I can't believe she's 16!!!

Oh the rare smile, not often captured in such natural form, in the wild. The wild teenager who never smiles, this picture is one in a million. I kind of caught her off guard here. We were so busy yesterday i didn't get a chance to play Flash Friday. But had to post these sweet pictures from the little family party we gave her.
This is off my sisters camera, sorry for the graininess. She had 6 months worth of pictures on this camera!! Anyway this is the card i made her for her birthday. She had been bugging me for a camera for months now. i keep telling her there is not enough money to get one, so she at this point has no idea what i had in the gigantic box...
When she got home from school she asked me if the stool was part of the gift. My sister got her some New Moon tickets and she absolutely started to cry. it was so cute. i got video of it, this is a movie, not even the real actors will be there, but if your into vampires i guess this is the "it" movie to go see. I made a HUGE Italian cream cake with raspberry filling, totally went off my diet last night but that cake was heavenly.... Anyway I am back on it today I was going to the gym, in fact i was in the parking lot when mt phone rang and it was my brother. He was at the pharmacy and needed a ride the temperature was about 30 degrees today and a blistering wind so I went and got him as his health is very poor. The doctors say he still only has H.I.V. but he also has bronchitis and he is on a dozen other medications for his heart so I went and took him home so he woudln't get pneumonia. I am good with that, i can go this evening. But first here she is pulling the balloon out of the package. At first glance she only saw the roses in it. then this expression is priceless as she squealed "THERE'S A CAMERA IN THERE!!!"
Yes she started crying again!!! I know it was mean to lie to her, but it gets harder each year to surprise her. I just love surprises and i love the gratitude in this expression!! and yes I love the shock!!!

You know I see too many kids just expecting gifts from their parents and completely ungrateful, this, her appreciation and the look is just perfect, I hope she tries as hard with her children to keep them grateful and surprised. my kids, i know i can easily buy them things all year round, the only time they get gifts are for birthdays and holidays like Easter and Christmas. We buy them the necessities but they do not get indulges, in fact my 16 year old may be the only teenager in America who does not have a cell phone. We don't need the extra expense and she has enough responsibilities as it is. It sucks when she comes home and says, "So and so has one, why can't I have one?" and we tell her no even though the answer could be yes not because we don't appreciate her, but because we do. We bought her an I pod shuffle one year and she lost it, we did not replace it. It took her almost a year to save up the money to replace it, now mind you she replaced it with a 300 dollar I pod touch but that was 3 years ago and the thing is still in mint condition. So she knows her things will not be replaced if she does not take care of them and I trust and believe as much as she wanted this camera, and did you see it was blue? her favorite color, she will be taking care of it!!

I am exhausted last night i think every dish in my house was dirty when i announced i could use some help with clean up, everyone had to go home... hhmmm next time i want the family to leave, ask them to help now why didn't i think of that before! now i have a couple of costumes to finish up and some pumpkins to carve!! Happy Halloween Everyone!! I will try to stop by and comment soon too busy just yet!! Thanks for all your support!!! for todays thought;

"As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them."- John F. Kennedy

OH MY GOSH!!!

I HAVE LOST 6 POUNDS!!!!
too tired to post more will be getting my 55 up tomorrow and more of an update. this was just too exciting not to post. 6 pounds in 3 weeks on low carb and low intake of food, plus working out. And this last week i missed the gym because the kids were sick and still lost 3 more pounds!!! yeah me.

surrendering my self

well i cheated myself last night, it was birthday night and without thinking i had a piece of cake!!
today i am having some 7 grain toast with my grillers, my thoughts on this are simple, i do not want to toss out an entire loaf of bread that i took out last weekend and did not have any. today i am hitting the gym now that my girls fevers are finally gone.

here's the thing, i asked Wes about this diet again and he is driving me nuts!! now he says eating cheeses are too much fat, well what the heck am i allowed to eat then!! i have definitely cut my intake down, as of last week i lost 3 pounds i will find out if i have lost any more today. now i have told myself i would indulge on the weekends and i have not. tomorrow is "A's" sweet sixteen and we cannot afford much but i will be having a piece of cake with my daughter. I don't know what i am doing or if i am doing anything right. i know i do not have high blood pressure so i can have some salt, i do not have diabetes so i should be allowed some bread, i do not like to eat eggs everyday, i just don't. so i need to allow myself something.

This is something out of the Just for Today Meditation from October 27..

For many of us, the past is like a bad dream. Our lives aren’t the same any more, but we still have fleeting, highly charged emotional memories of a really uncomfortable past. The guilt, fear, and anger that once dominated us may spill into our new life, complicating our efforts to change and grow.

