyle. We should have done it the days soon after. It would have been nice to spend a little time with him. The Sweet, because God promises us that one day we will all be together again and knowing this brings such comfort to my heart. Doyle is at peace now with our Father!!! Forgive me Doyle for not keeping in touch with you all these years. We should have remained as close through the years as we did during our school years. Forgive me Father for taking for granite the time you give us each day. That you only promise us today and not tomorrow. Help me to be a better daughter, sister, wife, mother, and friend. That I always stay in contact with the people in my life. Amen!!! Also it was sweet, cause his life celebration brought a bunch of us school grads together that I had not seen in a very long time. We were a small group of only 28 and so we were very close to one another. Like brothers and sisters close. So it was really great to see my old friends. I do not mean old in a age since. I mean old in knowing them for a really long time. 34 years short!!! Everyone looked great and for the most part, have not changed much at all. Some of us, a little thicker, a little greyer, a little less hair, a few wrinkles, but none of that mattered. We were just all so glad to see each other. Thank you Doyle for bringing us back together. We will never forget you!!! RIP... This will be the second class mate we have lost. The first was Dawn Compton. She died July 1997. 16 years after we graduated. It was sad as we did not know of her passing till much later after it happen. So we were not able to pay our respects. So because of these 2 people, several from my class have started a Face book Fan site. On this site we are inviting all the people that went to our school and we are putting up memory page of all the friends that have passed away. Our class only having 2, but many classes above and below having a few in each of them. It really is sad to know that these people died and I did not know. So glad we are doing this site and now we will all be able to stay in contact with one another and plan some really great get togethers. Something good, from something bad!!! God is amazing!!! Through this site, no one will ever be forgotten. They will remain not only in their families hearts forever, but in all their friends hearts as well..... R.I.P.

Redeeming Love

2011-01-21T15:00:00.003-06:00

This book was amazing. I just finished it last night. It is by far the best book I have read. Top of my list. I was on a emotional roller coaster the entire time I was reading it. I cried, I laughed, I cried, I was angry, I was sad, I was happy, I was sad, I was mad, I was very happy!!! I was not sure I loved or hated the book. It depended on what chapter I was in. By the end of the book, I totally loved it and everything about it. I would read it over and over again. I would watch a movie about it, if it were to come out. I was thinking last night that Christina Aguilera would be the perfect actress to play the part of Angel. After seeing her in the movie Burlesque and of course her stunning beauty and blond hair and blue eyes. When I was reading the description of Angel, she was the first to pop into my head. Not sure about the other Characters. I was trying to think of a leading man, but nothing comes to mind. Michael was the perfect man. I just cannot think of a actor that could fit his shoes. Perhaps I will think of someone as I go. The book is amazing and I totally recommend it to anyone!!! Thank you Francine Rivers for writing such a wonderful book. You are for sure one of my favorite authors!!! I look forward to more of your books.Thank you, Thank you!!!

Baking and Crafting

2011-01-20T12:26:00.012-06:00

What a way to start the New Year!!! Yummy Fun!!!

Hey Blog friends, just thought I would update you on the happenings around my house.

My daughter is starting her own baking business when she grows up. Or at least I think she should. She baked the most awesome cake last night. She saw a show that had a chocolate cake and thought she needed to have some also. So she got online and found a recipe all on her own and got in the kitchen and baked it. I only assisted her with reading the ingredients to make sure she got the right amounts since that is something we are still working on in our homeschool. She poured and mixed and baked it though and then I helped her create the most awesome icing. Cream Cheese and pecans oh my!!! So here are some photos of her doing her thing.....

YUMMMMMY!!!!! I am encouraging her to write her own recipe book/blog. This recipe did come from someone else online, but she did add a few extra things along the way to make it her own.
She is calling this Dark Chocolate Delight!! and delightful it is!!! Stay tuned for Kadie's very own recipe blog where she will share her favorite, tried and true recipes!!!

In the crafty world, I have been creating Birthday calender books. I posted a little facebook "Pay it Forward" challenge that was going around and 3 people signed up under me. So I am making them gifts and hopefully they will do the same for those that signed up under them. It started with my friend Karen and then she signed back up under me. So I have my friend Karen, Jan, and Dawn that I am gifting. I have already accomplished one of those gifts and paid it forward to my friend Dawn. This is what I made her.

This is the cutest little book. It is 81/2 x 11 in width and length. I got the idea on Happileigh Scrappin. She also has them here More Command Central Cute little books. I also had fun using my "Bind it All" machine that I bought 2 years ago and this would be the first project I have made with it. It was so much fun. I ask myself why did I wait so long to use it. Now I want to make all sorts of books. I found the little printed calender on my friend Elizabeth's blog Texas Joy and who in turn found it at Digi Scrap Kits . Blogs really are great. Anyways, I just loved it and decided this would work very well in the book. So putting the two ideas together created the cutest Birthday book ever!!! Thanks ladies for sharing all of your ideas and creations!!! Love, love my new book!!! Now to get busy creating more!!!

This a picture of my best friend!!!!! Just wanted to share, cause I thought it was a great picture of him!!! He is looking so good at 60 pounds lighter. Our family is going Big by going smaller!!! Thank you God for good health and great weight loss!!! There is more to come!!!

My Love

2011-01-09T20:39:00.003-06:00

Me and the love of my life!!!This man is one of the most amazing husbands!!! I am so blessed to have him in my life and excited to start yet another year with him. This will be our 28th New Years together. That sounds so strange. I can totally remember our very first New Years together. It feels like yesterday. We went with his parents to his Uncles house and him and I played Rummy while his parents played poker with his Uncle and Aunt. We were all of 19 years old back then and we were so in love. We are still very much in love today!!! I could not do life without him. Thank you God for my husband!!!! Love you K.P.

Had a great weekend scrapbooking with friends. We stayed in a house here in our home town from Thursday to today. I am exhausted, but it was great fun. I started working on my camping album and did 10 pages. So I got a great start to my new commitment to scrapbooking. I plan to lay it out this week and continue to work on it. I will try and put up some pictures this week of my pages. I used some really great sketches that I found various places on the Internet. One of my favorite sites is http://creativescrappers.blogspot.com/ I love the sketches on this site. Easy to follow. My pages always turn out so cute. Come back to see some photos if you will.

This week we start back school. Looking forward to it this round cause I am no longer working. The fall was very difficult and taught me a great lesson. I am not good at multi-tasking. I either work, or I homeschool my daughter. Not both. So we are looking forward to our time this spring. I have been homeschooling her for 4 years now. Hard to believe. Time is passing very fast. I love, love that I get to be home with her.

Well that's it for now.

Happy 2011

2011-01-03T19:35:00.006-06:00

Happy New Year to everyone!!! Its hard to believe we are starting a New Year already. Just seems like we started 2010. I for one am very excited to have a fresh start. So much I want to accomplish this year. Of course I do tend to say that every year and I do get a lot of things accomplished. Last year I lost 30 pounds!!! That was probably my biggest achievements!!! This year I plan to loose at least another 30 pounds. I would like to loose more, but I would be happy as a pig in mud if I loose 30 more. The other things I would like to do this year is get back into my scrapbooking. I sort of put it on the back burner for the last 2 years. I had to separate myself from it for a while in order to get passed some other things that were connected. Things are good now and so I am ready to get busy with it again. I started out this past week digging all my photos out and separating them into these neat little photo albums that my girl Shelley gave me. I would give her a big hug if she were here right now, MISS YOU SHELLEY, cause these things are going to help me so much with knowing what photos I need to scrapbook.
Of course I would love if I had a few more of these, and of course no one has any available. But I am thankful for the ones I have and will put them to good use now.
The other thing I have been doing this week is getting ready for our first retreat of the year. We are going somewhere new this year and its right here in our own little town. Its not a fancy or big place, but there is plenty of space for us to have a great time. The best part is that it is close to home which makes it so much easier for everyone. Me personally loves to get completely away from it all and go somewhere different, but most everyone else has a hard time doing that. So we thought we would stay close to home this time around and see how it works out. So part of my getting ready has been planning some layouts to work on. I have been scanning the Internet for page sketches and ideas. I have been digging out all the unfinished pages and deciding what needs to be done to finish them, and I have been getting all my necessary tools ready to go. On the subject of tools, I spent the weekend refreshing my brain on how to use the "Make the Cut" program. Its a program you use with your Cricut. What I discovered was they have upgraded the program and now I can cut any image off the Internet. Now that has been super cool. Of course that has set me back a few days in planning my crop. I have been downloading stuff left and right and of course I have been having to cut some things to see if it really actually works. The answer to that is YES, it does work. Below is a layout of my son and you will see the cute little things I cut out on the right. The sailboat, the anchor, the sailors hat, and the boat wheel. All of this was images I googled, saved to my paint and then saved as a .png file and then uploaded to "Make the Cut", did a little editing, cut, and then pieced back together. I still need to put some bling on all of them, but aren't they just the cutest.

One of the things I realized is that I will not need to buy another punch or die ever. I can find the images of the punches and dies online and cut them myself. Is that not cool or what. No more packing all my punches and dies and taking them everywhere with me. Just grab my Cricut, my laptop, and my projects. Anyway, needless to say I am pretty excited about all this stuff and cannot wait to put it to use this weekend. So with all that said, I better get off here and start back to work planning my projects. Much to do in a short time. Look forward to sharing lots of stuff with you this year. Hugs to all!!!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

2010-12-15T14:22:00.010-06:00

Merry Christmas everyone!!! Well almost. Only another week. Its so hard to believe its here already. I still have some shopping to do. Of course I am one of those few people that love, love to do last minute, get out in the hustle and bustle, sort of shopping. Its just more challenging that way and of course I love a good sale. So whats been going on....

I am about to end my second 23 days of HCG drops. Did not do as well on this round as I did the first round. My heart was just not in it. My husband started out doing it with me and I was really geared up in the beginning. But then about a week and half into it and 7 pounds down, he decided it was more than he could handle. He really got run down and feeling bad and had to stop and then he started eating everything in site. Well that sort of messed up my focus. I was nibbling here and there on things that were not on the diet, telling myself it was no big deal. Well it was a big deal as I stopped loosing the weight and actually gained 2 of the 7 pounds I had lost. Just really stinks, but then it is the holidays and I knew starting it at this time would make it hard. So with all that said, I am happy to have lost 5 more pounds bringing my total to 28 pounds. I was actually thinking I had lost more than that, but sitting here figuring, it is 28 pounds on HCG. But the really good news is that I went from a size 20w pants to a size 14 misses. Now that is impressive. I went into this cute little shop with a friend called Rue 21 and was able to wear pants that they carry. Junior size 15/16. Cutest little Cargo pants ever. I got a pair of Camo's and a pair of Black. Love, love them. Then went over to Target and that is where I discovered I can wear 14 misses. I was on top of the world. Its been 10 years since I was in a size 14. Now my new goal is to get into size 12. I was setting weight loss goals, but slowly learning that clothing size is easiest to achieve. Does it really matter how much I weigh. What matters is what size clothes I can wear. So size 12, here I come. I will start my 3rd round of HCG the end of January and I think I will be more prepared then. The holidays will be past me and of course everyone will be on diets. That always helps!!! So until then, I must maintain!!!! MAINTAIN!!!
So what else has been going on... Well I WAS working for a elderly couple since July. WAS the key word here. It WAS just too much for me. The lady WAS a very difficult person to work with. She really did not want my help even though she needed it. I guess she just was being stubborn about giving up her independence. I am sure it is very hard to allow others to help you, when you have spent your life helping others. Poor lady. Her husband WAS easy peasy. He WAS enjoying having someone help him for a change. Of course I think because he has been blind all of his life, he WAS use to others helping him. It WAS nothing new for him. Anyways, after trying and trying to please her, I decided to throw in the towel. I WAS starting to see it effecting not only me, but my Kadie girl. She WAS starting to feel a lot of stress going over to their house. Also I WAS not able to give her 100% of my attention when it come to her school work. The whole reason I started homeschooling her WAS so she could have 100% attention with her work. So with all that said, I quit. Not exactly the right way. I tried to give a notice, but each time I did, she would cry. I could not take her crying. So I had to wait until I was angry with her, which WAS almost every day, and just walk out. I knew it WAS going to have to end badly in order to leave, which saddens my heart. I would have liked to been able to remain on friendly terms and gone over from time to time to visit. Anyways, its all good now. I am back home where I belong and much more appreciative of my time. Now WAS is past tense where it belongs and IS is the new word. I IS very happy now. I do not have the extra spending money to buy all the fun things , but I IS ok with that. I have my time at home with my daughter and that IS enough for me. So what have I done with my time this past week....
I have been making some Christmas cards. I made some for a few friends, some for a card swap, and some to give away to our Church Card Ministry. Our church adopted 10 needy families this year in our community for Christmas and so my friend Dawn and I made cards to add to their Christmas baskets. It sure does feel good to be making cards for a purpose. I love doing the swaps with my friends, but most times the cards just sit in a box. Now they are being put to good use. It makes it that much more enjoyable. Here are pictures of my cards. I used the same idea with different stamps.

The other thing I have been busy doing is redoing my daughters room. It was only a few years ago that we did her room in the most adorable bright neon colors. Well, it did not take her long to get tired of the colors and I really could not argue with her cause I was sort of tired of them too. I am sure somewhere on my blog you can back track and find pictures. Anyways, so we have spent several months talking about the color cause I wanted it to be something that would last her a long time. We finally stumbled across our inspiration. I totally love Scentsy candles. While flipping through the catalog, I stumbled across this cute little warmer. I showed it to Kadie and she loved it. We knew we wanted brown, we just did not know what we wanted to go with the brown. This warmer was the perfect mix. So I ordered it and the new room was created!!! What a fun time we have had doing this together. Shopping for all the decorations, bedding, paint, ect... So much fun!!! Kadie was so good about picking out all of her stuff. The kid has an eye for color!!! Here are photos below of the almost finished room. We still have some things we want to get, but this is almost completed!!!

My little girls, Big Girl Room!!!

What are my plans to come....
I have 2 books to finish reading and will post my thoughts on those. I have a book to start reading for our January Book Club. More on that later. I plan to actually get out my scrapbook stuff and do a little page creating. I plan to work on my hubby's quilt I started back in the early summer. I have so many projects I want to complete. Most of all, I plan to enjoy the rest of my Christmas vacation and my time at home with my family. Check in soon for more fun things. Please leave me some love in the comment section below. I would love to know if I actually have anyone reading. Makes it seem worth posting if I know I have a few readers. Again Merry Christmas everyone!!!! LOVE AND HUGS!!!

HCG, Books, Crochet, and Vanilla Creme Brulee. Life is Great!!!

