My life as I know it

My mom used that saying a lot when I was growing up. I'm pretty sure it had to do with me always being the last to wake up and my siblings getting all the good breakfast or something like that. It seems I haven't outgrown this tendency. Pat and I are very different when it comes to consuming desserts and sweets. I don't crave chocolate or sweets very often so I like to save mine until the moment is just right. Pat, however, has a never ending sweet tooth and will devour all sweets in sight, even if they're mine. Take for example, the candy I got in my stocking. I love peanut butter so naturally, anything reeses makes is up there on my list of favs. Reese's pieces, reese's peanut butter cups, you name it. I received both in my stocking from Pat and haven't eaten either of them. I was saving them for that perfect moment when I'm craving something sweet and either can afford the calories or just lose my will power completely. Recently, I noticed that

I just found this in the back of one of my Great Grandma's handwritten cook books dated December 1989 and thought it was definitely worth sharing. Recipe for a happy day: 1 Cup of friendly words 2 heaping Cups of understanding 4 heaping Tablespoons time and patience Pinch of warm personality Dash of humor Measure Words Carefully: Add heaping cups of understanding Use generous amounts of time and patience Cook, but keep temperature low - do not boil Add dash of humor and pinch of personality Season to taste with spice of life Serve in individual molds  Just another example of why my Great Grandma was and always will be remembered as one of my favorite people in this world. :) Click here to read more about what a special lady she was. 

That's a lie. My bags aren't even close to being packed. My suitcase is sitting on my bed. Open. But empty. This is SO unlike me. Normally I would have had my bags packed last week. But we all know how many hours I worked last week and that trend has continued this week, too. I tell you what, if you didn't need a vacation before, you will definitely need it after preparing for a vacation at work. So stressful! You may not know this, but after Mark died, I really, really wanted to get out of this trip. It seemed like a waste of money and very frivoulous at a time when I knew my mom would really be struggling for money. But we would have lost about $700 if we canceled our trip and neither of us were willing to just let that money go to waste. So here we are, several months later and we leave tomorrow. After the last few months of work being so busy and very stressful, I can't tell you how happy I am that we are going. But I won't be going anywhere if I don't g

A big, inflatable Easter Bunny that we saw tonight on our walk (like this) is what got me thinking about this story. When I was about 6 or 7 years old, I wanted SO badly to figure out what was real and what was make believe as far as holidays and life were concerned. It was very important to me that I had all of my facts straight so that I could "plan for the future," so I told my parents.  I was in second or third grade and there were a lot of rumors going around school about whether or not Santa Claus was real or make believe and I just had to know the truth. So I started hounding my parents for answers. I was begging them to tell me the truth. They were convinced that I was still too young to know the truth so they kept telling me, "of course Santa Claus is real." I still wasn't convinced, even after all of the assurances that Santa Claus was real so I started explaining the very logical and practical reasons about why it was so important that I get t

After an extremely frustrating day today (yes, another one!), I got home and started watching the Decorah Eagles (which I've pretty much been watching nonstop since last Friday). Tonight I happened to tune in just in time to see the third Eaglet starting to hatch out of the egg. The mom sat back down on it before the Eaglet was completely out of the egg, but Pat and I tuned in later and actually got to see the Eaglet completely hatch! Watching this happen live, right before my eyes, made me feel such peace. When I say I felt an inner "peace," I know it probably doesn't make any sense at all and it's hard to explain but I'm going to try.  When asked at a religious retreat for work this summer, when do I feel the closest to God, it was a really difficult question for me to answer.  I have a very personal and confusing relationship with God and rarely talk about it to anyone, let alone people from work whom I barely know. Even after all these years, I still d

We've established I didn't have a great day today. Let's move on. I had a great weekend and I have so much to be thankful for! Yesterday was a super relaxing yet productive Sunday for me. I got to sleep in (yay) and then went off to run errands. I went to GFS for the first half of my grocery trip. I really do NOT like going to more than one store for groceries, but I also don't like to overpay for anything so what's a girl to do? Do you have certain stores where you buy certain items or am I the only crazy one? After GFS, I went to Target to try and use my gift card from Christmas (thanks Dad & Jill). But of course, since I was actually looking to spend money, I couldn't find anything I liked. This ALWAYS happens to me. When I don't have money to spend, I like everything. Humpf. But I did find a cute clutch on sale that I'm going to take to Me-xi-co (ole!) in two weeks to carry my essentials and camera. Then I returned some clothes to LOFT that

If I would have known while driving to work this morning that the gloomy sky and weather was most certainly an indicator of how my day would go, I would have turned around and gone back home. It would have been a perfect day for staying in my pajamas and cuddling on the couch with my husband and dog. But instead, my day was filled with frustrating meetings and technology issues out the wazoo. Technology is my BFF when it works but when it doesn't, it can get me so frustrated I could scream (or cry, or throw something or all of the above). Without going into details, I can say with certainty that the new color copier in our office that I was SO excited to get last week, is possessed and has a personal vendetta against me. It works perfectly for everyone else but me. For example, I say print 48 sheets of labels, the printer decides to print on ALL 100 sheets of labels (and then ALL the paper that was left in the tray) using up all the labels that someone drove 25 minutes to get f

I've never been the type of blogger who logs in at the end of each day and summarizes the events of my day. Well first of all, that would require me actually blogging everyday which try as I may, seems to be impossible for me. Second of all, I feel like my days aren't interesting enough to share what I do each day. It would look something like this: Drove to work, got stuck in traffic, was the victim of road rage, someone else was the victim of my road rage, worked, drove home from work, got stuck in traffic, was the victim of road rage, someone else was the victim of my road rage, got home, husband dragged me to the gym, came home, cooked dinner, went to bed. Repeat. Pretty lame, huh? So I usually only write when I'm feeling "witty" or have something funny or self-depricating to share with you. Lately, I've had zero inspiration for blogging. Don't get me wrong, there is ALWAYS something I can make fun of myself about, but I just haven't been able