I have my past sometimes creep up into my present and sometimes i don't even recognize when this happens. Sometimes i feel like i am not doing enough, enough for my family or for my home or enough just to be good enough. then i get stuck, this has been my M.O. for years, well my whole life really. and when i get stuck i allow all the other bad thoughts to swirl in my head. The literature always speaks to me, the NA literature. So i know by reading on that it also tells me that the steps are the key to unlocking these patterns and freeing myself of this chain. So why do i take so long on something that only helps me? it is like i am stuck on stupid and cannot find the willingness to move forward with my steps. i am on 7 and last year for my birthday i had just finished step 6 so i have been working on this for almost a year now!! OK so today, now that i am writing this down, today i will work on my stepwork. i will post about it tomorrow so that i give myself a deadline. i need to do this or i just won't.

another thing that gets me in this funk is not having a gratitude list, which i have not posted one all week so here is my gratitude list to keep me in today;

1. today i am grateful for the willingness to move forward on my steps.
2. today i am grateful an addict reached out to me this week.
3. today i am grateful Halloween is this weekend!!
4. today i am grateful for my beautiful children, who wake me up at night just so i can hold them.
5. today i am grateful for the time to cuddle with these two little sweet hearts.
6. today i am grateful my "A" doesn't know she is getting anything for her birthday, it is getting harder and harder to surprise her each year.
7. today i am grateful for the gift of family i have been blessed with.
8. today i am grateful for the ability to let go of my past, so it doesn't affect my relationship now.
9. today i am grateful we choose to be healthy and have a healthy lifestyle for our children.
10. today i am grateful i do not know how to make a mousse. well not really but i am glad that i did not get upset with the slop that came from my feeble attempt yesterday.

We were getting ready for birthday night and i wanted to make a sugar free, carb free dessert and i had this recipe for lemon mousse. it called for cooking the lemon part very similar to a pie filling but no corn starch. then you needed to make a meringue and fold the cooled part in it. then make some whipped cream and fold that in the mix and viola! well my first part of cooking the egg yolks, butter and lemon, it was not smooth it was curdled. then the meringue, that was good i made that good so i mixed the lemon part in but it wasn't cooled enough i think. then it kind of fell, i am not sure how to fold food. then i tried to make the whipped cream and it started to turn into butter!! so not wanting butter i tried to fold that into the falling meringue mix, it fell more. then i thought if i beat it a little more maybe it would fluff up. nope, it looked like snotty goop. it tasted good though!! Wes loved the flavor!! this recipe called for splenda as well so it was completely sugar free. The old me would have been cussing and screaming for this not working, yesterday i just laughed.

I really appreciate all your kind thoughts from Tuesdays post. that was one of the most difficult times in my life, and there are many more horror stories i could have put in, this was a daily ordeal. but thinking about that time really scares me. and it is not like i try to not remember, it is my past that got me where i am, i just try not to be there. if that makes sense. so i need to bathe my girls and take them out for the morning, i hope you all have a wonderful hump-day!! we are going to try on our costumes for a trunk-or-treat tonight. they are going to look so cute!!! so here is today's thought;"Remember that happiness is a way of travel - not a destination."

--Roy M. Goodma

Captain Stupid comes to mind

i remember 5 years of hell. i remember a very dark time in my life. this memory has been jolted as i read a fellow blogger, who is much stronger then i was then, and she is going through some of what i went through at the end of my 5 year battle with this man.

it is hard to look back without having some thoughts of shoulda, coulda and woulda's. it is also hard with out getting those old feelings of worthlessness. recently, i received a letter from this man who had the nerve to ask me to go back to him. i was mortified, i had not heard anything from him in over 13 years and now this. my oldest daughter, "A" is his biological child. we left when she was 3 years old. back to the letter, he never once mentioned her, he didn't ask to see her or how she was doing, or if he could have a picture of her. she got wind of the letter and wanted to see it, this was before i had seen my sponsor to talk to her about this. we went to her counselor and i asked to speak with the therapist first. when i went in there i was hysterical, i was ranting about how bad our relationship was and my fears of what "A" would think when she read the letter. the counselor told me i was in classic PTSD mode, and i told her that was impossible it had been 13 years. i don't know all i knew was my "A" wanted to read that letter and no let me rephrase that, she needed to read that letter, if i did not let her she would think i was hiding him from her. it wasn't pretty. she was very angry, and jealous of me. she said to her counselor "he only wants her!! he doesn't even want me!! she took his baby away from him and he only wants her!!" the counselor tried to explain to "A" the seriousness of the situation in which we left him. i had never spoken to her how badly he treated me, i didn't want her to think she was a mistake. Everything and Anything that was ever good in that man, i have in her. i hoped one day he would change and they could speak again, but he has not changed, not one single bit.

I remember not being able to do anything right. i remember once getting mud on the carpet and he started to hit me, next thing i knew i saw blood, he bit my eye. i still have a small scar from that. i remember one time he was hitting me as i was trying to go up the stairs and i fell down, my dog bit him. bit his finger right down to the bone. he took off. i took the dog to a no kill shelter, in fear of his life. then he yelled at me saying i gave away the babies dog. i remember our dog bailey. she was the cutest little beagle pup, who had a teething problem. Captain stupid tried to fix that on night. it was horrible. the puppy had chewed up the tile in the bathroom. it was his fathers trailer. he started to beat on the dog, i was in the babies room holding her because she thought daddy was going to kill her dog. the dog was crying so much i thought so too. so i told the baby to stay there and i went in there to find him yanking her teeth out. I screamed at him and started hitting him, he turned around and knocked me smooth out. i remember him dragging me to the bed and grabbing a bat. i remember i couldn't move for 2 days after that. my entire back was beaten all the way down my legs. i recently found out i have osteoarthritis in my back from an injury, that was the only injury i have ever had on my back. i remember thinking he was going to kill me on several occasions when he would choke me until i was unconscious.