2010-10-28T15:15:00.016-05:00

Wow, I have so much to talk about and share that I really do not know where to begin. I hate when I go so long without posting to my blog, but at the same time I have just been crazy busy with no time to sit down and do it. First and foremost I must talk about HCG. It has been an amazing experience for me. I am down 24 pounds and am finally to the maintenance period. That is the 3 weeks before I start again. Normally this next 3 weeks would be about adding in all your favorite carbs ect... But since I plan to do the drops another 23 days, I will just keep eating the same with just more calories. I am eating around 1200 calories now and I have started interval walking. Its amazing at how many inches I am loosing. Way more inches than weight. I cannot wait for one to catch up with the other. Have a little saggy skin mostly under my arms, but for the most part everything is looking pretty good. I am just pleased as pie that I finally found something that works for me. I was just telling my DH today that this has been such a journey for me. I realized that all the failed diets have lead me to this diet. They have prepared me for this diet. Its a hard diet to follow and I know without all the other diets, I would not be able to do it. The yeast diet really was a lifesaver in preparing me for this diet. Anyways, all is going great and I cannot wait to start my next 23 days and see what happens. Oh and one word of advice. Do not do more than 23 days of the drops. I totally wasted my time. I lost the majority of my weight the first 23 days. I could have already started my second round by now. So just stick with 23 days and then off 6 weeks and then back on 23 days until you reach your goal. Good luck!!!
So I have been a card making Mama lately. I have so many new cards to share. We finally got our card ministry started at church and had our first weekend get together. There were about 7 of us and 4 of us were actually doing cards while the rest did their thing. Some did digital scrapbook, while others did paper. Some even spent some good quality time editing their photos. It was sort of do as you please weekend. The main objective was to get together for some fun times. This time we made Thanksgiving cards to give away with food baskets to needy families in our hometown. Between the 4 of us, we managed to gather up 32 cards to donate towards the baskets. Some of the cards I had already made from a previous swap and the rest we created over the weekend. I am just totally excited to finally be putting all these gathered supplies I have to good use. What a amazing blessing this is going to be for everyone involved.

So what else have I been up too lately.... Well I have been reading up a storm. I have finally finished enough books that I think I could call myself a book worm. Yes I have totally ignored my family to finish a book. LOL!!! Our church book club has really helped me achieve this new title. Books I have read since I last posted are
This book was AMAZING!!! It was a page turner. This one I did totally ignore my family. I could not stop reading it. We are going to read the entire series after the holidays and I cannot wait. Our next book for the month of November is also by this Author. It is called
I have not started it yet, but know its going to be another good one. My friend Dawn has finished it and she says its very good.
We just got through reading my favorite of all series books SisterChicks. I totally love these books. They are light hearted, easy to read, and usually have a really great message to share. I love that they are about friendships. Usually very rare and unusual friendships. I also love that they take you to different parts of the world. We have gone to Hawaii, Australia, Mexico, Finland, and now Netherlands. Every book describes the places in such detail. Robin does a excellent job of making you feel part of the journey. Will always be my favorite books. There are several other books that I am in the process of reading. Yes, I am reading more than one book. The one that I am reading right now in between all the book club books is

This book is a laugh out loud book. I have really enjoyed reading it. Its a little different than some of the other books I have read and I cannot wait to see how this book ends.

We read another book before the Abomination book and it was called
I did not finish this book yet. It just did not grab my attention as well as the others. I do plan though to finish reading it eventually. The reviews that the other ladies gave about the book made it sound worth reading. So I will go back to it and finish. Besides, I hate not finishing the books. Well that's it for book reading. On to the next subject.

Knitting and Crochet. I finally decided that Knitting is not my bag. I have tried and tried to get interested in it because I have so many friends who knit, but I just cannot get the whole concept. Yes I have started a scarf which is still sitting unfinished and this last week I tried to make a hat. Well after 6 trys and much frustration, I gave up. Its just not my thing. However, Crochet is definitely my thing. I have just taken off on Crochet. I just got done completing my 4 scarf which I gave to my friend Shirley. I did not get a picture of it, but it was beautiful colors of blues and greens. I have now started another one and this week, I completed the beanie hat to match. It is sooooo cute. I bought me this really neat little pom pom maker and put the cutest little pom pom on my hat.

I just love the colors that are in this hat. Reminds me of Christmas for some reason. I cannot wait to get the scarf finished and I cannot wait to have a cold day to wear them. This hat was so easy to make that I am making my friend a hat to go with her scarf. She has a much smaller head that I do, so lets hope it want be too big for her. I have not quite learned yet how to make them smaller or bigger. I just make the ones that say "One size fits all" You know how much truth that statement holds. Anyways, I think that is it for now. Looking forward to lots more fun things to blog. Oh one more thing, have you tried the new Quaker Vanilla Creme Brulee Rice Cakes. Just let me say "OH MY GOSH" They are my new favorite snack. There are several other flavors that I like in the True Delights. One being Pomegranate and Blackberry and the other Blueberry. But the Vanilla is my favorite. I have to be real careful or I will eat the entire bag without even realizing it.

HCG and Me

2010-09-17T22:42:00.002-05:00

Today is day 22 of HCG. Tomorrow would mark the 23rd day when most people stop taking the HCG drops. It was the day I was suppose to stop also, but called my Doctor and ask if I could continue to the 40 day mark. I told her that I was doing so well, that I hated to stop right now. I have lost 16 pounds. I was really hoping for 20 pounds by this time, but my body is just not wanting to let go of the weight. It did not help that I have had a few days over my 500 calories. It seems on the day I eat beef, it always puts me over. Of course most of the calories are estimated to the high side and so I really am probably not eating that much over as I think. Also I had a late visitor (Aunt Flo) this past week right at the end when I should have been able to drop another 5 pounds. Instead I gained a pound during this time and held the same weight for 2 days. So that really slowed my progress. With all that, my first goal of getting under 200 pounds in 23 days was not met and so I want to continue on until I reach that goal. Hoping for another 15 pounds this next 18 days. That would put me way under the 200 pounds and then I could shoot for another goal when I do the second round sometime in November. I am totally loving the fact that I am shrinking all over. Not just in one area, but all over my body. Its not ugly shrinkage either. Its very firm shrinkage. So no saggy skin or anything that I can tell. I think I need to do some measurements and see how many inches I have lost with this 16 pounds. I will update that info on my next post.
I have made a few new cards that I will take pictures of. My girlfriends came over last weekend and we had some great card making fun. Also am reading a new book. The last one "Skid" I did not finish yet. Will have to pick it back up later to finish. We are reading "Abomination" by Colleen Coble. Only on chapter 3 and it is very good. Will let you know more about that later also.

HCG Days 11,12, and 13

2010-09-08T21:09:00.005-05:00

Just call me the Skinny Chick!! I mean you can at least practice calling me that cause I am on my way down baby!!! Total in the 13 days is 13 pounds. That is amazing. I say that cause last year I went on the Yeast Diet and was on it 6 months and only lost 7 pounds. It was crazy slow, restricting diet and of course I got very frustrated and disappointed and sort of got off of the diet over time. Of course I gained it back right away and all I did was add a few foods I was not use to eating. Talk about more frustration. So anyways, here I am 13 days and 13 pounds lighter. I am so psyched. I cannot wait to see more weight come off. Its been very tuff diet though. I am very hungry especially the last few days. I am not sure why. I am thinking I have just been burning too many calories on my job or something. Its like everything I eat feels like its being devoured before it hits my stomach. I eat and I never feel like I have eaten. I am just hoping that its my stomach still shrinking and pretty soon it will all stop. I have 13 more days to go on the low calorie part and then I can start adding back calories slowly. Counting down the days!!! I think if I could just eat a few more 100 calories, I would be good to go!!! Oh and let me mention, my blood sugar is still very low. Has stayed in the low to mid 90's all week. AWESOME!!! Check back for more updates!!!

HCG Day 10

2010-09-05T16:28:00.005-05:00

Today has been great. I have not had any hunger pains. Had some orange roughy and cabbage for lunch and then I ate some cabbage soup and this really great tasting snack made with cottage cheese and eaten with Melba rounds. My doctor shared this nifty little low calorie, low fat snack. Gave hubby a try and even he liked it. Now I have never been a cottage cheese eater. Some people eat it like there is no tomorrow and make you think its the best thing since the invention of ice cream. I have never got on that band wagon. So when my doctor gave me the recipe, I sort of lifted my brow up!!! Well today I decided to give it a try. After all, I have always taught my children to try stuff before Xing it out of their life. I was very surprised how yummy it actually taste. It was the perfect snack. Here is the recipe

2 oz. of lite cottage cheese
1 drop of vanilla
1 small shake of cinnamon
1 package of stevia ( I use truvia)

Mix together and then eat with a serving (4) Melba toast.

Total calories 90

The last few days I have gone over my 500 calories by 24. So I decided today to reconstruct my eating so that I would not go over. On this diet you must eat 400 calories and no more than 500. If you eat more than 500, you will either not loose any weight, or you may even gain weight. Well when waking up this morning, I did not loose any weight. So it could be that I went over. Today I backed off and ate some fish and cabbage which are lower in calories than beef. Tonight I am eating some shrimp. I think I will have much better results come tomorrow. Will keep you posted.

Here are the cards I have made recently.

These are the cards my friend Jimmie made. She came over yesterday and we had a fun time making our cards. I so enjoy time with my friends. I wish we could do it more often. These cards we made from our new card ministry at church. Its a great start to a great ministry!!!

Well that's all for today. More tomorrow!!!

HCG Day 9 Random thoughts!!!

2010-09-04T19:27:00.003-05:00

Just got done eating my beef Pattie and cabbage/asparagus stir fry. Yum, yum!!! Things are going great. I have lost almost 10 pounds my first week on the diet. Tomorrow will be 7 days since I started my 500 calories. Of course I know most of that is water weight, but I do believe at least a couple of that is actually fat as my clothes already fit looser and I was actually able to fit into size 14 pants that were stretchy and a junior 17 that was stretchy. So that is very cool. I cleaned out a few of my size 18 pants as I do not ever plan to wear that size ever again. I really want have a choice if I plan to control my blood sugar through diet and no medicine. I have come to appreciate the fact that I am forced to control my eating habits now and feel very lucky that this diet has been able to bring things back to normal. Today blood sugar was 101. My fasting has been running anywhere from 92 to 108 since I started and during the day in the lower 90's. The difference is my fasting was anywhere from 130 to 160 and my day time was running around 120 to 130. Big difference!!! So all is good in that area now. Doctor told me she thought this diet would work. She said if it did not work, then I was for sure going to have to go on medication. Thank God that it is working. I know that as long as I eat the good foods, I want never have a problem again. Also Thanking God that we have so many more tasty diet foods and ways of cooking than we use to have. I can remember in my younger years that dieting was awful. It was like you had to eat cardboard. Now there are so many great choices. So much easier. I realized the other day that all this dieting I have been doing in the past year has brought me to this point. I do not think I could do the 500 calories if I had not had the time of dieting that I have had. Back in July of last year, my doc, put me on a yeast diet. Oh my gosh it was hard. The first whole month I thought I was going to starve to death. After about a month though I adjusted the choices I had and stayed very true to it for about 6 months. I only lost about 7 pounds on it and that was sort of frustrating. Then I slowly started adding in some of the foods and slowly started gaining back the weight I had lost plus a few extra pounds. Talk about frustrating. So going back to doctor for help before it got out of hand and this is what she offered. She said I would not gain back weight on this diet and once my blood sugar normalized I would take the weight off quickly. Thanking God again for such a awesome doctor who cares!!!
So thinking about today, I was not near as hungry today than the previous days. I think my stomach is finally shrinking and its taking less and less to fill me up. I was told the first 2 weeks would be hardest and I am on day 7 of the 500 calories. So looking forward to loosing inches. I have seen so many cute clothes that I would love to purchase. Today trying on the 17 junior pants and being able to wear them was great. Thankful for spandex. A awesome discovery. They look tight on me, but very comfy as they have the 1% stretch to them. Makes sitting down very easy on the belly.
I am loving the fish, cabbage, salads, hamburger patties, steak, asparagus. I have been sauteing them in Pam in my skillet and seasoning with the Amino Acid and Mrs. Dash seasonings. I am loving all the flavors in that. Garlic and herb and Onion and Garlic are my favorites. So thankful this diet does not restrict salt. I would be in trouble. I love salt.
Well that's all I got today. I am making some cards and I will upload pictures as soon as I get them done. Have a great evening!!!

HCG Day 7 and 8

2010-09-03T06:52:00.003-05:00

Well yesterday and today both are great days for blood sugar. Woke up and both days were 97 and 95. I am amazed, truly amazed and very excited. Why didn't my doctor get this idea a year ago??Well not going to dwell on the negative or the yesterdays, and Praise God for the results of today!!! Ok, sometimes I can do some really, really dumb things. On Wednesday night I started out with a great idea for dinner and ended up ruining the nutritional part of it. I took some cabbage, onions, and banana peppers and stir fried them with some shrimp. I was not able to use any oils cause in the past I usually add butter, but could not do that this time, so I was looking for my flavor with spices. I love the Mrs. Dash seasonings and probably if I had only used those I would have been fine, but I love to experiment, so I added in some chicken bullion powder. I only added a little bit. Well sitting down to eat it was like eating salt out of a salt shaker. It was very good, but it was very salty tasting. I should have thrown it out and started over, but hated to waste the shrimp. So I ate it all. Well yesterday morning I woke up and weighed and I had gained .2 pounds instead of lost. So that stunk. I know it does not seem like a lot to fuss about, but really I should have lost about 1.2 pounds. The meal caused a increase, rather than a decrease. So for dinner last night I used very little salt and today I lost 1.6 pounds. So glad to see that. So I lost a day, but learned a great lesson. Stick with Mrs. Dash only. She will not let me down.

I started a new crochet project. I am Crochet teacher for 7-12 grade at our Enrichment this year and so we are learning the very first steps. Chain stitch and single crochet. So last night I thought I better get out my needle and yarn and crochet an example of the stitches. Of course I am making a scarf. I guess we all have our favorite things we like to make. Some like to make Afghans, some socks, some hats. Well I like to make scarfs. For one they are very useful and hopefully we will be using them very soon. Second they are fast and easy to make, and third I feel a great since of accomplishment making them. So they are my favorite to crochet. The colors I have chosen for this one are so pretty. I bought a chunky yarn to try since it was only single crochet. I thought it would give it more thickness. I was right, it feels thick and cozy. Here is a picture of the start so you can see these gorgeous colors.

I absolutely love this yarn the second I saw it. I think the yarn with the mixed colors is my favorite of all. I love the idea of not having to change colors every time. Just a continuous flow of color!!! I am thinking I will make this scarf for my daughter. It is her favorite colors right now. Then again, I may have to make it for myself. LOL!!! I think it would look wonderful with something brown and denim!!!

Well that's all I got today. Need to get dressed!!! Hope you have a wonderful, awesome, fantastic Day!!!

2010-09-01T19:46:00.002-05:00

Hey friends, thought I would start off with a self portrait of myself. I was up early this morning and I guess you could say I was a little bored. LOL!!!! Playing with the settings on my camera. I have had it for a few years now and still I do not know how to use anything else but the auto!!! I think this setting is actually called self portrait!!! I think it darkens everything but the subject. Wish it could darken some of the wrinkles on my face.

