Wednesday's Wandering Thoughts

Aren't these beautiful? I met some friends at Starbucks the other night for some yarny fun. They both were crocheting granny squares and I was knitting on a baby blanket. I did have to chuckle at how high tech everything is getting - they had a laptop set up on a coffee table to watch granny square tutorial videos! What in the world did we all do before the interwebs???

It was so good to get out with girlfriends again. I was only there for about an hour and a half, but felt so refreshed when I left. Funny how girl time will do that. :)

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We just got back from a Walmart trip and while there the skies opened up and we had quite the gully washer. I think when we're in the middle of a hot dry summer and a cooling rain comes there's a little girl down inside most of us that just wants to run and dance and spin in the rain.

On the way back we passed Boston Market. They have a sign out front that says "We now have cupcakes", but Keith didn't want to stop. Interesting how cupcakes seem to have taken over as the new "in thing"....and that makes me HAPPY! :)

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And I do love to have Brooklyn photos in my posts! This picture is from her birthday party and she is wearing one of the outfits my mom (her great-grandma) made for her. Across the backside of her shorts it says Princess. :)

This was one of mom's favorite parts of the party. Most of the people had left at this point and Brooklyn had hightailed it over to finally go through and start playing with all her new toys - and the wrappings!

Good times.....

Sunday Dinner

Tonight was so special to us - Lynne' invited us to her apartment and cooked dinner for us for the first time. Not only was the meal delicious, it was good to see our daughter so happy in her new apartment. It is decorated so cute and so totally her.

Dinner was stuffed peppers (she found the recipe online), rice and green beans. Absolutely perfect!

And then we brought out the Uno cards and played for a couple of hours. Actually we played a bit when we first got there while dinner finished cooking, then played some more after we ate.

Games in our family are always a fun thing because we get rather competitive. We laughed and laughed and had such a nice time. We've decided that this something we need to do more often - have dinner at her place. I think she really enjoyed being hostess.

Stuffed Peppers
(adapted from allrecipes.com)

1 pound ground beef
1/2 cup uncooked long grain white rice
1 cup water
6 green bell peppers (she used a mixture of colors)
2 (8 ounce) cans tomato sauce
1 T Worcestershire sauce
1/4 t garlic powder
1/4 t onion powder
1 t Italian seasoning
salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350F.

Place the rice and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and cook 20 minutes. In a skillet over medium heat, cook the beef until evenly browned.

Remove and discard the tops, seeds and membranes of the bell peppers. Arrange peppers in a baking dish with the hollowed sides facing upward - slice the bottoms of the pppers if necessary so that they will stand upright (or Lynne' placed wadded up foil around the bottoms to keep them upright).

In a bowl, mix the browned beef, cooked rice, 1 can tomato sauce, Worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper. Spoon an equal amount of the mixture into each hollowed pepper. Mix the remaining tomato sauce and Italian seasoning in a bowl and pour over the stuffed peppers.

Bake 1 hour in a preheated oven, basting with sauce every 15 minutes, until the peppers are tender.

Priority Realignment

Today is a new day, as Sundays many times are. A time to refocus our energies, realign our priorities and step forward in confidence.

I'll admit that I've struggled with priorities lately. It should be Faith, Family, Friends, Finances (ok the last one is really work, but I like having all the same letter). But I have a new position at work and while learning the ropes it hit me that work (finances) has slowly been creeping up on the list and moving other things out of the way. My mental energies have been focused on work and even when I lay down to sleep at night I feel my mind attacking some of the work issues that need addressed. When I realized last night that this was happening I took some time in prayer and have asked God to help me realign my priorities.

Because we all only have "x" amount of hours available to us there's always something that has to give. It hit me that I haven't spent much time at all with my friends lately because of worrying about work. And that will not do at all. I'm not sure how to make it happen, but luckily I don't have to figure it out alone. God will let me know what to do and will put opportunities in front of me.

My prayer for all is that we take the time to look at our priorities and be certain that they are in the right order. If not, take the time to figure out what changes need to be made. And feel free to drop me a line and give me hints on the best way to do it! :)

"Cause me to know Thy lovingkindness in the morning, for in Thee do I trust. Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk, for I lift up my soul unto Thee." Psalm 143:8

What Do YOU Do When It's 100 Degrees?

We decided to empty both our attics!