I remember trying to leave him, several times and i remember the cops bringing me back to him and him explaining how i was crazy and how i was bad to my daughter. i remember trying to get a PFA on him and how they told me i could only file once a year and i remember him not worried about it because it was just a piece of paper. i remember him going to jail and me packing some bags and taking my baby to the bus station to head to Wichita. he followed. i remember filing for a restraining order here, he called the DA's office before the court case. when we went there i remember them telling me they couldn't represent me because he called them and they counseled him and it would be a conflict of interest. i remember feeling defeated again. i remember a lady coming to me and telling me she would take my case pro-bono. i remember her telling me she is usually on the defendants side and how i lost it and screamed at her because she was just going to believe him, they always believed him. i remember her telling me calmy that it only meant that she knew both sides of the law very well. i remember she got him to sign off parental rights to his daughter, so he wouldn't have to pay child support, and put a restraining order on him for a year. I won, it was finally over, he left and I never heard from him again until last summer. This woman who helped me, turned out to be the President of the Womens Association of Attorneys in Wichita. She charged $1000.00 per hour and I had her all day for free. I got lucky. Women all over this country suffer at the hands of abusive men on a daily basis. I read so many stories like mine and I count my blessings.

the insane part of this is the mind set a woman gets when she is in a relationship like this. you feel like there is no way out, you feel like if you could just be a good girl and do everything right he won't get mad at you any more. the truth is the men who are like this are never satisfied. and some never get help. and women don't have enough support to turn to. the law is on the mens side. and these women who go crazy and just go back it is because they feel like little rats with now where else to turn and no one to help them. i remember one time at his mothers house, she was cleaning my face after he had hit me a few times and she told me "you know i have told him he shouldn't hit you so much, but you are such an instigator.." these men have such strong enablers, some of them pillars of the community. it is a hopeless situation and very difficult to leave. a lot of women never make it out. i was lucky. so was my daughter. here is my thought for today; "When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."- Harriet Beecher Stowe

Say a prayer for those women lost in these situations, they are our sisters, mothers, aunts cousins and neighbors.

weekend update

we have the costumes ready. i am so excited the girls are going to look so cute. the boys costume needs help though i never sewn anything in my life and this looks really funny. the sleeves are two different sizes and i don't know how to do the part where your head goes through so i left a slit big enough for my nephews big head and his shoulders come though!! if i sew it closer his big head won't fit through! so i asked my sister if she had a yellow t-shirt he could wear under it i guess ever a white t-shirt will do. next she has not gotten anything for her older sons costume and i cannot understand her thinking. i asked her over a month ago about Halloween so we wouldn't be scrambling at the last minute. my kids however will be darling, can't wait to post the pictures. i feel guilty cause theirs turned out so well but it was really easy to cut 2 circles out of felt and use a marker to outline them in black and write "thing 1 and 2" on them. we got our pumpkins last night and we even got our Halloween treats for trick or treaters. We got a couple of packages of spider rings and vampire teeth. there's about 70 pieces total which should be plenty, last year we did not have many kids coming. and i didn't want a bunch of candy in the house and the candy costs about 3X what the toys cost and will result in less cavities.

i am back on my diet, i told myself i could have a doughnut, and candy and Chinese food this weekend. well i did have some homemade enchiladas, yum, and i had some toast and i had some chocolate pudding. not too bad, and on Sunday i even had a carbless lunch. my back is killing me this morning, i slept on the couch, big mistake. i need to go to the gym but my bean is with fever, has been all weekend. she is fine now though and i was debating going anyway but it would be cruel to subject other kids to her bug, whatever it may be just for my own motives. i will go for a walk after breakfast i think.