So Day 5 and 6 of my HCG diet has been much better. Not near as hungry and the amount I am eating is actually starting to fill me up and satisfy me. Its amazing at what 3.5 oz of fish looks like. I was thinking I could eat the whole fillet, but when I put it on the scale it weighed close to 9 oz. That's more than 2 days worth on this diet. Actually I went online and read about serving sizes and 3.5 oz is what we are suppose to eat all the time. I realize now that I have been eating way to much food at one sitting. No wonder I am over weight. It is teaching me that its not what you eat, but how much. Not sure how in the world to increase calories when the 23 days is up. I would almost have to be eating all the time to do it. Anyways, I have lost 7 pounds so far. I know that is water weight cause everyone has at least 10 pounds of water weight, and I have been peeing like there is no tomorrow. Almost every 30 minutes I have to go. So that tells me there is lots of fluid in my body. Still it feels good to see the scales move down rather than up like they usually do. The best part is that my blood sugar is still staying very low. If nothing else comes from this but that, I will be a super happy camper. That is my main concern with my health. Yes it would be nice to loose about 50 pounds, but not near as nice as my blood sugar staying low and stable. I will eat like this the rest of my life if that is what it takes.
Other goings on for this month besides my job.....
1. Starting school not this coming Monday since that is Labor Day, but the next Monday. We have sort of started already. Doing some Math review and started working on our History. We are doing a really great History Curriculum this year. It is called History of the World. This year we are doing Volume 2, Middle Ages. We are on Chapter 3 and it has been so interesting. I love the way it reads.
2. My friend Dawn and I are starting a Scrapbook/Card Ministry at our church. We are both so excited. We are having our first big get together with some of the other ladies on October 22-23. We have had sign ups last Sunday and this coming Sunday. So far we have about 7 ladies interested in coming. Hoping to get some of my other friends involved as well cause we are going to need a lot of help making cards. Everything we do at our church we do it with the attitude of "Going Big" We are going to make this ministry "BIG" It will be so much fun.
3. Book Club we are reading "Skid" by Rene Gutteridge. I have not really started it yet, so I got to get busy reading. I have to have it read by Sept. 12. I think I can get it read pretty quick. I am getting to be a much better reader these days. I can actually stay focused longer than 1 chapter. This book club has helped me so much with my reading.
4. Some other fun church activities we are starting are Family Game Night and a new Prayer class. This class will be teaching us purpose of prayer, different ways to pray and we will spend time praying for our Church, Pastor, World leaders, Missionaries, Our City, family, friends, ect.... Whatever is needing prayer. I am so looking forward to this class. I have always wanted to be better at praying.
5. Soon as we get a little cooler weather, we are planting grass in our yard. Right now we have dirt and its getting a little old to look at. So looking forward to greener yard!!!

Ok, so I am going to get off here and help my daughter with her history and then start reading my book. Have a blessed evening!!!

HCG Day 4

2010-08-30T18:00:00.002-05:00

I have a huge Praise to share!!! I woke up this morning and my blood sugar was 92. I nearly started crying. It has not been that low since I started all this diet stuff back last year. I was able to go from over 300 to around 140, but I have not been able to get it any lower on a regular basis. Probably the lowest ever waking up was 115, but that was like once. 92 is actually a great reading. Just hoping it will be like that come morning. I am almost to scared to get excited!!! So day 4 was a little harder. I felt hungry most of the day. I am sure its just my body trying to adjust to the lower calories, but its very hard to ignore the hunger pains. I ended up almost going over my calorie limit. This afternoon before dinner I had only 111 calories left for dinner. Thankfully I had fish and fish was only 93 and salad is 17 so that put me right at 499 total calories for the day!!! Barely kept it under. On this diet if you eat more than 500 calories, you will actually gain weight. The reason being that the drops pull fat from the fat cells and feed your body the calories/energy it needs to get through the day. So in some cases depending on the person and how much fat they carry, this diet can pull up to 2500 calories of fat from the fat cells. With the calories you are eating which is 500, you are giving your body a lot of extra calories to maintain. It really is amazing how fast calories add up. I was shocked to know that I had already eaten nearly 400 calories with the little amount of food I had eaten. Know wonder everyone is so over weight. It truly is not what you eat, but how much you eat at one time. Have you ever actually ate 3.5 oz of fish before. That is the normal serving size of fish and NO ONE is suppose to eat more than that. I could really see how much money we could save if we followed the serving size recommendations. Of course, my taste buds wanted more than 3.5. Like probably 3 times that amount. LOL!!! I am hoping that by the end of my first week, my stomach will have shrunk and want be growling at me even while I am feeding it. The first 2 weeks is always the hardest, but I am determined to stick with it and loose this weight!!!! More tomorrow!!!!

HCG diet update

2010-08-29T23:06:00.004-05:00

Well today starts my 3rd day of my diet, but really the first day of low calories.The last 2 days I was able to eat whatever I wanted. It was called the Gorging days. Of course I found it hard to do since I never eat the types of foods suggested to me to eat. Lucky the Fair was going on and I indulged in some yummy jalapeno sausage on a bun both nights. I also had my favorite Frappe at Starbucks like 3 times. I knew it would be a while before I would get another. I usually get it low fat, but got them full fat. Forgot how yummy they were with all the fat. It's amazing how your mind goes crazy when your doctor says eat whatever your heart desires for 2 days. I have not been able to do that in over a year. There were so many thoughts that I think I overwhelmed myself and ended up not eating the things I desired most. Like a juicy hamburger. I have not had that in so long, I forgot what it taste like. Oh well. Probably better I not know. So I am sure you are wondering what this diet is about. It's called the HCG diet. It's really a cleanse diet that removes all the toxins from the body. You take this HCG hormone for 23 days. You eat very low calories making sure you eat no sugar, bad carbs, forcing your body to get its needed calories and energy from the stored fat in your fat cells. Then after 23 days you start to add back foods and more calories a little at a time for 3 weeks still not eating sugar, starches, and simple carbs. After that 3 weeks you eat a diet of about 1200 calories. Then you can do it again, same steps until you reach desired weight. I will probably be on this journey for a while as my doctor wants me to drop about 80 pounds. I would never suggest doing this without doctor. There are so many things to watch for and a lot of supplements you must take while being on such low calories. Oh and you have to drink lots of water. Like 6 to 8 16 oz bottles a day so that you can rid the body of toxins and fat. Anyway, go search for HCG diet and read. You can order it from the Internet, but I suggest going to your doctor. Especially if you have any other health issues. As for me, my main focus is getting my blood sugar set back to normal and reset my metabolism so that weight loss will be easier. I am currently in a size 16 and would like to wear size 10 to 12. So blood sugar nomal and size 10/12 are my goals. Really hoping it works.

Today I had

Breakfast-Green Tea and my Reds(a vitamin supplement drink mixed with water)
Lunch- tuna salad with grated cabbage
Dinner- 3.5 oz of steak (boy have I Been eating high on the hog over the years) slaw salad
Before bed I had another glass of my reds.
Total calories=360---I fell short about 140 calories. Must do better tomorrow.
Water=6 bottles=96 oz.
How do I feel?? A little hungry going to bed, but not going to eat cause checked my blood sugar and it was only 102. Lowest it's been in a long time. I usually do not have problems controlling it during the day when I am active, but at night and mornings is when it goes up. Usually wake up around 140 in morning. Praying it will be much lower in the morning. Will keep you posted on my progress.

Goings On!!!

2010-08-27T08:39:00.003-05:00

I have been so crazy busy this past month with my new job, church ect.... that I have not had a chance to sit down and post on my blog. So I thought I would jump in today and say a few things about what I have been doing and will be doing.

1. new job taking care of the sweetest elderly couple 4 hours a day M-F. Love the extra money.

2. doing some stuff around our house. Re leveled the front yard and about to plant some grass. Finished painting the door trims in the hallway, and finally got my entertainment center built. Very cool stuff.

3. Doing lots of church activities. About to start a New Scrapbooking Life Group. Its something I have wanted to do for a very long time. Our Ministry will be in card making and we will be donating any money we get to our Water 10:42 Ministry!!! That is a Ministry that several of our guys are doing. They are building water wells in Africa. YOOHOOO!!!!

4. Started a new Diet as of today. So ready to get back to loosing some weight. Have done great maintaining what I already lost, but ready to loose some more. Mostly just want to get my blood sugar and other things under control. Its so hard to get yourself back healthy again when you get unhealthy!!! Wish me luck on this adventure. Its a pretty tough diet but has had great success!!!

I will send out some photos of the things I have mentioned above. The next few days will be busy, but hopefully will slow down by Sunday afternoon. I promise to blog more often. I know I have said that before, but I am a person with great hopes!!! If you are going to dream, you might as well DREAM BIG!!! Have a awesome amazing day!!!

Full Meal Cornbread

2010-07-24T11:20:00.003-05:00

I wanted to share this recipe as it is one of my most favorite meals. I have been cooking it for like 20 years now and never have we gotten bored of it. Just so yummy!!!

1 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons butter
1 pound of sausage cooked, crumbled, and drained
3 packages of cornbread mix
1 1/3 cups of milk
3 eggs
2 tablespoons sugar
1 can of cream style corn (sweet corn will work also)
1 pound of cheddar cheese
2 or 3 jalapenos
2 tablespoons of jalapeno juice

Saute onion in butter. Add to the cooked sausage. Mix together corn bread mix, milk, eggs, sugar, and corn. Add chopped jalapenos and juice. Pour 1/2 of batter into large 18x12x2 pan. Top with onion, sausage, and 3/4 of cheese. Pour remaining batter over sausage. Bake at 350 for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Sprinkle remaining cheese over top of batter during last 20 minute of cooking.

2010-07-18T21:26:00.006-05:00

Yesterday we had a great time at the Women's Church Luau. It was a lotta hot, but we made the best of it!!! Had some great laughs watching the Hula Dancer teach some of the Ladies how to mix their fruit bowls!!! No party would be complete without yummy fruits, dips, and punch!!! Love my church and all the Ladies!!! Its nice to just get with the girls, relax a little, and have some great fun!!!
Lots of pretty Tropical decorations
Yummy Homemade Cupcakes!!!
What would a Luau be without a few temporary tattoos. Tattoo Artist Dawn D is giving Pastor Kris a hip tattoo!!!The whole Luau Gang!!!

Learning to do the Hula!!! Too much fun!!!

Hula Dancer with Non Hula Dancer.

Necessary Heartbreak

2010-07-17T18:35:00.006-05:00

What a amazing great book!!! This was our second book for our Ladies Book Club at church and it was a very fast read for me. I got it on Monday and finished it this morning. I just could not stop reading it. Every page made you want to read more and more. One of the things I always think would be cool is if you could just step back into a time period that you have never lived. There are many time periods I would like to visit. This book is about doing just that. Walking through a tunnel and stepping out into the days of Jesus!!! That would be soooo awesome. Of course I am pretty sure I would not want to go through, or witness some of the stuff this man and his daughter encountered in their journey. A very amazing story to read for sure and one I would definitely recommend to everyone. Loved it!!! Now on to my next book. Reading is becoming very fun.

4th of July Weekend

2010-07-06T10:40:00.015-05:00

was the most amazing weekend I have had in a very long time. It started out on Friday with a awesome dinner and fishing with my husband and little girl at the lake. Then on Saturday we met up with some friends for shopping at Cabela's Sporting store. Then back to the pond for more fishing and then.... as we were out there a huge storm hit us so fast we did not have time to get out of it. We got drenched. Its been forever since that has happened. From head to toe wet. It was amazing and fun. Then we came home for dry clothes and a Rib and Brisket dinner from the local BBQ store. Then off to the most awesome fireworks show I have seen in a very long time. Just had the best day ever with our friends. Sunday we went to Church and the service was amazing!!! So full of energy and Gods presence filled the room. I love, love our new Church. It just gets better every time I go. After church we went shopping for pool supplies and BBQ fixings. Then home to rest and then off to our other friends for Fajitas and Fireworks. It was the best time as we all gathered around and watched the kiddos put on a really great fireworks show. Monday we sort of relaxed most of the morning away and then later we gave the pond another try and ended up catching 12 fish, which 6 of them were keepers. So we will be having ourselves a little fish fry come tonight for dinner. Just a super fun weekend with friends!!! I love these weekends. Lots of great memories for me to scrapbook and keep forever in my heart. Here are some photos of the weekend that I would like to share.

Saturday 4th of July City Fireworks show

Kadie and her best friend LeRoy!!!
My Bro, Craig!!
My Bro and Me!!! I think we are starting to look closely related these days!!!
My Honey Bun and Me. This will be our 28th 4th of July together and all but 2 spent in this same place!!!

We really missed having my Mom and Dad there this year and our friends Debbie and Ken.

Sunday BBQ

Awww Char, you and hubby look so sweet together!!!

Whats 4th of July without a little Watermelon!!!

Even the dog must eat Watermelon!!!

Don and Dawn!!! Love these people!!!

Me doing a little fishing at the Baker Pond..Fishing is now my most favorite Hobby!!!

Best way to stay cool of 4th of July weekend is swimming. My Kadie girl is part fish!!!
The Hostess with the Mostess!!! Thanks Billie and Ryan for a wonderful day!!
Randy and Twila
Keith and Shirley
Goofy girls.. Dawn and Brenda

Boys having fun popping firecrackers!!

Don giving some Fly Fishing Tips!!!

So as you can see from some of the photos I took this weekend, we just had a wonderful time.

One last thing before I go today. I finished reading the book "Leota's Garden

This book was fantastic. I have not read a lot of books in my lifetime as this is all kind of new to me, but this has got to be one of my favorites. I have read most of the Sister Chick series and I loved them all. This one I loved probably more than they. That is saying a lot for this book. One of these days I plan to read more of Francine Rivers books. I think she puts in a lot of things we can relate too or apply to our lives. The ending to this book had a surprising twist that I did not expect. It was a little slow in the beginning as she was introducing all the characters and making you love them all for different reasons. The last 13 chapters of the book went really fast as I did not want to stop reading them. Leota's was an amazing women and I am so glad I met her through this book. I totally recommend reading this book!!!

Ok, thats it for now. Come back soon ya here!!!

Friends, Fishing, and Swimming Fun!!!

2010-06-28T19:56:00.004-05:00

What a wonderful day this was. It started out with a birthday party for our sweet little Breanna at Tom Muehlenbeck Center in Plano. What a great place to have a Birthday part. Covered Pavilion with Ceiling fans.
Then we left there and headed over for some Fried Catfish and Onion Rings at Harbor House on Collin Park Marina. Yummy Catfish!!!

Then after a rest for the days activities we decided it was time for some fishing. We went out to the point of Lake Lavon. It was a beautiful night. Breezy and a sky full of stars. Aaron was our hero for the night. We did not catch a lot of fish, but we sure did make a lot of wonderful memories. Love our friends Ron, Shelley, Aaron, and Breanna.
A total day of Friends, Fishing, and Swimming Fun!!!

Speaking of Swimming, yes we are crazy, but decided that our little human fish needed a pool of her own to jump in on hot summer days. So we went out and got her the biggest, most affordable pool we could find. We figure it was better to get the bigger as it would be easier to maintain. Plus the added size would bring enjoyment to the entire family. As you see below, even our son and his friend are enjoying some swimming fun.

