It's the End of the Year As I Know It

Thank goodness I have reached the end of the school year. I have worked my extra time and starting Monday am officially free. This is part of my love for working in the world of education. You may not get paid alot but.. few get the sense of satisfaction that educators get from coming to the end of a year. I would have a hard time working in a job where there was not definite end/ marking of an accomplishment (survival) to each year. I have many plans of what I am going to do during this time.
Week 1- Clean/straighten the house/yard sale shopping/sleeping/ watching movies, teaching my dogs to behave, and going to the doctor to hear the heartbeat.- Emma Alexander is coming to visit on the weekend. Fun times!!
Week 2- Going to VA to see my friend Shirley and her new baby.
Week3- Another week of hanging out.
Week 4-2 days of work and then my parents are coming to visit for a couple of days.
Week 5-2 days of work then vacation to Louisville with Robb. Camping and then staying in a nice hotel for a couple of days.
Then is is back to work. But with a fresh start, new kids to guide, and new problems to overcome.

A Great Adventure

This past week Robb and I decided that we would go camping on Friday. As a teenager I loved going camping!! (of course we had a pop up camper- which is a lot different than a tent) anyway... I love the outdoors, nature all around, the smell of campfires, the sound of people living in community. When we married we registered for a tent and air mattress but in our two years of marriage ( our anniversary was last Monday) we had not gone camping yet. Friday after work Robb came to meet me at work with the 2 dogs and we set out to find a place to lay our heads. The 1st place we went to had no open spots, apparently now days you can reserve a spot on the internet. (who knew??) I knew there was another state park about 30 minutes from where we were so we set out once again. Half way there Layla got car sick all over Robb's seats. Yuck!! After taking care of the mess we hit the road again. We got to the park and found a great spot. It was exciting to set up the tent, and begin the fire.-The fire starting was not a process without frustration!! We knew how it should work but- however it does not "only takes a spark to get a fire going." We had a great dinner. I learned in my teen years how to make Hobo Meals that cook on the coals of the fire. We loved sititng around the fire, relaxing and talking. the great thing about camping is you can go to bed when it is dark. This is when the night started to go down hill for me. The dogs would not get quiet. They were a little nervous about sleeping out in the wild and barked at every noise! Everytime I would almost be asleep one of the two would start barking. It also grew pretty cold! The low that night was 46. We had plenty of sleeping bags but somehow ended up sharing one spred out. Everytime I would try to cover my face with the sleeping bag to keep it warm, I would somehoe uncover Robb's feet. He had no idea why I was pulling and would cover his feet again, pulling it off my face. And while air mattress are better than the ground, it is not my comfy bed. Needless to say, when the sun came streaming in at 5:30 am, I was not ready to get up and meet the excited dogs. I was in a bad mood!! But after walking the dogs, packing up, and heading to McDonalds, life looked much brighter. We will do it again but have learned some valuable lessons. Hopefully our next camping adventure will contain the fun parts of Friday along with maybe a little more sleep.

Mother's Day Reflections

I am so thankful for the wonderful mothers I have. Mothers?? Yes.. I have many women in my life who I consider to be mothers. I am truly blessed with my special mother who game birth to me, raised me, cleaned my dirty diapers, taught me to love God, and has become one of my greatest friends. My mom has set such an example of what is means to be a strong godly woman. I have also been blessed to have a wonderful mother in law. I am thankful that God blessed me with her! I love the times we get to spend at her house and am thankful for her support and love. I have feeling that there will also be many lessons learned from this added mother. She is a women of God who raised a wonderful son! Aside from these 2 moms, God has blessed me with many women who I see like "mothers." These women have sowed into my life in many ways. I have stayed at their homes, eaten at their tables, and probably added my share of dirt and ware and tear on their houses. Many of these women probably have no real idea of how much they impacted me. I don't send flowers or cards to these women but I am thankful that God placed so many wonderful people in my life. So many kids never have one positive impacting person, and I have been blessed with more than I can count. A Big Thank You to all these women!!

Copy Cat

I loved Kim A. blog like this so... yes I went to the same site and did my own. I like mine to.