i am very upset right now, not sure where this anger is coming from. i feel very isolated. my children have not let me sleep through the night and it is not their fault they do not feel good. then my brother drunk dialed me at 12:30 at night and i could have killed him. i just hung up on him. i told him he just woke my kids up. there wasn't even an emergency. i am very tired and feel guilty about just wanting to go back to sleep. we got notice from our wonderful insurance company about the latest medical bill. We owe another $1500 for this bill. i don't know how much more of this we can take. the policy is written very, very tricky so it is confusing to understand. our understanding was when we spent our annual allowance for the family then we would need to spend a total of $2000 out of pocket and that number conveniently keeps going up it is now that amount per person. but once we met that amount they now are claiming that that number was for in network providers and this bill is for an out of network provider. when i tried to ask Wes about it, he said it is what it is and we need to pay it, i am not happy about it but there is nothing i can do. When he said that he took away my personal power to have anything to say about these medical bills. i told him we should find another insurance company and he said that this is the best we are going to get. i felt like saying why because you say so?!? now the politicians are pulling the public option off the table. so even if this bill, now that it has been gutted, makes it through it will be worthless. i am seriously thinking of putting "A" and Haley back on state medical. there were no out of pocket expenses when i was on welfare. i am so sick of hearing people bad mouth health care reform. i am so sick of Fox news, rush Limbaugh and glenn beck. they say the public option will bring an end to free enterprise!? here is a newsflash for your free market on companies making money off sick people, my sister and her husband make less than half the annual salary we make. they just had 3 vacations this year, their sons have health insurance through the state. remember when i said she was in the hospital twice this summer for a mini stroke and seizures? i told her about our medical bills and she said, oh i don't pay those, that is why i have bad credit. like nothing. no big deal. do you know how many Americans are doing this? do you? maybe you should look around where you live and ask yourself how many people are not paying those doctor bills. and then ask yourself if we should have a mandate for health care. and if you are worrying about giving it to those who can't afford it, well guess what the hell we are doing now? plus our emergency rooms are packed, not just with addicts, but with people who do not have coverage so they wait until it is an emergency and they don't get turned away, do you really think they pay those bills? Shame on the members of the media who do not show the facts. i mean they tried to down play the amount of people who do not have health care coverage and it was a bold face lie. and there were so many suckers out there who just ate it up.

truth is i want the public option back on the table. trust and believe i will be signing up for that insurance. because i have had it before and it is great insurance. they payed 100 percent and i only had a $3.00 co-pay for prescriptions. oh, wait but you tax payers footed that bill, this time i would actually have a premium. and why is that bad? who ever coined the phrase "socialist medicine" should be drug out into the street and shot for treason!! how dare you spread hate and fear to cloud up the truth!!

you know what scares me, is going back on welfare because the insurance companies are making all this money and canceling people in need and labeling them dogs!!! how dare you think we do not need this. oh the poor doctors will not make enough money. EXCUSE ME!! do you think they are making money off of the poor folks who skip out on their bills!!! My mother died owing over a half a million dollars to them, is that fair!!!! if we had this public option then, when she was sick, she would not have had to beg like a dog for help!!! God i am so angry right now over this and i feel so isolated because people who i live around are ignorant and choose to stay stupid and they listen to the fear. they would rather not worry about it because they are all uninsured anyway and don't pay their hospital bills either. So if there was a mandate to get coverage, they would have to grow up and be responsible!!

So my baby's birthday is Thursday and I cannot even afford the supplies to decorate a cake. crap was over 30 bucks for just part of what i wanted!! so i am going to make something different, i found a wonderful Italian creme cake recipe with raspberries in the middle. I also could not afford her New Moon tickets so I asked my sister to get them for the midnight release. They are sold out, but she got them for the Friday night. So "A" will go gaga over that. I think she will have a great time for her birthday.

I am sorry I ranted about health care gain, i think i just wanted to talk myself out of going back on welfare. I know when my daycare opens the first thing i am going to do is put away in savings enough to cover our out of pocket expenses. i know this because i am very proud of the fact that i choose to be responsible today. and that our health is a top priority today. This will eat up some more of our savings, but thank god we have savings. I know we are not broke. We choose not to overspend on things like a beautiful new flat screen or cable. We choose to put money in savings every month and retirement. Our kids have clothes on their backs, oh gosh that is another thing, i lost a bag of winter clothes!! my friend gave me clothes for the girls, she over indulges her one daughter who is six and had a ton of clothes for my girls, they were designer and big, they were also winter sweaters and long pants and i lost them!! can't find them anywhere. We are saving a ton of money on clothes by passing them down, she passes hers on to me and i pass them on to another gal i know. it is like a clothing tree. Well i hung up the beautiful coats and dresses but i can't find this other lot of clothes. and we really don't have the money to spend but if we have to we will. "A" needs long sleeve shirts and Wes needs jeans for work, well he needs jeans period, he has one pair.

gosh i just went over this post and it is extremely long, if you are still reading, thank you so much, i appreciate all your thoughts. I hope you all are doing well, thank you for allowing me the time to share my fears and doubts, i do feel better and i loved my weekend with my girls. even when they woke up in the night it gave me extra time to snuggle with them. i will stop now and here is todays thought; "The Monkey's been off my back for a long time, but the circus is still in town!"- anonymous