This wasn't decided on a whim though. We have an older house, built in 1975 (I think) and I think it has maybe a quarter inch of insulation in the attic (sadly, that's only a slight exaggeration). We had somebody come out and give us an estimate on more insulation and the radiant barrier thingy in the attic. When all was said and done it seemed good to us, so we've signed up. They told us that we could leave our stuff in the attic and they would just work around it, but that seemed silly to us. Makes much more sense to remove it so that they could add even more insulation!

So Keith went up in the attic at about 5:00 in the evening...you know, the hot part of the day...and handed stuff down to me. Bless his heart, I didn't realize what a box packrat he was until all these large empty boxes started coming down! And the funny thing is that these were probably moved twice! And don't ever think that only women get nostalgic. Keith would look at all these computer boxes and say things like "remember when we bought this"? No honey, that was over 20 years ago and I guess it didn't hold the sentimental value for me that it apparently does for you.

After everything was down I told him that he needed to sit for a while (but not on the furniture dear, you're sweaty!) to cool off and went to get him a glass of water. He kept insisting he was fine and was ready to start the garage attic, but I put my foot down. For heaven's sake, if it's 100 degrees outside what must it be in the attic?

When it was time to do the garage attic, really just a small space over the garage, one of our neighbors came over to ask why we were doing this when it was so hot. She nodded sagely after we explained it to her, but she did also hightail it back to her house to get inside out of the heat.

Hours later I told Keith that we should head up to Braum's for ice cream because we deserved it after all that work. Loaded up the dog and we headed through the drive-thru for a scoop of chocolate chip in a sugar cone. Yes, we've been together for a long time and got the same thing. As I'm driving home he remarked that it makes sense for it to be illegal to talk on your cell phone while driving, but maybe we shouldn't be allowed to eat ice cream and drive at the same time as well. Perhaps this was a commentary on my driving???

Good times.....

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.

By the seventh day God had finished the work He had been doing; so on the seventh day He rested from all His work." Genesis 2:2

You Say Tomato and I Say Thank You!

Having a BLT made with a neighbor's homegrown tomatoes is truly a wonderful experience. Even with the first bite, when the wonderful flavor floods your mouth you know that this is what a tomato was meant to taste like. And honestly, a homegrown tomato tastes nothing at all like the tomatoes purchased at the store.

I'll admit that these tomatoes got me to thinking again about a small garden. As prices go up surely I should be able to grow some of my own vegetables. Unfortunately I know nothing at all about growing plants, though there is somebody at work that said he'll help me learn. And with a large dog I think I'm leaning more towards having the plants in large containers rather than tilling a plot in the backyard.

The latest vegetable on the news that we're told not to eat is jalapenos and living in Texas I think it's required that we eat quite a few of them. Keith and I love them just about any way we can get them, including raw at one of our favorite Mexican restaurants. So perhaps a jalapeno plant or too as well.

Maybe it's time to start surfing for some gardening expertise. Surely it can't be too terribly hard....

A Dress Made With Grandma's Love

Now that the gift has been opened I can show what I've been working on in the evenings - a little dress, bloomers and barrette for Brooklyn's birthday gift.

I remember when Lynne' was little the tshirt dresses were popular. Love 'em or hate 'em, they were sure easy and fun to do. A friend and I even taught a community education course on how to make them and we painted the tshirt. Oh the days of the painted tshirts - I'll admit that I do miss them.

Anyway, I saw somewhere online a dress using the same concept, but with a tank top instead of a tshirt. I found cute tank tops at Walmart that were made of stretchy fabric and the neck and sleeves were edged with matching lace. The fabric I used had little smiling suns and flowers and that was perfect since I call her my little ray of sunshine. side note: Lynne' did point out that I used to call her my little ray of sunshine and that is true. She would wake up smiling and smile through the day. Luckily I have room in my life for two little rays of sunshine. :)

Making the bloomers was funny because I tell you what, literally every single seam on them had a close encounter with a seam ripper. They turned out cute though and I laughed way more than I cried, so all is well.

The barrette, ah the barrette. I am here to tell you that any time you see any "boutique barrettes" at a craft show, buy them no matter how much they charge - they are so worth it! I read directions online, at the store, and watched videos on youtube. I won't say that it was hard to do, but me and hot glue guns have never gotten on well. And apparently this is not a skill that has improved with age because I still had trouble. I had little strings of that glue everywhere and to top it off, I kid you not, I even burned my lip with hot glue!

In the end I'm very happy with how it turned out and since I have more supplies and more styles I'd like to try I'm sure I'll do it again. Perhaps with an alternative glue source though. ;)

Good times......