And speaking of fishing. Did I ever say that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE TO FISH!!! My plan for the summer is to spend as much time as possible, fishing. Fishing, Fishing, Fishing, and more fishing. That's all I want to do. The pictures below are us fishing at our little SouthLake Park Pond. They just recently stocked it with Catfish, so of course we race out for the fun. We had many, many, many bites and caught 2 fish all in the 30 minutes we got to be there. Then the Texas Storms blew in and we had to go. It was great fun while it lasted.

Love when we can catch pictures like this. My daughter actually took this picture. Awesome sweetie!!!

More fish stories and summer fun to come, so check back often!!!

Scrapbook Fun!!!

2010-06-24T21:10:00.007-05:00

Today was a wonderful fun day. My friend Twila came over and we scrapbooked. Yes you heard right. I actually got out real printed pictures, paper, glue, and sissors. Its probably been a year since I actually did a real page. I have been doing digital for most of my scrapbook, but there is just something about paper, sissors, and glue. Just cannot be replaced when it comes to fun. I went to my favorite sketch site
http://julie-bonner.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-04-12T15%3A01%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=7
and made this layout below.
This was such a fun sketch and layout of my Bug at the park.
Looking forward to more scrapbook fun!!!

Fishing and Reading

2010-06-08T15:38:00.007-05:00

Got my stitches out and my head is healing very good. Doctor says I probably want have much of a scar on my forehead, so that is good news. Don't need any extra lines with all the wrinkles that I can see in my future. I just have to say I have the most amazing friends a girl could ask for. During this time I was down, I was so spoilt with food, movies, time spent with me, phone calls, emails, and cards. I think God allowed this all to happen just so I could see how many wonderful friends I do have in my life. Sometimes I get a little down thinking about the friends I no longer have and forgetting to be grateful for the friends I do have. I guess sometimes it takes a 2x6 hitting you on the head for you to realize these sort of things in life. Thank you God for showing me what wonderful friends I do have. I love them all and I will never feel sorry for myself and forget them again.

Went fishing over the weekend and caught my first fish of the year. Not a real big one, but a fun one to reel in. Had to hand it over to my hubby as I was way to nervous. Was afraid he would get away before I could see him. Between the 5 of us, we caught about 2 dozen brim, 1 pretty good size catfish, 1 small sand bass, and 1 small black bass. Not too bad for a evening of fishing. Can't wait to go again. Love to fish.

I joined a book club at my church and our first book is called Leota's Garden by Francine Rivers http://www.francinerivers.com/books/leotas-garden
Our first meet up is at the end of this month and so I only have about 2 weeks to get it read. Yikers!!! I am a very slow reader. I just got it yesterday and starting the 3 chapter. The chapters are long and the writing is small, but so far the story is good.

I figured since this was such a big book, I better make me a sturdy book marker. This is called a Corner Book marker. I took a long sealed envelope and covered both sides with pattern cardstock. Then I cut the corner of one end of envelope in a half moon circle. After I cut it, I used a scallop border punch and scalloped the edge. Then I cut out the top corner inward and put a lace border and ribbon on the edge. Stamped my little raggedy stamp, colored, and popped her up in the middle. Fits perfectly on the corner of my book. Fun project.

I am heading outside in the heat now to see if I can help my sweet husband. He is digging out junk from our storage buildings for a garage sale this coming weekend. I am not hip on this idea cause I hate garage sales, but he wants to have one and says he will do all the work. So I should at least look like I am a little interested even though I am not at all interested. LOL!!! Gotta love him though for trying to sell our junk.

28 stitches later

2010-05-30T18:31:00.004-05:00

Well when I do something, I never do it just halfway. I go all out. Here is the story of how I ended the day with 28 stitches....

Yesterday I went up to my parents lake house to hang out. We were sitting around enjoying the day when the neighbor came over. We visited in the house for a bit and then took the conversation outside to the porch. She was sharing a really great fish story with all of us and I decided to sit on the porch swing with my hubby. We had been sitting there for about 10 minutes when all of a sudden the swing broke and we went crashing to the ground which then followed the 2x6 that was holding the porch swing to the ceiling of the porch. Well that board hit me in the head and then Kelvin on both knees. I immediately knew I was hurt as blood quickly started flowing down my face and as I pulled my hand away from my head, I was hold several strands of my hair. I of course stood up and was trying to make my way to the car to go to the hospital. Did not get far as I then needed to lay down. I think I was either going into shock or just dazed. So I hear all this shouting for ice and towels and the next thing I know I am being put in ambulance and headed to Presby Hospital in the town I lived in which was 30 minutes from my parents lake house. So it was a very interesting/bumpy ride. Got there and the started cleaning me up and putting in stitches. 8 on the inside and 20 on the outside. I was very lucky as the CT Scan showed no brain or skull injuries. Thank you God. I just now have this nasty cut on my face and head and feeling very sore. I am not able to wash my hair for 3 days, so not sure what that is going to look like. The doctor tried not to cut to much of my hair off. Anyways here is a picture of my beautiful new look that I will be sporting for probably then next 2 weeks. Lets hope there is no to very little scaring.

Hope everyone is having a great Memorial weekend.

Lessons of Friendship

2010-05-25T12:11:00.003-05:00

Got this off of a digital scrapbook blog that I frequent often. Thought I would share
http://creativeelegancedesigns.blogspot.com/

Inside Out

2010-05-24T11:14:00.003-05:00

Going to church and studying Gods word with a Best Girlfriend is so wonderful. I am so loving the Bible study that we are doing at our church right now. Its called Inside Out and its about learning how to have God live on the inside of us out, instead of outside in. We are only in week 2 of the study, but already it has opened my eyes to so much. For so long I was feeling like I was this horrible person. Like trouble followed me around or I had shame written across my forehead or something. I was only made to feel that way a few years ago when I had gotten into a huge fight with several ladies I scrap booked with. The fight did not involve them at all, but they jumped into it taking sides and sent horrible emails to me and phone calls telling me what a horrible person I was. How I needed to seek counseling and sent many bible scriptures that I do not even think they truly understood. They hurt other ladies that were my friends and made them feel guilt and shame for being my friends. It was awful time of my life. Its weird how when someone plants seeds of doubt in your mind, it can take over your whole being. That's what we are learning. How if we entertain little ole doubt by inviting it into our minds and heart, then in follows is so much more. From doubt comes depression, fear, insecurities, worry, low self-esteem. All things that can completely destroy our lives if we choose to let them. For about 3 years now these things have lived in my mind and heart and have been destroying who I really am. I have always been very loyal, strong willed, sweet, kind hearted person. Have never met a stranger, and loved everyone. A real happy go lucky girl. Never really had problems making friends. At the same time I have never been one to take abuse for others, nor let others tear me down. Would walk away from bad company without a thought. For some reason I let these women get inside of my head. Turning me into this person I, nor others could recognize. I finally have come to realize that I am none of the things that these ladies accused me of being. I may have become the person they accused me of being, but inside, I am NOT this person. Yes, I do take blame for my bad behavior in the situation and realize there were many other ways I could have handled this situation, but I am NOT the things they had me believe I was. We all make mistakes in our lives and we all do and say things sometimes we are not proud of, but for the most part we are all good people just trying to live in a really bad world. As adults we have forgotten to have hearts of children, where we disagree about something and then forgive one another almost in the same sentence. What I have learned the last few weeks in this class and at Church is that when someone is hurting, they hurt others. They lash out at the ones they love. My best friend was hurting because of a really tragic event in her life, and because of this, she lashed out and hurt me. It was how I handled this hurt that destroyed our friendship. Instead of excepting her hurt and helping her through it, I hurt her back. I am not blaming myself entirely, as it is true that it takes more than one to tango, but I could have done things differently if I had more control over my emotions at the time. If I had taken my thoughts that came into my mind and took control of them, then my heart would have not gotten involved and emotions would have not been vented and then words would have not been said. What my Pastor said in church yesterday is so true,

Sow a thought--Reap an Action
Sow a Action--Reap a habit
Sow a Habit--Reap a Character
Sow a Character--Reap Destiny

In one day, with one phone call, I Sowed a thought, and that thought became a action, and that action set forth more actions, which became a habit, and then that habit became a character, and then that character destroyed friendships which changed destiny. All because of a thought that I did not have control over. I just let my emotions take over. Because of one thought, many, many people were hurt and many friendships were lost. It certainly is hard when you come to the realization of your wrong doings. Really makes you wish you could rewind. But that is not what this class is about. We are not suppose to have regret or shame of the things we have done in our past. We are not perfect. Only Jesus was perfect and because of what he did for us, we are forgiven. I am starting to have a great sense of freedom now. I no longer feel angry. I am free of doubt, depression, fear. I no longer fear that I will loose friends. I no longer doubt who I am, I am no longer sad. I no longer feel guilt or shame. All I am right now is very thankful for the friends I have in my life, for the family I have, and most of all for Jesus who stuck by my side and helped me get through this rough time in my life. For forgiving me for my mistakes and for loving me so much that he died a horrible death for me. I cannot wait to learn more in this class. I know it will be something that I carry in my heart for the rest of my life. I know that I will never have this sort of thing happen again because I am learning how to capture my thoughts and guard my heart. I am learning that when someone hurts me, that really its them hurting. I know life will be easier when God is living Inside Out.

More quilt squares

2010-05-20T21:13:00.005-05:00

Went on a retreat this past weekend with my BFF's and had a wonderful time. Did a little digital scrapbooking and some more quilting. Here are my newest quilt squares
Card Tricks
Yankee Puzzle
Contrary Wife

I still have at least 6 squares to go before I have enough to finish the quilt. I think its going to be really pretty. A very fun project for sure.

Great News!!!

2010-04-30T21:13:00.006-05:00

Wowsa, I cannot believe its been way over a month since I blogged last. Time sure does fly when you are having fun. What have I been up to lately..... So much. Lets see where to start first.

A new church home!!!! Yeehawwww!!! Was not really looking for one, but it found us anyway. It has made me love going to church again. Its been a long time since I had that feeling. I cannot wait for Sunday mornings. In fact, I was thinking the other day that I wish we could have church every day. I always leave with such a wonderful feeling. Look forward to really getting our feet planted in this church. Its been a long time since I felt that way also. This coming Sunday I will actually be a door greeter. How exciting is that!!! I am hoping to serve on our Welcome team as I really know what it feels like to visit new churches and need to feel welcomed. God is so awesome!!! He knew exactly what I was wanting in a church and brought it right to me!!! Thank you God for our new Church. I pray that it will go BIG and everything we do will glorify your name!!! Amen!!!

Making so many new friends these days. Had some doors close, only to find new ones opening. I think I finally let down those walls I had built up over the past few years. It really feels good. It just seems that my life has completely changed. I have sort of put my scrap booking on the back burner for now. I know "Hush my mouth" but I think it was something I had to do to move forward. I started doing more of my Crochet, but my newest love is Quilting. A lady that I have become great friends with through my home school Co-op got me interested in it. She started taking a class at our local Quilt shop and the quilt she is making is putting the front, middle, and back all on so that when she is done, the quilt is completed. No making the top and then spending a bundle putting on the back. It is done square by square!!! Totally awesome. My whole reason for not quilting is I did not like the idea of making a quilt top and never finishing it because of lack of money to put on the back. This way you are doing it little by little and the cost is spread out through the quilt. Thank you Rita for getting me excited about Quilting. The quilt that I am making is for my husband. He went shopping with me and picked out all the colors. He did an amazing job of picking out these colors. Here they are

Now here are the 3 squares I have completed. Each of these are 12 1/2 by 12 1/2.

The name of this square is "Broken Dishes"

The name of this square is "Sarah's Choice"

And the name of this one is "Churn Dash"

Please note that I am doing these squares with very little experience in quilting and no help. Just a wing and a prayer. Having a great time!!!

I will post more as I do them and hopefully will soon be able to post a picture of the finished quilt.

That's it for now. I know I have said this before, but maybe if I say it enough times I will actually do it. I hope to post more often to my blog. I really do have so many things I want to share. So please check back just in case I actually do what I say. Love to all!!!

Spreading a little Luck!!!

2010-03-10T16:16:00.002-06:00

GO GREEN!!! This month is all about St. Patty's Day. Even though I have not done a lot of celebrating over the past years, I do love the Holiday and its history. My husband is very Irish and I have some Irish, and so I thought this year we should start some new Irish Traditions for our family. We are going to get into the spirit of St. Patty's Day with good Irish food, Desserts, Drinks, Crafts, and of course stories and poems. To start everything off, I will post a little history about St. Patricks Day in case you do not know it. Then a recipe that I plan to cook.

Who was Saint Patrick?

Even though Saint Patrick the patron saint of Ireland and one of the most celebrated religious figures around the world, the factual information about his life and times is quite vague. Most information about St. Patrick has been twisted, embellished, or simply made up over centuries by storytellers, causing much ambiguity about the real life of St. Patrick. However, there are a some elements of his story about which most scholars accept to be true.

According to Coilin Owens, Irish literature expert and Professor Emeritus of English at George Mason University, Saint Patrick is traditionally thought to have lived "between 432-461 A.D., but more recent scholarship moves the dates up a bit." At the age of sixteen he was kidnapped from his native land of the Roman British Isles by a band pirates, and sold into slavery in Ireland. Saint Patrick worked as a shepherd and turned to religion for solace. After six years of slavery he escaped to the Irish coast and fled home to Britain.

While back in his homeland, Patrick decided to become a priest and then decided to return to Ireland after dreaming that the voices of the Irish people were calling him to convert them to Christianity.

After studying and preparing for several years, Patrick traveled back to Ireland as a Christian missionary. Although there were already some Christians living in Ireland, St. Patrick was able to bring upon a massive religious shift to Christianity by converting people of power. Says Prof. Owens, "[St. Patrick] is credited with converting the nobles; who set an example which the people followed."

But Patrick's desire to spread of Christianity was not met without mighty opposition. Prof. Owens explains, "Patrick ran into trouble with the local pagan priesthood, the druids: and there are many stories about his arguments with them as well as his survival of plots against them." He laid the groundwork for the establishment of hundreds of monasteries and churches that eventually popped up across the Irish country to promote Christianity.

Saint Patrick is also credited with bringing written word to Ireland through the promotion of the study of legal texts and the Bible, says Prof. Owens. Previous to Patrick, storytelling and history were reliant on memory and orally passing down stories.

Patrick's mission in Ireland is said to have lasted for thirty years. It is believe he died in the 5th century on March 17, which is the day St. Patrick's Day is commemorated each year.

The first year St. Patrick's Day was celebrated in America in 1737 in Boston, Massachusetts. The first official St. Patrick's Day parade was held in New York City in 1766. As the saying goes, on this day "everybody is Irish!" Over 100 U.S. cities now hold Saint Patrick's Day parades.