Flash Fiction Friday-the perfect cup

As promised here is part two of brewing a perfect cup. If you prefer, you can scroll down to the Flash Fiction Friday is follows this lesson. This is the bag we store our coffee in. Notice the knob, it lets all the air out and keeps the coffee fresher. we do not freeze our beans as that dries them out and tends to make the coffee taste bad.
Here you can see it is a ziplock top, and the fresh roasted coffee on the inside. I love the smell as I open these bags. I would love to share that with you but alas computer technology only goes so far.
So for the perfect cup of coffee it takes 6 grams of beans per cup so we measure 56 grams per pot.
We used to pour 72 grams then realized the math was off, my math could be off too as Wes is the coffee man and knows exactly how much per cup is needed. I just know for our pot 56 is the magic number, and that is grams not ounces.
Our burr coffee grinder is in the shop. we are having it serviced as the teeth broke a while back so we are stuck with this horrible grinder because you cannot get a good grind from one of these 10.00 jobs. You can easily over grind and end up with espresso. Did you know that espresso is not a roast. If any commercial roaster tries to tell you so, they are wrong, espresso is a grind not a roast, people who roast their coffee darker are just burning it. Our big grinder has different settings, there is a drip, a French and Espresso grind on the grinder. The roast always stays the same.
Here we have the coffee in the filter and ready to start brewing. We have several different types of coffee brewers, and non of them from walmart. This particular model we find brews the best.
This is a Technovorm from Switzerland. This coffee pot heats the water to 200 degrees. Your average coffee pots in the store, all coffee pots only heat the water to about 180. The difference in the heat, the hotter water is for proper flavor extraction. It makes a more robust flavor and more aromatic as well.
This is a shot of the steam and the water actually brewing the coffee. See the froth on top of the beans!! When commercial roasters over cook the beans to make them all shiny, the oils are removed and actually make the beans lighter, and you get no froth when brewing.
I ran out of coffee and bought some Starbucks beans once, when i measured them to 56 grams it was a lot more coffee in the grinder then normal. The coffee was alright I think the pot brewing it hotter made the difference, but i was amazed to see that I needed more coffee to measure up what my beans are. weird huh.
So here is my coffee being poured after the perfect brew. And here is my Flash Fiction Friday, in case you thought i used too many words, I was just waiting until after the lesson. So every Friday compose a story of 55 words, no more, no less and report to the g-man!!

"You reach for the bag and measure
out the beans. Carefully pour them into
the grinder, hear the roar.
Fill the filter and pour in the water,
watch the steam...
Soon the air is filled with the
tantalizing aroma. Your senses excited
as you awaken your heart and
savor that first sip...
Coffee Anyone?"

Here ya go G-man!! Part one was on Thursdays post and here is part two, like I said I am spoiled with excellent coffee!!!
Do you take yours black or with cream and sugar? And for those of you who are waiting, we will be playing pay it forward in December again as we did last year. For those who choose from that post coming in December, this will be one of the gifts I will be putting in the care packages!! So stay tuned for that post if you would like to taste the freshness of the coffee!! Oh I almost forgot, see my urn? It does not sit on a hot plate at all. These urns run a little more then the ones in store but here is the kicker they are insulated with a steel wall inside which keeps your coffee hot for about 10 hours, so no need to burn coffee on a plate anymore. The urns that this model came with actually had glass in between the walls to insulate the coffee, but we found the problem with that was if the glass cracked, all the heat escapes from the urn and cold coffee in no time, we replaced those with these which have steal liners inside. So the coffee stays perfectly warm and does not keep cooking like your normal coffee pots. So I will leave you with todays thought;"Wisdom is, and starts with, the humility to accept the fact that you
don't have all the right answers, and the courage to learn to ask the right questions. "- Anonymous

getting ready for a good cup of coffee, pt. 1

These are coffee beans. We order from Sweet Marias. The owner gets to personally go to the different regions he purchases coffee from and try the beans. You can go to sweetmarias.com and check out his sight, very good stuff.
they kind of look like split peas when we get them. Wes likes to order the ones that score no less then 90. but the Guatemalan is still really good and rarely scores 90.
This particular typ is a peaberry, because it is smaller than your regular coffee beans and it smells different as well. We also got some Sumatra Blue Batak and it is exceptionally good coffee.
Here is our coffee roaster. Looks like a BBQ grill huh, well we don't use this for anything but roasting coffee, we keep a spare tank of gas handy as well it gets to be troublesome if you run out of propane in the middle of a roast!!
This is the barrel that we use to put the beans in to roast, you can also order different variations of this online. the commercial ones this size usually go for about 10,000 for the whole set up, as you can see, we are not very commercial.
Here you can see the name of the drum, this guy also offers the machines online as well, the rotisserie motor that is.
Here is one more view of the beans inside the drum.


Wes gets the temperature to about 600 degrees inside before he puts the drum on the rotisserie. Then he sets his timer and waits to hear the crackle.

here is our high tech cooling system, as you can see it is very important to get the beans cooled immediately after cooking and this works well they are cool to the touch in about 25 seconds. Wes tells me this is a large flour sifter.
Here he is meditating over coffee
This is the motore, it has a toggle switch and a fan. the fan is new, last year the motor stopped working and he found out that is was getting too hot next to the grill, can you see where he bolted this on to the grill? Anyway the guy that makes the drum sold him another motor really cheap and added a cooling fan to run during the roasting time. Problem solved.
Here he has his hot mitt and he is getting ready to pull the beans, this part is really fun.
He uses a really technical set of pliers actually i think it is pliers, but this is how he opens the drum so as not to burn his fingers.
this is the cool shot!! when he pours the beans and the shells or "chaff" as he calls it blows all up in the air!!
And here is some beautifully roasted coffee!! If you notice the beans are not shiny and covered in oil. That is because they are not over cooked. Now they need to rest for about a day or two, depending on the type of coffee, the Guatemalan can be drank the same day, it is cool to drink and then the next day find a completely different flavor!! Tommorow I will show you how we brew the perfect pot of coffee, oh yes there is more, you novices out there just thought we dumped some coffee in any old urn well we have something in store for you!!

