My Dad

Here is my Dad. He is 87 years old. He has his own home repair business. The last several months he has had very little work. We did some brainstorming and decided it was time for him to do some actual advertising. All his work has been word of mouth. He was able to barter to get this sign work done on his truck. Isn't it Awesome! He is also putting up his own website. I hope I have some of his longevity, energy and work ethic. I need to start working on it now, if I want to catch up to him.

Need home repair? Give this guy a call!

A New Bundle of Baby Boy

Here's my Shannon. Baby is due August 4, 2012

feng shui/memory lane

I've been puttering around the house this afternoon and found this book I bought several months ago. I started leafing through it. I was reminded why I bought it. It is very insightful to what clutter can do to our home. Of course, I'm reading it in Fred's behalf. I declutter all my stuff constantly, but Fred is the master of cluttered feng shui, but he doesn't even know it.

So anyway on with my story....as I'm headed out the front door I see this little wall decoration that I made in homemaking when Corinne was probably two years old. I asked Fred what it was doing on the stairs. He said I needed to fix it. The lace on her skirt has been dangling for years. I thought to myself that I had been thinking of fixing it for years, but never bothered.

This is Corinne's first writing of her name in history. See the C O R I N N E Naughty Corinne for ruining Mommy's homemaking masterpiece!

I felt I was obligated to fix it and continue to save this little part of our history forever....even to hang it in the new house. BUT the thought came to me TAKE A PICTURE and blog it.

So here you have it. Now I can throw it away and be at peace with that decision. Sorry Corinne.

I believe in decluttering. I read in this book today that holding on to past clutter and things prevents us from moving forward with our lives. I'm totally into moving forward!

personal revelation or the feel good moment

This morning as I was driving to work and having my morning prayer in the car, I came upon a thought process that was quite revealing and comforting. Too often I hear many of us (me included) saying something to the affect that people are trying to portray how ideal their life is and hiding their miseries or challenges. That we don't want people to see our weaknesses or problems...well there may be some truth to that, but this morning part of my prayer was gratitude for people (whose blogs I follow) who post fun and happy moments of their daily life. As I read some posts sometimes I catch myself thinking "yeah so you are sharing this perfect picture, but I know your life isn't perfect".....Quite honestly how wonderful is it that as we are drudging through our day we recognize our moments of joy and fun and then want to share it with others who care. That is how we get through our day to day moments. I don't know if any of us experience a perfect day, but everyday I know there are glimpses of joy, gratitude and hope.

Thank you friends for caring enough to share your joys and not shying away from sharing to avoid making others feel bad that their life is not as perfect or fearing someone might think you are trying to prove that you are. We are all the same.

Beautiful Snow

This morning it looked like paradise outside. It was such a surprise to see the dusting of snow. Utah won't have this kind of beauty, but I have come to love the mountains and terrain of our new homestead.

Oklahoma

Saturday Fred and I went to Seattle to see the musical Oklahoma at the 5th Avenue Theatre. I told Fred we could count this day as our 33rd wedding anniversary celebration. Considering I wanted to eat at Bajios by South Center (because I love that place), I'm not really going to let this count for our anniversary. It's not fancy enough to count, but I do love their pineapple shrimp salad. I got a coupon in the mail yesterday for $20 off Monday thru Thursday on two dinners at Anthonys. Maybe we'll go there. I just love spending the day with Fred. We don't have to do anything exciting, just not stay home. That is never much fun. Too many distractions.

Progress in the kitchen

So I have become more involved in trying new recipes and putting forth more effort in the kitchen as far as food preparation goes. Someone asked why am I making this change....well it's because I have stifled myself all these years thinking "is this diet friendly? Oh there are too many fattening ingredients" etc.... Which believe it or not did serve me well until the last 8 or so years. Well I'm tired of that whole business and have adopted a new eating philosophy. I eat what I want, but not as much. Take smaller servings or share an entree with Fred when we go out. So on with my story.

This is two granny smith apples sliced with sweet onion cooking in butter. Which I proceeded to add to a sharp cheddar cheese sauce that I made, pasta & sweet chicken sausage.

This is the finished product. It calls for broiling the last 3 minutes to brown the panko crumbs, but has anyone ever broiled in one of their pyrex dishes? I don't think it's safe is it? It was a very tasty dish. Fred took two servings. I had one because I knew there were going to be chocolate chip cookies to follow!