Corned Beef Brisket Recipe
Ingredients :
1 (8-10 lb) beef brisket
4 garlic cloves, peeled and cut in thirds
The Brine ... See More
1/2 cup white vinegar
4 tablespoons sugar
2 quarts water
1 cup kosher salt
3 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
1 pinch ground cloves
1 teaspoon peppercorns
The Simmering Liquid
water, to come up 3/4 to side of brisket
1/2 teaspoon whole allspice
1/4 teaspoon whole cloves
1 teaspoon peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds
4 garlic cloves, sliced
Preparation :
Combine all of the brine ingredients and bring to a boil, then cool. Place the beef brisket, the cooled brine, and the 4 garlic cloves in a huge plastic roasting bag. Make sure that all of the meat is covered by the brine, tie off tightly, place in a pot large enough to hold it all, and refrigerate for 6 to 7 days, turning occasionally.
After the 6 to 7 days, discard the brine after removing the brisket from the brine. The meat should be thoroughly rinsed and then placed in a Dutch oven or other large pot. Add enough water to come up 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up the side of the meat.
Add the rest of the Simmering Liquid ingredients (peppercorns, mustard seeds, allspice, cloves and garlic), bring to a boil and skim off any foam. Reduce heat to a low simmer and cook, covered, for at least 3 hours.
6-8 servings.

Come back for more St. Patty's Day Celebrating!!!

Gardening and Crochet Muse!!!

2010-03-05T13:18:00.011-06:00

Howdy blog friends, Its FRIDAY!!!! YOOOWHOOO!!! I do love Fridays. I get to enjoy my husband/Best Friend for 2 whole days. This weekend we are working in the back yard. I have decided this year to give gardening a try. I come from a Mother with a very green thumb, but have never felt like that green thumb was passed on to me. Then I got to thinking that I really have never given gardening much of a chance. I have dabbled with it here, and there, planting a few flowers, and some vegetables, but really never doing a lot. This year I have decided to do more. My sweet husband separated our yard in half with a fence, so that my doggies could use one side of it, and I could have a nice area to grow flowers ect... on the other side. I have found out in the past that pets and gardens do not mix. My big dog does not understand small tiny flowers and keeping his paws away. So with the fence, this will give him space to run and play, and give my flowers a chance to grow without paw damage. I am very excited about this. A few years back I had done some really pretty stuff to our back yard. Planted some flowers, put in a little pond, put up a patio cover, swing ect.... Well it was not long before the dogs were sleeping in the swing, stomping on the flowers, and even swimming in the pond. Needless to say, my work was for nothing. So my excitement to give this a try is back, as the solution to the problem is fixed. So this weekend my husband is building a Arbor, I believe that is what its called. Its a cover over the patio that you grow ivy or whatever. Over time, it will grow thick and make a really pretty cover for the patio. Below is a picture, or example I found on the Internet of what he is building. Ours is closer to our house and will be next to my covered patio. It will also have a picnic table under it. Hopefully I will be able to have plants ect... around and under, and hanging from mine very soon. My pond will be sort of to the left of the Arbor, and then near will be swing and more plants, and lots of stepping stones. I have it all in my head how I want it to look, but getting it out will be the task. I am excited though to finally be in the mood again to do something nice to my yard. Lets just hope I can inherit that green thumb that my Mother has, and my money will not be wasted once again.

Speaking of Mothers, I did lots of crochet this past week. I now understand more of how my sweet Mother-in-Law was able to achieve so much with her crochet. I mean she could sit down and crochet a entire Afghan in a week. I could never figure out how she could do that. This past week gave me the answer to that question. The answer is "You never set the crochet hook down" No matter what you do, you do it, and crochet at the same time. LOL!!! I accomplished so much this week. So much that I could hardly move my right arm. My shoulder is still aching. LOL!!! I had a goal to get some things done before our crochet class on Monday, for our little girls. I wanted to show them all the things you could do with the Afghan stitch. Below are all the things I created

A little bag for Ipod or whatever!!!

A book cover for Bible!!!

A Book marker

A neck warmer!!!

and a Scarf!!! All in one week. Its amazing that I, Jeanie Beanie, can stay focused that long, and actually finish something. I really do not think I can be labeled Queen of Unfinished projects any longer. Maybe its just finding something you enjoy doing that helps to get the projects finished.

And speaking of finished projects.... I finished the basket weave scarf that I started late fall. I figured since I was on a roll, I might as well get this finished also. It turned out beautiful. Its very heavy though, and perhaps I should take a trip to Alaska, or maybe even Antarctica to be able to use it. One things for sure, it will keep me warm on those cold winter days. I just love this stitch. This would make a excellant afghan for a bed.

Thats it for now. One last update to share. Dani's fever broke and she is having some upset tummy. Have not heard anything today yet. So praying no news is good news, and that she is getting stronger and stronger. Just keep praying for her. Hugs to all!!!

Dani Girl!!!

2010-03-03T21:57:00.005-06:00

Excellant news today!!! My little niece Dani went into surgery and recieved a new kidney. This young girl of 16 has been sick since she was like 8 years old with a auto immune type diease that over time destroyed her kidneys. She has been on dialysis 3 times or more a week for several years now. She has had many other complications because of this diease as well. She has been a sick little girl. Never the less she is always smiling and always happy go lucky. Always enjoying her life, which includes her family, school, and friends. Very beautiful girl.
On top of her beauty, I recently learned that she is a very talented singer. We attended her school talent show last week and she did an amazing job singing Reba's song "Fancy" Here is the video of her song http://www.youtube.com/watch#!videos=EgfnWT4zPhM&v=nzbtbvMVlTI

We are so proud of this girl, and we love her very much. Everyone that reads this post, please continue to pray for Dani. She is still not out of the woods yet. Will keep you updated of her recovery. Hugs to all!!!

Crochet?? Knit?? Both!!!

2010-02-22T20:56:00.011-06:00

Hidy friends, I have decided to recommit myself to my blog again. I am missing it badly. I guess I just needed a break, but now I am feeling strongly about posting again. So I will start this one off with my latest crochet/knitting projects. Yes I said knitting. I finally found someone that was willing to teach me knitting. I am of course a beginner, so I do not have anything fabulous to show yet, but hopefully soon I will have a scarf. Here is a picture of what I have so far. I love this yarn and the colors. Its very soft and it reminds me of ice cream. Don't ask me why as I have no clue, but it does. Now the question of the day is "Do I like Knitting??" Its ok, but it has not won my heart as of yet. I certainly do not like it as much as Crochet. One needle verses 2 needles. It just does not compare. I am so in love with crochet. But then, everyone has their favorite. I will still keep knitting, as I think there are many possibilities of really loving it. With me, it just takes doing it over and over. I can say at one time that I did not care for Crochet either. I tried it once when I was younger 20's, as my MIL tried to teach me, then again, and again through the years, and then one day it just happen. I picked it up and I could not put it down. Nearly wore my arm out before I put it down. So who knows. The same thing might happen with knitting. I do know I want stop trying cause it is fun.
So on to Crochet. Here's what I have going. I always have more than one project going, as I get bored easily.This yarn is sooooooo fabulous. Very chunky,very soft, and fuzzy. It is for sure out of my yarn security box. I usually stick with the more basic yarns, but a friend told me in a round about way that I really needed to experiment with yarn, and so I decided she was right. I just love rubbing this yarn on my face. This is the start of a scarf. I know, another scarf. I am in love with making them, as its a fast way to get results. I am one of those that needs results. Plus who could ever have enough scarves. I do not think I could complete a Afghan right now. I think I would loose interest too fast. Perhaps one day though.
Speaking of Afghan. This scarf is using the Afghan stitch. If you have never tried this stitch, I totally recommend it. Its the most awesome stitch that I have ever done in Crochet. Its also called the knit stitch for crochet. So its kind of like having your cake and ice cream both. There I go with that ice cream thing again. I must be unconsiously craving ice cream. Anyways it has the beautiful look of knitting, but with one needle. Love it, love it!!! Go to youtube.com and type in Afghan stitch. There are some wonderful videos that can teach you.Here is another project using the Afghan stitch. This is a neck warmer. This was great fun, fast, and I learned to make pom poms. Of course I had to go to hobby lobby and buy me the really cool pom, pom maker. They are such fun to do. I can now see why my MIL made a entire box of these. This yarn is awesome. Its more the basic yarn, but its wonderful and very affordable. It is about the same price as the Red Heart, but I think its so much softer. Its from Hobby Lobby. Its called "Love this Yarn" So many delicious colors to pick from.

So one last thing to share about crochet. Here is the most awesome thing I have discovered lately. Do you have issues with your yarn getting tangled in your bag? I know I do. I have tried everything under the sun to keep my yarn nice and neat. The other day while at Hobby Lobby I saw these handy looking little net thingies. They are called Yarn Sleeves. So I bought some to try. So far I give them 2 thumbs up. I got through a entire skein of thread and not one tangle or ravel. A very cheap solution, to a very annoying problem.Ok, that's it for now. I am planning to post more daily musings, more often. So please come back!!! Hugs and prayers, and much blessings to all that read this.

Digital Fun!!!

2010-01-31T20:11:00.007-06:00

Hey Blog friends, So sorry its been so long since I posted. Just been busy enjoying life. This year sort of started off on a bad note. My external hard drive crashed and I lost all of my pictures and digital stuff. I actually thought it was the end of the world and spent a entire day crying, but once I gathered myself, I searched and found a lot of my pictures on disk and figured out that some of my digital was not totally lost as I had saved some of it even. So really once all was said and done, I lost mostly 2008 photos. There were a lot of great photos from that year as that was the year we spent camping and fishing. I do have some that I had uploaded to my blog, so I am thankful for that. Anyways, the lesson from all of this is to back up your stuff in more than one place. It really does suck when you loose it all.

On a good note, I have been doing lots of purging the last few weeks. Cleaned out my closet of 7 bags of clothes and cleaned out my room of all the junk that I had accumulated. Got rid of some furniture and made more space. Continued through the house and so far have purged about 12 large trash bags of stuff. Then I redecorated my bathroom and did some major spring cleaning in other areas of the house. So I am happy to say that my house is looking very good. I love when my house is clean.

What else have I been doing?? Well I have been working on my digital stuff. I am so loving digital scrapbooking. I love that its something I can do watching TV with my husband or anywhere else in the house. This past weekend I had my best girlfriends over and we all sit together and digital scrapbooked. It was amazing that each person only had to bring in one bag and that we could actually fit 5 of us in my scrapbook room with room to spare. Just takes up so much less space than paper scrapbooking. I just love it so much!!! Here are some photos of our fun weekend.

Here are the layouts that I worked on. I am not any faster doing digital, but I love it so much more.

Ok, so that is it for now. I will try really hard to post more often. After loosing all my photos, I realized how important it is to blog pictures. Hope everyone is having a super great year so far. Hugs to all of you!!!

A New Year is almost Here!!

2009-12-29T14:49:00.001-06:00

I saw this on another website and wanted to share!!

A New Year Prayer

Holy Father,

God of our yesterdays, our today, and our tomorrows.

We praise You for Your unequaled greatness.

Thank You for the year behind us and for the year ahead.

Help us in Your new year, Father, to fret less and laugh more.

To teach our children to laugh by laughing with them.

To teach others to love by loving them.

Knowing, when Love came to the stable in Bethlehem, He came for us.

So that Love could be with us, and we could know You.

That we could share Love with others.

Help us, Father, to hear Your love song in every sunrise,

in the chriping of sparrows in our backyards,

in the stories of our old folks, and the fantasies of our children.

Help us to stop and listen to Your love songs,

so that we may know You better and better.

We rejoice in the world You loved into being.

Thank You for another new year and for new chances every day.

We pray for peace, for light, and for hope, that we might spread them to others.

Forgive us for falling short this past year.

We leave the irreparable past in your hands, and step out into the unknown new year knowing You will go with us.

We accept Your gift of a new year and we rejoice in what's ahead, depending on You to help us do exactly what You want..

I say it again, we rejoice!

In Jesus name,

Amen.

New Craft room

2009-12-11T20:33:00.007-06:00

My craft/scrapbook room is finally finished. After 6 months of rearranging and organizing, I am back in business!!! Here are pictures of it. I am so totally loving this room now. Thank you to my sweet, sweet, husband for all of your help in getting this room done. I organized everything into work stations. Above and below one table has all my stamp supplies. Another table has all my sewing, crochet ect... supplies. Another table has all my scrapbook supplies. Another table has all my jewelry findings and beads. Everything is labeled and easy to access. My most favorite thing in the room is my ribbon rack. I am a happy and now very organized crafter!!!
Today was such a fun day in my new craft room. My friend Dawn and her sweet daughter came over to hang out and we made some jewelry. I have gone to the craft shows several times this year and keep seeing these necklaces that look like picture frames. Finally found out that they are made using microscope slides and soldered metal. So her and I decided we must learn how to do this. Its the curse of the crafter. We have to know how to do it all. Anyways, we spent the week gathering all of our tools needed. Today was the big day to try and make a necklace. I wish I had pictures of hers to share. They turned out gorgeous. I still have not finished mine completely. Have some final touches to add. This is going to be a gift for my Bunko Christmas gift exchange. We were suppose to bring something handmade. I pounded my head all month and this is what I finally decided to do. I am excited to be giving this as a gift as I think it turned out very pretty. Here it is unfinished. I will post more pictures when its completed. Tomorrow we plan to get together again and make more. I have several people on my list that I think will love to have one of these necklaces. Hope everyone is having a great Christmas Season so far!!! Hugs!!!This is the back. Its the definition of sweet. I thought it was perfect for the picture on the front.Come back soon and see what else is going on in the new craft room!!!!

Life is Good

2009-11-25T15:48:00.004-06:00

Today I was just sitting and enjoying a cup of my favorite hot tea, Almond Sunset, in my favorite cup. I started thinking about the saying on the cup and then I thought.... I have not blogged in a while. It seems that blogging has kind of taken a back seat to a lot of other things in my life right now. I have loved doing my blog over the past couple of years. It has helped me through some really rough patches in the last few years with the loss in death of my sweet MIL and the loss of friendship with not one, but 2, of my best friends. Its helped to take me to much better places and thoughts, and kept my mind busy thinking of good things to share with friends ect.... rather than dwell so much on the negative. But now I do not feel like I need that escape as much any more. Yes there are some bad days, but they are getting farther and farther apart. I am finally feeling happy again and as the cup reads "Life is Good" Over the past few months I have realized that although I have lost some really good friends, I still have some of the best friends a girl could ask for. I have a wonderful Church home finally that we are so very happy with. I have a awesome family and my husband is my Best Friend Forever!!! I am just so blessed to have him in my life. I have lots of fun hobbies that keep me busy and that I enjoy very much. I am one of the luckiest persons ever cause get to stay home with my sweet little girl and teach her everything I know. My health is on track, and although I have not lost the weight that I had hoped to loose at this point, I am feeling so much better about myself, mind, body, and Spirit. Jesus lives in my heart, fills me with hope and joy, and loves me despite the fact that I fail him daily. Please tell me, what could be better than all of that. I just cannot think of a thing.

So with that said,

what have I been up to lately....

I have seen several really,really good movies recently. "My Sisters Keeper" "Julia & Julia" "The Christmas Story" "New Moon" "Amelia"

I have been working on my craft room, organizing and putting up new shelves. Finding my color scheme finally. Hot pink and green.