Cheap Trick

If you click on the link above, this is how I feel when i have a good cup of coffee, like right about now!!! I love this song it makes me happy!! Surrender!! So for todays gratitude list;

1. today i am grateful for my friends in recovery.
2. today i am grateful for the cold weather we are having, makes for some good coffee!!
3. today i am grateful my sponsor finally answered the phone!!
4. today i am grateful my vehicle is reliable and has a working heater, windows and ac.
5. today i am grateful for the time to post this blog. i will follow up tomorrow after Flash fiction Friday!!

I have been so insanely busy, i did not go to the gym today, but i had some exercise anyway. I am working on cleaning and getting these costumes ready. my daughters reprot card came in and she is going to be so upset she did not make the honor roll, she missed it by 4 points. her gpa is 3.46, she hates it when she doesn't make the honor roll, she is taking all honors classes and is declaring herself an early grad to attend KU by 2011. Very goal oriented i just know she will be heartbroken, but i am so proud of her!! she rocks!! So I hope you all enjoyed this lesson, i had to do it in two parts as there is a lot of technical stuff involved in making the perfect cup of coffee!! at any rate, as Wes always says, "friends don't let friends drink Folgers." I will show you the best way to brew this wonderfully yummie coffee. Yummie is my technical term for good coffee, very technical you know!! so for todays thought; “A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future, and accepts you just the way you are.”- Anonymous

tuesday ramblings

went to the gym this morning and put in a great workout.
i had 2 eggs and a griller for breakfast with 2 ounces of cheese and some almonds for breakfast. for lunch i made me and my sister some grilled chicken with a salad and cottage cheese.

fire marshal just stopped by completely unannounced. my dishes were dirty and the living room a mess!! so he said i need a cover on the light switch in the living room and the fire extinguisher needs to be mounted and i am good to go, so now it is off to Lowes to find a pretty light switch cover!!

it is such a beautiful day and i need to get my house in order and dinner ready, so i am off for now i will leave you with this thought; "Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."-Joseph Addison

May you all be blessed with happiness today!!

monday's thoughts

This is my daddy. I miss him very much. He had diabetes and he never managed it. In fact we would dose up his insulin that he had to take 4 times a day and have them in cups in the refrigerator. We would hound him after meals to take his medication, he would grab one out of the fridge and wave it over his head as he was heading downstairs saying "I got my insulin, see". After he died, we went downstairs to where he watched TV to gather up his things and we found about 20 of those syringes, filled with insulin, hidden under the couch. My whole family has diabetes, my brother, my sister, my mother even had it. My sister is just like her father, she doesn't manage her health well at all. Of this I am completely powerless.

However that is not why I wanted to show you a picture of my dear old dad. I was taking pictures this weekend of his grand daughters and we were having some chocolate pudding. I just couldn't help but notice the resemblance between my daddy and the bean, see ...

Apparently she didn't like the coconut so she was spitting it out.

Then she blew me a kiss.

But I think she definitely looks a bit like grandpa here!!! She has his eyes, and beard!! My daddy always wore a beard. he was a pirate!! he even had a tattoo of a belly dancer on his forearm and when he flexed, she would dance!! My daddy was my best freind and I have been thinking about him a lot. The anniversary of his death is coming up and that may very well have something to do with this. I smile a lot when I think of him, I used to be so very angry that he was gone, today it is my lesson to take care of me, so that I may be here to see my babies have their babies. He is missing a lot.

So I went to the gym today and had one hell of a workout. i checked my weight and I lost two pounds in a week that i have been dieting, so I think I may finally be doing the right thing for myself!! I had some pasta on Saturday and some Chocolate pudding on Sunday. I still used portion control, in fact on Sunday i wanted a snack and I used to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with chocolate milk. This time i had some chocolate milk and was plenty full!! That was something for me as my appetite is huge.Now i am back to no carbs during the week and allowing myself to look forward to some on the weekend. I have been in such denial over what i eat that it caused me to actually gain 10 pounds over the summer!! When I weighed myself when i first started this diet and exercise I was up to 225!!! This is what is going on with our country!! I mean i have friends who are bigger then me who claim not to eat much, they never eat much they say!! I used to say the same damn thing!! No it was I eat healthy food!! It didn't occur to me not to over eat!! That even if the food was healthy if I over eat it is still going to make me gain weight. So i feel pretty good i ate a couple of eggs and some veggie burger for breakfast, i had some tuna, no mayo, with romaine lettuce and tomato for lunch. I am drinking more water, my main problem today is not getting to my food diary. This is an issue because it is so very easy to slip and take an extra helping of food at meal time. So two pounds is huge for me because i wasted an entire summer working out and did not lose but 3 pounds in 3 months!! 2 pounds in a little over a week is fantastic!! Great motivator.
ok so my gratitude list;
1. today i am grateful i have stuck with my diet so far and lost 2 pounds!!
2. today i am grateful for a meeting tonight!!
3. today i am grateful the fire marshal will come this week!!
4. today i am grateful we got the ladder hung up in the garage finally!!
5. today i am grateful for the beautiful weather we have today!!
6. today i am grateful for the fact that I have beautiful Halloween lights up on my porch.
7. today i am grateful for the memories of my father.
8. today i am grateful for my willingness to surrender.