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A Girl and Her Grill

These are our wonderful grills. We started with the small charcoal one on the left. While I love the way it smells while cooking, it is soo hard to get the coals just right. It often falls onto two extremes- way tooo hot or cold because I did not put enough coals on. I have spent 30 minutes before just trying to get the dang coals to light... moisture is not the friend of charcoal. To the right of the picture is our gas grill that we bought during a winter clear out at a electronics store. I LOVE to grill food on this and if I might say so, am quite good at grilling. I used to grill just burgers and chicken but now have moved into the realm of steaks, veggies, pork chops etc. I will go further ( fish ,lamb chops, ribs, etc) these will one day be conquered as well. To be a good griller it is important to start with a good marinade and to keep an eye on the time. I used to just plop something on the grill and then check back in a little while,often have something come out burnt or undercooked. I now know more exact times.-due to a fabulous grilling book This helps tremendously in getting a steak (or whatever you are cooking) to be done at which ever level of doneness you like. Grilling is a great lowfat way of cooking. We grill rain or shine, hot or cold outside. It helps that it is under a covered carport, but I grew up helping to hold an umbrella over my dad as he grilled out in the rain. Nostalgia always seeps in when I grill. As I just mentioned I always helped my dad to grill. I would stand there and talk to him while he was cooking. We would talk about all sort of things and often he would tell me a grilling tip /technique in the midst of our conversation. Here is a little recipe for marinade that I just love.
Mojo Marinade
1/2 cup of Orange Juice
2 tablespoons of lime juice
2 tablespoons of soy sauce
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of minced garlic
1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon of black pepper.- place all together and marinade the meat for at least 1 or 2 hours.
Do you have any recipes that you enjoy?

What a Week!!

It has been a hectic week that has been full of unexpected joys and frustrations. #1 Tuesday we went to the Blue Bird Cafe to hear Phil Keaggy, Randy Stonehill, and two other guys. This was a great night of beautiful music! However for our normal routines getting to bed at midnight was rough. We were looking forward to a slow day on Wednesday. We were very excited about Wednesday because we were getting our new washer. The old walked across the floor several feet with every load and sounded like a helicopter was in our house. We bought the new one on clearance from Lowes. It was a great deal and make life much nicer. As I was pulling dinner out of the oven, Robb was putting in the first load with anticipation of a quiet dinner. We decided to quickly go change clothes before sitting down to dinner. When we came back into the kitchen there was in inch of water on the floor. The picture above is me sweeping water out of the door. After getting the water out, we had every towel in the house sopping wet and the clothes that had been in the washer were also wet. We spent the rest of the night at the laundry mat and returned home exhausted. Thursday night was dedicated to begining the poject of ripping up the damaged floor. We had one of the couples from our church over to help with this. I really did not feel like entertaiing but ened up enjoying being with these sweet people!! On Friday we went to a Jewish temple with a guy that Robb works with. It was a wonderful experience. I grew up often going to a Messianic temple in Atlanta. The entire night was very inspiring. Maybe a future blogg will highlight some of the thoughts that were spurred while there. Again- not an early night. Saturday (today) was our first Angel Food pick up day. We had to meet the truck at 5:45am to load food and then take it to our church. It was early!! But it did not take long to do. So we came home and took a nap before going back to the church to actually give the food out. It was fun and has the potential of being a great ministry oppertunity! Robb and I decided to take advantage of the tax free day and went to Opry Mills. We had a great time shopping but came home to one of our puppies having a stomach issue while she was in her kennel. YUCK!! The smell was aweful. We ened up having to give Lili a shower. It took both Robb and I to get her clean. Thank goodness we have a full shower. In the end Robb and I were covered with hair but Lili is now clean. Needless to say I am glad this week is over!!! In looking at it, it could have been alot worse!! At least the washer is not on top carpet. It will take us a week to get the new one fixed but, this will be a good excuse to go read at a laundry mat, which will take me back to college days. fun times!! Hopefully this coming week will be a little less exciting!

A Different Life

I am sitting up wishing I could go back to sleep. Yes... I said back to sleep. If you look at the time it is 11:03 p.m. When you get up at 5:30am and your husband gets up at 4:00am, late nights are no longer an option. This is an odd change in life for me. I have never been an early to bed/early to rise person. I truthfully love late night. I am always more thoughtful during this time, maybe that is why I often have trouble sleeping. Life has settled into some sort of routine. Somedays I love this and others I long for the excitment of not know when someone was going to knock on my door, who it would be,and why they would need me. I lived the previous 8 years of my life like this. 11pm was always still early in the night. Many a dorm meeting started at 11. It is funny to think that I am trying to go back to sleep and that tomorrow will be hard to get through because I have not slept 7-8 hours. I miss being an RD. It was a sweet time in life. Maybe because the lack of routine ( and stress )had become comfortable. I hope that our time in Nashville will grow into this sense of belonging/knowing ones role and purpose. I sit here and try to remind myself to look for the beauty in the mundane... i have a roof over my head-that is a blessing!! I have two cute dogs.. i have a wonderful husband... I can drive to my family's house- thank goodness I do not have to fly... we live in a cool city-we could live in the middle of no where..I have a TV with cable-growing up we never had cable. i have a dish washer- it may be loud but it still works. So many more things to be thankful for!!! Maybe if I keep this list going in my head, I will be able to drift off to sleep.