I have been reading, posting, and playing my favorite games on Facebook. Love Facebook. It has brought old friends back in my life.

I have been doing some digital scrapbooking. Making a Christmas gift.

I have hung out with some great friends.

What is on my agenda for the weeks to come.....

God willing and the creek don't rise...

I plan to put up my fall decor and get out the Christmas stuff. This means we have to rake the yard first as there are leaves everywhere. Love my tree, but it sure leaves a mess.

I plan to do lots of careful Christmas shopping. Meaning I do not want to spend a ton of money, but I do want us to have a fun Christmas. So I plan to spend lots of time shopping for bargains.

I plan to make a few gifts for family and for Bunco. Not sure yet what it will be, but I have some ideas rolling around in my head.

I plan to do some Holiday events such as Church musicals, movies, parties, lightseeing, game night with family and friends. All the fun things the holidays has to offer.

I plan to work on some of my hobbies. I really want to get back into my scrapbooking, sewing, crochet. All the things I love to do.

I plan to prepare and go on another wonderful weekend retreat with my friends.

It seems like so much, but my biggest plan is to relax and truly enjoy the Spirit of Christmas. No rushing around, no stress, no pressure!!! Just relax and take each day as it comes and making the most of the blessings that God has given me.

That's my plans!!!

God bless each person that reads my blog. May your Holidays be filled with much happiness and cheer, and lots of blessings in the upcoming year!!!

I do not know when I will blog again, but know, I will blog again. Hugs to all!!!

Pumpkin Apple Nut Muffins

2009-10-22T20:29:00.003-05:00

Wow, I nearly forgot my blog address!!! It seems like forever since I blogged!!! I just have been so busy with baby girls school this year. It takes us the entire day on most days to finish. The rest of the day I am either busy organizing my craft room or actually crafting. Right now I am trying to finish 2 Raggedies I started in January. I am also working on my basket weave scarf. This stitch takes a long time to do, but it is so beautiful and well worth the time. When I finish I will post a picture. So much I want to do, but feel like I have very little time to do it!!! My other time consuming thing is Facebook games. I am so addicted to YoVille, Cafe World, RollerCoaster Kingdom, Farmville, and FarmTown. Yes I do all of them. They are so much fun. I even have my sweet hubby doing them too and its something we enjoy doing together while we watch our favorite fall shows. It really does not take much to entertain us. LOL!!! Anyway, what brought me to post tonight was my healthy yummy Muffins. This is my very own recipe and I have been making them for about 3 months. I think I finally have perfected them enough to share. These are lightly sweet, very low carb, low sugar, and lots of great fiber. They are great with coffee or tea. Each one of us in the family has a different way to eat them. My DD loves them with either honey or cream cheese. My husband loves them with butter and peanut butter!!! He has one almost every night before bed. Me, I love them with just a little sweet cream butter and my favorite Celestial Almond Dessert Tea. It makes the perfect snack most anytime of the day. So here is the recipe below along with a few pictures. Let me know what you think!!! Pumpkin Apple Nut Muffins

2 cups of freshly ground Golden Flax seeds (you can ground them in a coffee grinder. I buy them at the health food store. Be sure to use the Golden and not the brown.)

2 cups of chopped Walnuts

5 eggs

1 cup of heavy Cream

1 1/2 cup of Splenda

1/2 cup of Vanilla Flavored Whey Protein Powder

1 can of Pumpkin

1 granny smith apple diced into small cubes

2 tablespoons of Pumpkin Pie Spice

2 teaspoons of baking powder

2 teaspoons of baking soda

1/4 teaspoon of salt

In a large mixing bowl mix all ingredients together. I usually mix the first 4 ingredients together and then add in each ingredient after that one at a time. Heat oven to 350. Spray muffin pan with Baking spray. Fill each muffin space to the top edge. Bake for about 15 or 20 minutes until muffins are firm and golden. This recipe makes about 24 large muffins. Not sure how many small or mini!!

Basket Weave Stitch

2009-09-10T14:43:00.002-05:00

I completed my Basket Weave hat. Here to model for me is my sweet 10 year old daughter. She loves to pose for me. I am thinking after done, and looking at these pictures, that I think I got off on my stitches at some point, as I cannot see the basket weave as well as should. It still turned out to be a cute hat and I am sure it will be great keeping the head warm in the winter. I plan to start the matching scarf next, and I am sure it will be easier to do just because its a flat surface and I want be going in circles. Hats are very hard for me for some reason. My second completed project!! Wow, I am on a roll!! I am also thinking I will do a sample afghan. I have seen so many awesome videos on different crochet stitches and I want to do them all. So what better way than to do a sample afghan with the different squares of stitches. Need to look up some info on how many squares of each ect... to do the afghan. Sounds like fun!!!

Blog thoughts

2009-09-08T12:29:00.006-05:00

Hi Blog friends, This month has really started out great. We started our Bible study at church and the first night was so wonderful. Like a good book you cannot put down, I cannot wait for this weeks class, which is tomorrow. If you have never done a study on the 5 Crowns, I totally recommend it. Really makes you stop and think about your heavenly treasures and your talents and gifts. I have realized already in one class, that I have wasted a lot of my time on meaningless stuff and really need to spend more time in Gods word and figuring out where I should be spending my time. What are my gifts and how can I earn a Crown to lay before my Lord?? Just love how this class has me thinking right now.

Also I have completed my very first Crochet project. My scarf that I posted about in the previous post. Here is a photo of it completed and already hanging with a jacket that I plan to wear with it.

I am thrilled to have actually completed something Crochet. I have several started projects, but none of them have been as fun and pleasing as this one. The Afghan stitch is just the easiest stitch ever. My plan now is to make a matching hat. I went to Michael's yesterday to get more yarn, but they would not let me use a coupon, cause the yarn was on sale 2 for 8.00. Well I decided to wait until I can use a 50% off coupon and get it for a 1.00 cheaper. Its not like I am in a huge hurry as I have other yarn to play with. I have started a hat using the basket weave stitch. It is a very hard stitch, but so gorgeous. I am having some difficulty in coming out in the end with the right amount of stitches on each row. I have ripped out and started many times on each row. Still not certain it is right, but keep going. I guess I will know in the end. Here is the start of my hat. In this picture is the top of the hat. Not sure you can see the basket weave stitch, but it is very pretty. I cannot wait to do more today. It really is hard for me to get anything done elsewhere. All I want to do is work on my Crochet.

I just love this yarn. It is from Hobby Lobby and it is called "I love this Yarn" Very soft, but yet very affordable. I had started the hat in a different yarn, but it was just too thick. So I had to use the smaller yarn. Want this look fabulous with a denim jacket. I plan to do a scarf in this same color and hopefully same stitch. Depends on if I am able to get the hat done.

You will probably see more Crochet post than any right now. As I have mentioned above, I have been doing a lot of thinking about my life. Things I spend my time doing and with whom I do them with. I love scrapbooking and cardmaking and its brought me such joy over the past years, but there are so limited amount of places you can do those things now. Stores are closing all around and its really hard to pack up everything and go to others homes. Space is so limited in the homes. So my answer to this problem is stay at home and scrapbook and go out and Crochet. All you need is your thread and needle and you are good to go. You can Crochet just about anywhere. Its easy to get together with friends and still have a great time. There is very little space needed for this hobby. A comfy chair will work just fine. I just totally am loving it right now. Its just what I need in my life. I just wish I had found this love when my MIL was living. My whole life might be different if I had not put so much time into scrapbooking and done more Crochet with her. Right now I am teaching my little girl about Crochet. She is learning the joys it brought her Nana through her Nana's old pattern books. I am seeing so many projects in these books that I remember my MIL doing. Telling her the stories. We have been walking down memory lane this past weeks. I even remember her giving me some of these projects we are finding in the books. Her favorite thing was making the little critters from Crochet. She loved making doll clothes, and all sorts of the craft stuff. She made the most beautiful Afghans ever. Every stitch was perfect. She would start one on a Sunday and finish on a Friday. I was always amazed at how fast she could get a Afghan made and how pretty they were. I may never be as good as her, but I know it will bring many hours of joy and will always make me think of her as I am doing it. I am so hoping that my sweet girl will learn to enjoy doing Crochet and it will be something her and I can share through the years together. So anyway..... Till next time.....

Afagan stitch

2009-08-28T10:36:00.006-05:00

Howdy blog friends, Sorry for the lack of post. I have just been busy on the Farm (te, he) That would be Farmtown on Facebook. I am so addicted to that. So much fun!! I really have not done a lot of anything lately to blog. Just doing a lot of r & r and trying to enjoy the last days of summer I guess.

I am however working on a new Crochet project. I learned this really awesome stitch called the Afagan stitch and am loving it!! Its really a no brainer. Of course I did have to rip it out several times (5 to be exact) before I actually caught on. It has a lot of the same look as knitting, but with crochet and 1 needle. I saw the stitch done by a friend and then went online to U-Tube to learn it. The tutorial is very easy to follow. Just do a search on U-Tube for Afagan stitch. Easy to learn and the results are just beautiful. This project I am doing now is a neck scarf. I figure I will start out on something small and doable, before I start a big project. Here is what I have done so far. The first picture is of the front and the second picture is of the back side. Its a little hard to tell the difference in the photo, but there is a better difference in person. Both sides are gorgeous.

This stitch is so easy that I taught my 10 year old how to do it in minutes. She is also making her a scarf like mine. We are busy ripping out and starting over on hers right now cause mostly she does not pay attention to her stitches and goes in the wrong loop, but she is learning from her mistakes and a scarf is starting to form. I have some ideas of what I would like to do next. Just not sure I can do this stitch. We shall see!!!

Other than this, September brings about a lot of fun activities. God willing on all of this, we will be starting homeschool on Sept. 14. I am excited to start back to CHEC this year. Lots of fun things planned for the fall with our schooling. I am starting back to swimming 3 days a week now that public school is back in session. I will also be joining our local Rec center so that I can work out on machines 2 days a week. Planning to start walking at our local Civic Center at least 3 days a week. I am planning and going on a scrapbook retreat with my girlfriends mid September, playing Bunko with my new Bunko Club, going to my monthly Stamp class, which I enjoy so much now that I have gotten to know some of the ladies, and starting a new Bible Study on the 5 Crowns, which I am very, very excited about. Should be a fun and busy month for me!!! Hopefully I will have lots to talk about and share in my next post!!!

Oh and the LIVIT is going great. Still no significant amount of weight loss to talk about, but I have great hopes for September!!!

Until I post again, I pray Gods Blessings on all!!!

TTFN

Coconut Milk

2009-08-21T23:34:00.008-05:00

Oh yea, I am a happy camper. Finally a alternative to soy milk. I have been drinking Soy Silk Soy milk for probably 4 years now. There is so much controversy out there about soy milk that it has had me concerned the last few months. I have recently been diagnosed with very low thyroid and very high estrogen levels. Sooooo many people keep telling me its because of the soy milk I drink. I did do a search about it and have found some sites that talk about this and so I really started pondering the idea that it could be true. But what does one do when they cannot drink regular milk. I mean its not a allergy thing, but a YUK thing. I really do not care for cows milk at all. About the only time I will drink it is with cookies or cereal. But never just down a big ole glass of milk. I would much rather down a big ole glass of soy milk. Well today I went to the health food store in search of a substitute to soy. I have done the almond milk and its pretty good, but it only comes in these little bitty cartons that would only last about 3 glasses. So searching and searching and low and behold I found my milk savior!!!

I am soooo thrilled. I have been reading a lot about Coconut milk mainly because it is one of the things I can have on my Fungus Livit. I had no clue there was actually a half gallon of it sitting on the shelf. Oh awesome!!! I was thinking people squeezed their own or something. Never heard of coconut milk. Everything I read about this product so far sounds really great. Lots of good vitamin E and D. Calcium, zinc, magnesium ect..... All the things that I am low on. I just cannot tell you how excited I was when I saw it. Here is the website if you want to read more....http://www.purelydecadent.com/products/coconut_milk_beverage.html If you are drinking soy and would like something different, I totally recommend this product already. It taste great. Not like coconut at all. Just smooth and creamy. I got the unsweetened and I think it will take a little bit of time to get use to the blander taste, but it should not be that hard since I was drinking unsweetened Soy Silk. I am definitely doing the happy dance. Now I have something besides soy to drink in my smoothies. YES!!! YES!!! Happy Dance!! Happy Dance!! Happy Dance!! Thank you God!!! You are just toooo good to me!!!
My other discovery today was Coconut flour. I can have coconut flour. Its a little expensive so I do not plan to go hog wild and start baking cakes or anything, but it will be a great substitute for regular flour and soy protein. It is so much easier nowadays to be on a LIVIT!!!

2009-08-17T13:10:00.012-05:00

A post that actually does not consist of me talking about my "LIVIT" I am sure you are totally surprised!!! Today I would like to share some of my card making and Scrapbooking projects that I have done over the last couple of weeks. First in line are these beautiful cards that I made at my friend Karen's stamping class. My first time seeing a card like this was from my friend Paula. She made it during a crop we had a few weeks back. It was so beautiful. I knew I had to eventually make a card like hers. So when I went to my friend Karen's class, I was tickled pink to see that we were making this card. It was very detailed and took some time, but every minute was worth it!! I absolutely love this card!!!

Next we did 2 more simple, but yet awesome cards. The first one below is actually a bookmark. You take off the corner and place it on the corner of your page. Very cool!!! A card and a gift in one. Last, but not least, this simple, but elegant Thank you card. All three cards were fun to make and I love this class. I cannot wait till next month to see what Karen will have for us.!!! Thank you Karen!!! YOU ROCK!!!

Next I would like to share the pages I just did on Scrapbook Retreat this past weekend. I actually got 15 layouts completed. It will show 16, but I had already done one these pages before retreat. 15, that is a huge amount for me. I am better known as one who only gets probably 4 done on a weekend. So I totally rocked this retreat!!!

Most of them are of my DD's past birthdays. We have had a variety of theme party's. These are just a few of them. The first one is of her Ronald McDonald party. These are of her and her little school friends all gathered at McDonald's. It ended up raining and so they were all stuck inside. They still had lots of fun though.

The page above and below are half pages that will go in a half sheet page protector. I just could not decide which photos I wanted to use and there were too many to put on 2 12x12 pages, so I put the extra on 2 sides of 2 6x12 pages. Worked out perfectly. The next pages are of Chuck E. Cheese Birthday. Every kid needs at least 1 Chuck E. Cheese party. I think we did 3 of them. These pictures are of her at her 5th Birthday. This theme will be easy to identify. It is Strawberry Shortcake. I used a coloring book image I got from google and paper pieced my strawberry shortcake and the strawberry on the half page. This took a little time, but the end results made it all worth it. There is lots of glitter on Strawberry Shortcake, but its hard to see in the photo. The Strawberry Shortcake title was just printed and cut out and then glittered.

Next we are again at Chuck E. Cheese. This time she is turning 7. She is hanging out for the day with her friend Hunter. She had a party at school, which I already did that layout a while back, then we went to Chuck E. Cheese, shopping at Toys R Us, and then a sleep over. There will be another layout of shopping to come.
below is the layout of the sleep over part of the party!!! Her very first sleepover!!!
In the layouts below, we are celebrating 3 years old or "Free Years Old" We had a home party and invited family and close friends. She loved all the attention!!! She was a cute little princess!!!