I have so many reasons to be grateful today and i feel really good that I am moving forward on my daycare. I have been afraid of not finishing things, that has been my M.O. my whole life. today I am making great strides to accomplish things to put my family in a better place. all the good intentions in the world mean squat if i don't follow them with some action. that is where i am at today, i am taking action to put myself in a better place in life. for todays thought; "Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."- Howard Thurman

Saturday tidbits

As a mother I have been able to teach my children so many things. for instance, the proper way to put on a life jacket...


And i have also seen my children teach each other, like here for instance, when Haley is pointing out to Gillian her eye...



We also have to be aware of our surroundings, this next picture is a tornado drill, and my girls really liked this one, until they out grew it...


Blogger is being funny i am having trouble uploading pictures. Hey i installed a door knob yesterday!! it is saturday so i can have some bread. wes is working so i have time to stop by and blog today.

i am not feeling well, yesterday was Wes's clean date he celebrated 19 years in recovery, the girls and i got some balloons at the dollar store and some low carb ice cream and some streamer to put up in the house. then we went to a meeting. today i feel congested and have a slight headache. hopefully i won't get as sick as "A" did. hey i just looked and i posted a blog everyday this week, wow. i am grateful my mind is able to be clear and finish a thought process. i have not heard from the fire marshal yet, i am not sure if i have the energy to paint in the kitchen, there are some spots Wes put some tape on and putty, i think it is sanded but the grain from the tape is coming through so i think he will need to reputty. i have halloween lights to put up still.

i am going to make some orange rosemary pork chops for dinner. i will make me some whole wheat toast this morning and have some coffee, maybe i will get to the gym in a bit. for now i think i will take it easy and play with my girls, they love the mylar balloons. have a great day all!! thanks to everybody who stopped by and left me a comment yesterday!! i really look forward to reading them!!
gratitude list 5 things;

1. today i am grateful it rained last night, it is cool and the air smells so clean and fresh.
2. today i am grateful i got to a meeting last night.
3. today i am grateful i can take care of myself.
4. today i am grateful for my boundaries and not allowing chaos in my life today.
5. today i am grateful i have my faith and recovery.

todays thought; "A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."- Ayn Rand

Flash Fiction Friday-nap time

Every Friday write a story or poem of 55 words,
no more, no less and then report it to the G-man!!
This week I used pictures to visualize!!

"There once was a little girl named bean.
Of blowing bubbles and making wishes she was keen.



One day she decided not to take a nap,
She became very grumpy and gave her sister a slap!!



We tried to calm her with kisses and care,
Alas nothing worked so she fell asleep in the chair!!


Here ya go G-man, ain't she cute!! I just love it I know it won't last, but it is so much fun to hold her and play. hope she doesn't hate me when she is older for posting her online!!!

Well today was very, very busy, I did not eat pancakes!!! yeah me!! then I worked out and had a protein shake and then the electrician came by, and the stovers guys, and hey there was water down there and these guys took a machine and sucked it all out!! they didn't need to cut it!! So can you hear my sarcasm!!!

Then i called the state licensing and they told me what I needed and so I called to make an appointment with the fire marshal!! I know it is so weird i am moving forward and not sure if I am doing this right but I am going to try. I will get my contracts printed up and my parent packets ready, i will need a script for the phone and hopefully I will be starting work sometime soon.

my children are talking in their sleep right now, it is soo cute. OK so I feel really good about moving forward and i need to do more tomorrow, I need to install a door knob on the bathroom door. this is a "Wes job" but since he is off working to pay bills and then going to school for a better job I guess i can figure it out. There is a doorknob on there now, it just has a lock and the fire marshal will want to see that it doesn't, so we got a new one that didn't lock, now i get to pretend to be a carpenter. Also i think i am going to try and get the kitchen corner painted so I can try to nail the trim back up, it has been a year and he has not scratched that off his "honey do list", so I will pretend to be a painter, I painted my living room I think I can handle that!! As far as hanging the 20 foot ladder in the garage, he really needs to do that.
so i am feeling kind pumped right now, oh I almost forgot some man came up to me in the library and gave me a candy bar to give to my kids!!! I was like trying to coral 2 toddlers at the time so I didn't look up and since i was in my usual NA garb I couldn't be rude so I simply thanked him and walked away. Well they saw the candy bar so when we got home, my teenager was eyeballing it and I told her go ahead but to inspect it first. The dang thing had needle marks in it I swear!! I just threw it out and labeled myself worst mother of the year. The babies were devastated. They don't get sweets often, oh well Halloween is coming heads up ya'll I will be inspecting candy bags!!
OK so my gratitude list 5 things;