The next layout is another birthday, but not my DD's. It is of my DS. This is the day we brought him home from the hospital. So not really his birthday, but still a celebration of his birthday.
The last layout is one that I had started a while back, but had not completed. I ended up redoing the entire layout as I had found more pictures and had to put them on the page. I am really starting to get into the more picture part of scrapbooking, rather than so many embellishments. Its about time I finally do what I am suppose to be doing, and that is scrapbooking the pictures!!!

These layouts are of a vacation we took in 1996 to Turner Falls, Oklahoma. It was a memorable vacation cause it was Memorial Day weekend and it came a rain and flooded. Everything flooded. I think we ended up being one of the few families that found dry land and was able to stay in the park. I never saw so much water in one place. What was once a stream, became a raging river. Very awesome!!! Well that's it for now. Hopefully I will get even more done during my next retreat which is mid September. I am still using sketches and I do believe that is what has helped me get my Scrapbook Mojo back. I just cannot think of ever doing another layout without using a sketch.

Sugar: The Bitter Truth

2009-08-10T09:17:00.007-05:00

Remember when I told you that I would probably have to pray myself through certain situations concerning my LIVIT!! Well last week I had a few down days and spent most of the day talking to God and asking him how in the world will I be able to do this LIVIT for the rest of my life. Some days seem so much harder than others. So guess what happens??? I am a member of a fungus yahoo group. Yes there is even a yahoo group of people on the same LIVIT. I stumbled upon this group by accident. I was reading some other website and saw it and was shocked to see that it was exactly the same LIVIT. So I know God sent me to this group, cause he knew I needed all the help I could get. So anyway, this lady post this video link about suger for everyone to listen. That was exactly what I was struggling with a few days before. Sweets are my biggest down fall in life. I am totally addicted to cakes, pies, candy. Anything sweet, I will pop into my mouth without much thinking involved. Well on this LIVIT, I can have 0 sugar. It has been the hardest part of the LIVIT so far. Now after listening to this video, I am totally thinking in a new more positive way. Not that I plan to give up sweets for the rest of my life, cause that would be just insane, but after listening to this video, I will be way more picky about the things I pop into my mouth. Listen to the video and you will see why I have had a change of heart when it comes to sugar. Thank you God for always being there for me!!! You continuously light my path when it is dark!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

LIVIT and LOVIT!!!

2009-08-04T14:26:00.005-05:00

I have recently had several people ask me what kind of diet I am on since I have been posting low carb recipes to my blog lately? Is it Adkins or South Beach? The answer to that question is, its neither!!! Its a Doctor prescribed Anti Fungal LIVIT. Its only similar to Adkins and South Beach, because it is eating low Carbs and no Sugar. All things that feed fungus/yeast. I have been on the LIVIT for 1 month and now I have started the medication part this month. I will be on that for 2 months. I am eating some low sugar fruits like strawberrys and apples, and lots of veggies, meats, and good fats. I can have some bad fats sparingly, and can have absolutely no bad carbs, grains, cheese, beans, and sugars. I eat about every 2 to 3 hours. It was pretty tough the first couple of weeks only because the die off of the fungus was draining me. I could barely get off the couch, and felt like I had the flu, or something. However, after a few weeks, I started regaining my energy, and now I am doing great. I am walking regularly with my walking tapes, doing some in home exercises using arm and leg weights, and swimming when I can. I have seen a huge difference in my sleep habits. I go to bed early, sleep all night, and wake up feeling rested. I do not have that need to take naps during the day as I did before. I am eating so much better nutritionally now, than I have eaten in a very long, long time. I eat salads and veggies through out the day. I even fix them just for myself. I have always loved veggies and ate them a lot as a child. Then I married a meat/potato guy who hated veggies, and so I stopped eating them myself. I thought fixing them just for myself was a waste of food and time. About the only time I ate them was when we went to Golden Corral or Luby's or occasionally I would fix broccoli/cheese at home. Since I have started this LIVIT, I am eating all kinds of veggies. I eat squash, cooked cabbage, zucchini, cucumbers, tomato's, lots of greens, carrots. I fix them for dinner and then I eat them for lunch the next day. So there is never any waste. I am loving my new LIVIT way of eating. Do I miss the bad carbs and sweets that I was eating? Occasionally I get a snack attack. I cure it with eating fruit by itself, or I might eat it with cream cheese sweetened with Truvia. I might mix it with the plain yogurt, and then it becomes a fruit dip, or I will just eat the plain yogurt and fruit mixed together and sweetened with Truvia, or I might make me a fruit smoothie packed with all kinds of good protein, fibers and fruit. There are many options to cure my snack cravings. Sometimes all it takes is a apple, a piece of grapefruit, or a handful of nuts or sunflower seeds. I do know one thing that has changed, and that is, its much easier now to cure my snack cravings than it use to be. Before I would spend hours eating various things and never could find anything satisfying. I would go from sweet to salty, back to sweet. A never ending cycle, and would end up with a entire day of snacking lots of calories, and still never feel satisfied. Now I do not have those kinds of problems. So I know this way of eating has been good for me in many ways. Would I recommend this LIVIT to everyone, and is this a easy LIVIT?? It takes lots of concentration, prayer, and focus. Always remember to eat 2 to 3 hours, hungry or not. To take time to cook the good foods. To think ahead and make sure you take your foods on the road with you, so you never let yourself get hungry or be tempted to eat badly. To take all of your vitamins and supplements daily. To make sure you are drinking lots of water. To make time for exercise in your day. Yes I do recommend you doing this LIVIT!!! Its time well spent and you are worth every minute!!! I plan to stay on this LIVIT plan forever. I have some other health issues that have improved with this way of eating and so I plan to always eat this way. I am sure there will be times down the road that I will be tempted to eat badly or get tired of the exercising, but I will pray myself through those negative times, and keep on LIVIT!!!! So with all that said, I would like to end this post with a yummy soup recipe that I absolutely love.

Chicken Cabbage Soup

1 head of cabbage

2 large chicken breast

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 onion

2 cloves of garlic

1 stick of butter

2 cans of chicken broth

1 teaspoon dried chives

1 teaspoon of basil

2 teaspoons of chicken soup seasoning

salt and pepper to taste

Cut up chicken breast into small chunks, cook in skillet with a little olive oil. Add in chopped onion and garlic and saute till tender and somewhat caramelized. Cut up cabbage into chunks and boil in stick of butter till cabbage is completely tender. With a knife and fork, cut up the cabbage into small pieces. Add in the rest of the ingredients, including chicken and onion/garlic and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes. Enjoy alone or with a salad!!!

Carb Cabinet "NO MORE"

2009-08-03T16:32:00.005-05:00

Oh boy, wouldn't the diet goo roo's of the world be proud of me. I finally did it!!! I cleaned out what I have been considering my Carb Cabinet. It was very refreshing and much easier to do than I would have expected. I was not tempted to keep anything. In fact, if my husband had not come home from work, the cabinet would have probably been completely empty. He did talk me into saving a few things!!! I always considered myself as eating pretty healthy the last few years. After seeing this trash bag and box full of junk foods, I would say I was fooling myself. There were Crackers of many kinds, Cereal bars of many, many kinds, lots of sugary cereal, chips, cookies, shake mixes, instant this and that. So many carbs, preservatives, hydrogenated oils, and sugar. Even the stuff I thought was good stuff, is now considered bad on my new LIVIT!!!

My son did box up a few things to take out to his little house. He said his friends would love all the cereal bars and crackers. So all was not a waste!!! I am so proud of myself for doing this. Now I am no longer haunted by Bad Carbs in the Carb Cabinet!!!

All that is left is some protein powders, dried cranberry's, a few boxes of multi whole grain cereals, bread, and pork skins. Fairly healthy things that I thought husband and children could eat. The rest is history!!! A "SIGH" of relief!!!

Walk with God

2009-07-27T13:02:00.005-05:00

I know, 2 post in 1 day. That's A-ma-a-a-zing!!! I just now got done with my Leslie Sansone 2 mile walk and I just had to share my thoughts about this tape before I forgot. The other day I posted about her wonderful Walk the Walk videos where you can do all your walking indoors. I have about 5 of her tapes, and I wanted to share with you my favorite, in case you are thinking about purchasing one.

This one I love for 2 reasons.

1. It is not just any walk, its a walk with God. She plays Christian Inspired music through the video. Its very uplifting and full of wonderful loving words. At the end there is even a Pastoral Message and its so awesome. Really sets your mind in the right place.

2. It includes a 1 mile walk, 2 mile walk, or put them together for a 3 mile walk. So you get lots of walking for your buck. My goal is to get to the point where I do the 1 mile walk in the morning to get my metabolism going, and then the 2 mile walk in the evening.

So anywho, I wanted to share that before I forgot. If you are looking for a low impact, yet great workout, I totally recommend Walk The Walk

Nutty Low Carb Flax Pancakes

2009-07-27T11:16:00.010-05:00

These are deeeeelicious!!! I totally fell in love the first bite. I got the recipe from a low carb forum called Low Carb Friends from a lady in Texas named Nancy. Thank you Nancy for sharing your recipe. I did tweak this recipe just a little bit for my liking. I added walnuts, a pinch of salt, and a little more cream. I will totally be making these again and again. Next time I think I will add some cinnamon. YUM!!!!

Ingredients:

1/4 Cup protein powder -- vanilla or plain

1/8 Cup flax seeds -- ground to 1/4 cup flax meal

3 eggs

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 Cup heavy cream (I did about 1/2 cup)

1/4 Cup water (approximate)

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 Pinch sweetener

1 pinch of salt (my addition)

1/4 cup chop walnuts (my addition)

Mix ingredients and cook in melted butter on a griddle just as you would regular pancakes.

Carbs per serving - include all nutritional information if known: approximately 8 to 10g carbs total, approximately 2 carbs per 3 inch pancake, approximate 6 pancakes per mix.

Thank You God!!!

2009-07-24T10:17:00.004-05:00

Today I am just feeling very Thankful to God!!!

Thank you God for my life and everything in my life. My sweet husband and adorable children, my loving parents, my devoted friends, all the people, and things that I sometimes take for granite, that help to make my life totally content and happy, good health, prayer and always being there to listen and answer, your healing powers for those that are sick, for our Country and Leaders, for those that fight for our freedom, MOST of all God, thank you for your Son, Jesus, and what he did for me. My life would be NOTHING without him. You are a most awesome God and I love you so much, for loving me, enough to sacrifice your sons life, to save me and others!!! I do not think I could ever express enough thanks to you. Please continue to forgive me for my sins and where I fail you each day. I know that I do not deserve your forgiveness, but I am very thankful for you giving it to me each day of my life. God thank you for all things not mentioned in this prayer as there are just so many blessings that you give to me every day. In all these blessings I ask in Jesus precious and holy name. AMEN!!! AMEN!!!

New Coffee Grinder

2009-07-21T11:46:00.007-05:00

I have a new kitchen gadget. Most of you would think its not really blog worthy, but perhaps the reason I bought it might be. This is my new Coffee Grinder!!! Those that know me may wonder why I would buy a Coffee Grinder, since I do not drink coffee. Well its not for coffee, its for grinding flax seed. I realized yesterday that I needed to grind my flax seed so that I would get more benefits from them. For the longest I just added them to my food whole. Then I read a very interesting website that said you should grind your flax seed to get its full benefits. Otherwise they just pass through the body. Dah!!! that makes total since now that I think about it. So I immediately went out and bought me a coffee grinder, since that is what they suggested for me to purchase. It was a very amazing thing to watch. My flax seeds became dust. LOL!!! It really does not take much to entertain me. You are only suppose to grind what you need in just a few days of use. I really wanted to grind the whole bag, because it was so much fun to watch. Anyways, if you want to know more about flax seed health benefits, I have found lots of good information on the Flax Seed Shop website. Now maybe I will reap the full benefits with my new grinder!!!

Walk the Walk

2009-07-20T22:01:00.003-05:00

Besides swimming as many times a week as I can, My dear husband and I have started walking again. This time we are using my Leslie Sansone 2 mile Walk the Walk. I have about 4 or 5 of these videos for many years, and I love them because you can walk 1,2,3,4 mile walks without ever leaving your home. She gives you a really great workout and its very low impact. The 1 mile walk is a quick walk that you could do to start out your morning. Its a great energy booster and it is only about 15 minutes long. The 2 mile walk is the one I am doing now and its a 30 minute walk. I have not worked up to the 3 mile or 4 mile yet, but maybe one day. I also have a video where she combines weights with walking. This one is awesome. You can visit her websiteLeslie Sansone Videos to see all the videos she has to offer. There are so many to choose from. You can watch the preview video below to get an idea of the beginner workout, or you can go to Real Age and there is a free full workout video for you to use. Give this a try if you are looking for a great workout at home. I promise you will feel like you have worked out!!!

Roasted Tomato Soup

2009-07-20T21:26:00.003-05:00

This soup is to die for!! It takes a little bit of prep time, but it is worth every minute. I got the idea from Central Market. We went there over the weekend and I had a sample of this soup. I just knew I had to make it. So I came home and did a search and found a recipe on Food Network. It tasted exactly like the soup I tasted at Central Market. DEEEElicious!!! I usually make changes to most recipes I try, but this one I did exactly as printed. The ingredients just sounded too good to admit or change. Perfect just as it is!!! The best part, it is low carb!!! I love that!!! One more thing on my diet that I can have. Enjoy!!!

Roasted Tomato Soup
Ingredients
2 1/2 pounds fresh tomatoes (mix of fresh heirlooms, cherry, vine and plum tomatoes)
6 cloves garlic, peeled
2 small yellow onions, sliced
Vine cherry tomatoes for garnish, optional
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 quart chicken stock
2 bay leaves
4 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped fresh basil leaves, optional
3/4 cup heavy cream, optional
Directions
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Wash, core and cut the tomatoes into halves. Spread the tomatoes, garlic cloves and onions onto a baking tray. If using vine cherry tomatoes for garnish, add them as well, leaving them whole and on the vine. Drizzle with 1/2 cup of olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Roast for 20 to 30 minutes, or until caramelized.
Remove roasted tomatoes, garlic and onion from the oven and transfer to a large stock pot (set aside the roasted vine tomatoes for later). Add 3/4 of the chicken stock, bay leaves, and butter. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 to 20 minutes or until liquid has reduced by a third.
Wash and dry basil leaves, if using, and add to the pot. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup until smooth. Return soup to low heat, add cream and adjust consistency with remaining chicken stock, if necessary. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Garnish in bowl with 3 or 4 roasted vine cherry tomatoes and a splash of heavy cream.

Creamy Buttermilk Dressing and Salads

2009-07-19T21:06:00.007-05:00

I cannot think of a better time to start a diet than the summer. All the fruits and vegetables are at their peek, and the weather being so warm, its the perfect time for salads. I love salad. Almost any kind of salad. Never met a salad I did not like. Lately I have been eating lots of salad. Here is my most favorite of all salads

This salad has all my favorites included. Here is the list

Organic Spring Mix greens

cubed grilled chicken

tomato's

cabbage

avocado

green onions

black olives

sunflower seeds

black ground pepper

homemade buttermilk dressing

This salad is just so good. Down to the very last bite. I think what makes it so tasty tonight, is the new buttermilk dressing I made for it. The diet that I am on does not allow me to have regular vinegar or sugar. Most of the store dressings have both. So I thought I would be able to add lower amounts and use more natural ingredients by making my own dressing. This recipe is more on the lower side of carbs, but not carb free. Buttermilk and Yogart both have carbs and sugar, but with this recipe, there is small amount per serving. With me, its mix this, taste, mix in that, taste again. I taste till I get it just the way I want it. So here are the ingredients and amounts to the best of my memory.

Creamy Buttermilk Dressing

3/4 cup half/half

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoon size dollops of plain low fat yogurt

1 8oz of sour cream

2 tablespoon lemon juice

1 tablespoon Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar

1 large garlic clove pressed

1 tablespoon dried chives

1 tablespoon onion powder

1 teaspoon course black pepper

1 packet truvia sweetener

1 teaspoon of paprika or Old Bay seasoning

Salt to taste.

Mix all ingredients in order, mixing each one separately. Chill in refrig. Enjoy!!!

Feel free to make changes to your liking. I really don't think there is any way to mess this dressing up. Its just so tasty!!!

New Annie Update!!

2009-07-15T10:03:00.008-05:00

Annie got a new front. I think this just pulled the color all together painting the window cover red. I am so looking forward to whatever my dear husband does next. Not sure about him, but for me, this is fun!!! LOL!!

My little China Collection

2009-07-14T10:50:00.004-05:00

I was browsing through my pictures that I took the last few months and I totally forgot to share my new dishes with you. I have been collecting these dishes for a very, very long time. I had about 23 pieces collected so far over about 10 years or more and a few weeks ago my Mother gave me more to go with my collection. She went to a estate sale and found about 25 more pieces for me. I was so excited, cause now I have enough to display in my china hutch. What I noticed when I was putting them in my hutch is that I think I actually have 2 or more collections going. Some are marked Japan, some are marked China, one piece is marked Floral Park, and others are marked with nothing at all. I thought that was interesting as they all appear almost exactly the same. The only difference I could see is, some have gold trim around the edge and a etching, and others are plain. You really have to look closely to see the differences in the flowers or the etching. It is so very slight. Anyway, I am hoping that I can collect enough of all the pieces to split it in half with my daughter some day. I really do not think these days it matters if its all the same set. Its not like I ever plan to sell them. Its all beautiful, and I think looks fabulous in the hutch. Just so delicate and pretty.

Enjoy your sweets and diet too!!!

2009-07-12T16:54:00.010-05:00

The hardest part about dieting is when you get that "Sweet Tooth" craving. I am always trying to find a way to have my sweets and diet too!!! Here are a few of my favorite low carb/low sugar ways to cure my sweet tooth using my favorite fruit, Strawberry's.

Cream Cheese Dip

2 tablespoons of whipped cream cheese

1/2 cup of fresh Strawberry's (about 5 small)

1 packet natural sweetener (I use Truvia or PureVia)

Put 2 tablespoons of cream cheese in a bowl and mix 1 packet of sweetener. Then you just spoon it onto your strawberry and enjoy the sweet goodness!!! It is also great on apple slices.

Strawberry Smoothie

1 cup of soy milk ( I use Soy Silk unsweetened)

about 4 large fresh strawberry's

1/2 cup of vanilla yogurt (most flavors will work)

1 packet of natural sweetener(Truvia or Purevia)

1 cup of crushed ice

Put all ingredients into a blender and blend on high for about 1 minute.

Pour in glass and enjoy!!!

You can add in fiber, flax seed, or any oils to make it even more healthier.

Strawberry's and Cream

1 cup of sliced fresh strawberry's

1 cup of heavy whipping cream

2 packages of natural sweetener (Purevia or Truvia)

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of cinnamon (optional, but good for you)

With a mixer on medium, mix all ingredients until it becomes thick with peaks(about 5 minutes)

Layer in a small 1/2 cup dessert dish, whip cream and strawberry's. Enjoy!

The Word of the Day is.....

2009-07-09T08:27:00.011-05:00

Red!!!

Not just any red, but.......

Raggedy Annie Red

My dear, sweet, adorable husband painted our travel trailer (shhh..my travel trailer)... (aka... Raggedy Annie)... Raggedy Annie Red. I was totally thrilled. Actually the true color on the can was Cherry Red. But we will just call it Raggedy Annie Red, because that seems to be a more fitting color name.

Isn't she just gorgeous. This Momma is Proud!!!
She once looked like this
I really did almost cry when I saw her new color. I admit, I did not think she would clean up so well from when I first saw her out in the back pasture of our friends property. I hoped, but was not certain. Most of all, I did not ever think that my husband would let me have my way with her. He did not seem real excited about me wanting to decorate her in my favorite Raggedy Annie theme. But with lots of talking and some compromising, she is getting there. I promised not to put anything on the outside that gave away her real identity. LOL!!! He just could not see himself driving down the road pulling something that was decorated in Raggedy Annie. So we are keeping her in disguise for his dignity's sake. As for the inside, he has agreed to Red Check Curtains and red seat cushions. I told him I would not over do the inside. Maybe just a couple of things. He has worked so hard on her and he deserves to enjoy her as much as I do.

Here are a few other very important additions. First being the new air conditioning

He did a fabulous job mounting the A/C into the trailer. It was a hard job. He first had to cut a hole, which was very scary. We were not sure if this was going to work, and cutting the hole could have been a huge mistake. Everyone, including my dad, said it was not the best idea cutting a hole in the side of the trailer. However, there was just no other way to mount it. We went through ever idea and I searched the Internet high and low for ideas. When we went on our homeschool camping trip, we saw another trailer with the A/C mounted in the side. It looked fairly easy to do and gave us the confidence to do it. So we decided to go against all advice and just do what we thought was the only way. Thank goodness it worked. He had to put extra wood on the inside to help brace it up and make it tight and sturdy. It was not exactly the best look we were hoping for, but once we get it all stained and decorated, I doubt you will even notice the bracing. He put extra bracing on the outside as well. I really do not think it will go anywhere. Fingers crossed!!!

Next....

We got the new fan and cover for the top. It has been a big gaping hole since we brought it home. Not no more!!!When it comes to this kind of stuff, my husband really makes it all look easy. However, this was several hours of hot fun. He said not as hard as he anticipated, but still very hard to install. I ask him if he wanted to retire and do this sort of thing all the time. His quick answer was "NO". LOL!!! I think though once it is done, he will look back on all of it and say that it was "Not so bad" and that he really did enjoy doing it. The end results will be so worth all the hard work and I know, as long as God allows, we will have years of great fun.

Next will be staining all the inside wood and the floor!!! We are almost done!!! I can hardly believe it.

June Musings!!!

2009-06-30T10:47:00.018-05:00

Ok, I have not fell off the face of the earth as my Mom sometimes ask. Its just been one of those busy months. Here we are July already. I just cannot believe a month of our summer is already gone. So what have I been keeping busy with you may wonder?? First off just let me say that this past week what has kept me the busiest is this sweet little boy. This is Jayden. He is nine months old. He is the grandson of a long time friend whom I rarely see now. I bump into her occasionally. Anyways, I babysit her 3 children, when her oldest was about 8 years old. His name is Chris. A surprise knock on the door from him asking me if I could babysit his son. He found me on the Internet and drove a whole 2 minutes to my house. We were both surprised to know we lived so close. So this is nothing new for me to have my past children ask me to keep their children. So for the summer, or as long as it last, I will have this little guy keeping me and my DD very busy. Thank goodness I have my DD to help me. She is very good with entertaining him.

Next on the busy monthly agenda is scrapbooking and camping.

Friday before last, I spent the day scrapbooking with my homeschool friends. That is something I have not done since retreat in mid May. It was great fun. About 10 of us gathered at a local church and spent the entire day together. I actually got some pages done this time of my DD. I did use sketches from my favorite sites
52sketches52weeks and letsscrap. As always it made doing the pages so much easier. I would not scrapbook without them now.

In the layout above, I actually used my Creative Memories wave template. I have rarely used it in the 8 or so years I have had it.
I wish you could see this layout above better. It has lots of bling on the butterfly's and flowers.

I do love scrapbooking!!!!

Then we left for 4 days of camping with our homeschool friends. We did have a awesome time, but it was very hot. Our saving grace from the heat was our A/C unit. Without it, we would have never made it for 4 days.

At first seeing this crazy idea on YouTube, I just shared a laugh with my DH. But closer to the camping trip and the hotter it kept getting, we decided to give the crazy idea a try. I mean we did just happen to have a A/C unit that was not being used. Why not!!! Thankfully it worked wonderfully. So much so, that we had to cover up with quilts to stay warm. We will never go tent camping in the summer again without our A/C Unit. Here are a few more ways we found to stay cool on our trip

Thank goodness for Cold Spring Waters and Falls!!! God is awesome!!!

Finally enough tomato's to have a salad. Boy has it been a slow ripening season. I finally today picked my very first large tomato that has been on the vine since the beginning. It finally was on there so long it cracked open. It did not taste good at all. However, the little tomato's in this salad are wonderful. So sweet!! I have tons more on the vines, but my bigger ones just do not want to get ripe. I may have to have Fried Green tomato's.

This is a little dessert I made for a Homeschool Mom Dessert Social. I have decided that I am going to start baking different kinds of bars. You know everyone has their favorite things they bake. Some bake cookies, some cakes, some cupcakes, some muffins. For me, I have decided I want to bake bar desserts. This one I sort of made up. Its a cross between a lemon creme and a key lime. I call it

Lemon Lime Cherry Creme Bar

1 1/2 cup of crushed graham crackers

1/2 stick of butter

2 tablespoons of sugar

mix all ingredients and then put into a 9x13 bar pan. Pack it down flat on the bottom of pan. Bake for about 8 minutes on 350 degrees.

Meanwhile mix together with spoon

2 cans of eagles brand evaporated milk

1/2 cup of lemon juice

1/2 cup of lime juice

6 egg yolks

zest from both lemon and lime

Pour creme mixture over pie crust and return to oven for about 15 minutes till middle is set. Let cool 10 minutes and then put in frig for several hours until completely chilled. Top with can of cherry pie filling. I used mostly the gel part of the filling. Top with Whip Cream. Be prepared for a mouth full of sweet tart lemon flavor. Only a little bit goes a long way.

Now I would like to share new updates on our little travel trailer (aka:Raggedy Annie)

New refrig!!!

Newly painted icebox. Was green, now white.

Newly stained cabinet drawers and door.

New wood counter top and newly painted stove. Was green. Now shiny white. Cabinet was green wallpaper. Now beautiful wood counter top.

Newly scrubbed sink with new faucet on new wood cabinet.

Isn't the cabinet beautiful and notice the new back splash behind the sink. It did look like this
Big difference!!! I love that my husband is so talented when it comes to building and remodeling.

Here he is building a new wood table. I hated the Formica looking table it had. I wanted wood. So he built me this beautiful wood table.
This is what the old table looked like
Again, big difference. Things are really coming together and I get excited after each new addition. Next he will start painting the outside. I am very excited about that.

One last thing, I have been swimming almost every day at our local Natatorium. When I first started 2 months ago, I could barely swim 1/2 lap without wanting to pass out. Monday I swam 30 laps which equals one mile. I am not good at swimming on my stomach. I tend to take in to much water through my nose and nearly drown. So I swim on my back, face up. So 30 laps on my back no stopping. My arms and hips are very sore now and so yesturday I mostly just relaxed. Maybe today I will be able to do it again.

Until next time.....

Relaxing Weekend

2009-06-14T15:49:00.009-05:00

This weekend has been a very relaxing weekend. I have stayed home mostly, which is very rare for me. On Friday night, I did some mild organizing to my kitchen and my little building outside. It was starting to get crowded in my kitchen cabinets and on my counter top with all the appliances and baking stuff that I have accumulated and rarely use. I did not want to get rid of them, cause you never know when you might like to make some bread or bake a cake. So I put some shelving in my little building outside and put all my kitchen goodies out there. Now I have lots of room in my cabinets for those things I use daily and I did not have to get rid of the things that I enjoy using on occasion.

Saturday afternoon, my girlfriend came over and we did a little scrapbooking for the first time since our retreat in mid May. That too is very rare for me. I usually try to do some sort of paper craft at least once a week. Lately though, I have been spending more time outdoors, than indoors. Just enjoying my family and the weather before it gets too hot. I think this weekend proved to be the beginning of getting too hot. So spending the afternoon inside the cool house and scrapbooking with a friend was just the perfect thing to do on a hot Saturday afternoon. I wanted to work on a challenge that another friend put forth. The challenge was to complete a couple of sketches from our favorite sketch sites. One was from 52sketches52weeks and the other was from Mojo Monday. I knew there was no way I could get both challenges done, so I picked doing the 52sketches52weeks, sketch #22 and #23. I am trying very hard to concentrate on my scrapbooking these days cause I have so many pictures. I love card making, and I really love Mojo Monday, but for now, I need to stay focused on getting pages done so I can put a book together for my Son and Daughter. So with all that said, here is my take on the sketches. This is of my Son when he was only 4 weeks old. As I have mentioned many times before, he is 21, almost 22. Yes, I am way behind, but catching up quickly. My hopes are to have a scrapbook for him by the end of this year.

I really did not change anything about these sketches as I loved them just as they are, and they worked great with these photos. I am very spoiled now and not sure how I would even go about creating a page without a sketch to follow. There are many sketch sites out there now and I am so grateful for all the sketch artist and the talents that they share to the Internet world. Thank you so much!!! I would still be looking for my MoJo if it were not for these great sites 52sketches52weeks,Lets Scrap, Pencil Lines, P Hutch Sketches, and Page Maps. I bow at your Talents!!!

Today, my husband worked on our little Camper (aka Raggedy Annie) She is coming along quite nicely. We now have a completely sealed roof, no leaks thank goodness, since it came a huge storm last week. We also have electricity now. I was very excited to see lights. We also have a new frig. My dad found us a brand new one at a garage sale for half the price. That was so cool. Anyway, my husband said she will be ready for camping by the fall. I am getting so excited. He is planning to work on the air conditioning, build a new table that turns into a bed, replace the counter top, fix the stove, and get the water working. Then we will put in new flooring and give her a fresh coat of paint. Once all that is done, I will clean everything and make curtains and covers for windows and cushions. We did spend some time along the way talking about the decorating part and my first idea was to decorate in all Raggedy Annie stuff. However, since my husband has put so much time into refurbishing her and is as excited as I am about taking her to the lake, I thought I would just decorate her in maybe a camping/fishing outdoor theme for now. She will be Raggedy Annie in my heart and perhaps one day, I will make her my own. For now, I will be fare and share and not make my husband suffer with more Raggedy Ann decor!!! Here are some updated photos of her progress thus far.
More pictures to come!!!