1. today i am grateful for the ability to be gracious to strangers.
2. today i am grateful the electrician only cost 40 dollars.
3. today i am grateful we have just enough money to pay our bills and not be in debt.
4. today i am grateful for the time we spend with our family.
5. today i am grateful for the courage to change.

I really have a lot to be grateful for and this journey of recovery has blessed me in so many ways. sometimes it is easy to get mired down in the rat race, but then i see my girls smile and it is off to the races again . they really make it all worth while. so for today's thought; "The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty." - Winston Churchill

thursday thoughts

having a really rough time today, my kids are eating pancakes and i want to take a bite so badly it feels like an urge to use dope!! is that totally insane.

oh and the Harlem Globe Trotters are coming to town and there is no way we can afford to take our kids, i don't know why but this is something i really, really want to take my kids to and it is so disappointing that we cannot afford to go.

i need to go to the school and pick up "A's" homework and go to the gym, but first i need breakfast and all i want are pancakes!! i don't have any thing for breakfast that isn't a carb!! i need to go to the store.

i found a phone in meeting yesterday and it was good to share, seems like i have been quarantined for a month now. but my Haley broke her fever yesterday and she is feeling much better, "A" has a lot of fluid on her chest and is still in a lot of pain. by Monday the two of them are cleared to leave the house.

i will be going to the gym with the bean, who is still not sick!! and then we will stop by the school. i have been very much struggling with finishing getting my daycare license. if i file and the surveyor comes out and sees things wrong i will only have 5 days to comply, as slow as we are to get things done, i would like to have everything done now, but Wes is so busy with school and i really need his help with the things i feel i will be marked down on that we are stuck. i will call today and see what else i can do, i may be able to get the fire inspection done anyway, he is not the surveyor, even though the girls at class said it has to be ready like you are going to open the next day. so today i move forward, i need to start making money.

it really makes me jealous of my brother and sister who live by the seat of their pants, my brother just took a trip to Colorado, he has no job, and lives on someones couch, pays no bills, he is a mooch, my sister just got back from New York and Mexico and now just rented a vehicle to go to Fort Jackson South Carolina to see her daughter graduate from boot camp and i can't afford to take my family to see the Harlem Globe Trotters. Sometimes this penny pinching really sucks, but without an income how can i say we need to go, we don't it is a really strong want.
my mother took us to see them when we were little, we got to see them a couple of times, she got tickets from her boss at work, i asked Wes if he would ask his boss about the company getting tickets and he just rolled his eyes. i never, never ask for things like this and i don't want to go to this without my kids. i have some very wonderful memories with my mother and this is something that i would love to take the kids to. i know Wes doesn't understand because he doesn't have these kind of memories with his mother, it is the same with Christmas and holidays that he thinks i blow out of proportion. this is the magic i remember from my childhood and i want to share this with my children, unfortunately tickets for the event will be 80 bucks a piece and times that by 5 and we're talking about a house payment.
ok so here is my gratitude list and then i need to eat something;

1. today i am grateful my mother was able to give us the memories i have today.
2. today i am grateful i have not strayed from my diet.
3. today i am grateful for the hope that this time it will work.
4. today i am grateful for my recovery and my life.
5. today i am grateful my children are feeling better.

today i choose to be healthy, i will not cave to my carb cravings. i will focus on my solutions, and will be productive, i will not be able to be on the computer until this evening to post for Friday. for today's thought; "Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger, misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good; that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding; and that there is always tomorrow."- Dorothy Thompson

halloween fun

OK i know these are just too cute not to share!!



Spiderdog, spiderdog does whatever a spider dog does...

Winnie the Pooh and piglet too!!!


Look it's a lobster!!!


Mufasa the lion!!


Hey get a hair cut you Hippie!!!



A giraffe


He's a foot ball hero, hope he can walk in this thing!!


Cat fish or dog fish?


OK this is definitely a dog person, to put the cat in jail!!


OK get the lobster out of the pot!! this one scares me.

And no one notices the dog being eaten by an alligator!! the little girl is giggling though


"I'm a chiquita banana and I'm here to say... Ole!!

OK this next one is not for the kids....




Is there really anything to say? does he need some sun block?

I got these in an email and they were too funny, I bet the dogs look around on halloween thinking, what are we doing to our children? I am currently working on costumes for my kids we are doing a Dr. Seuss theme this year and the girls will be thing 1 and thing 2. Hope these pictures put a smile on your face, they did me!! have a wonderful humpday, for todays thought; "Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections."- Frederick Keonig