New Clothes!!

Finally, it's a Friday evening, bringing on a much needed Sabbath rest. 

I really don't understand how the average person can survive without taking a day of rest.  It's not only good for the body, but excellent for the soul :-)

This has been quite the week -- started with a birthday party/sleepover for H -- would have been great, except she and a friend decided to stay up late - finally at 1:30, I went to bed and told them they needed to get some sleep, as I was waking them at 8 in the morning.  The really bad part was that K was out of town and so I was the one responsible for making sure they were awake at 8 -- UGH -- I don't do mornings!!

So then I decided to tax myself further by painting -- it wasn't too bad on Monday -- just one coat of Kilz.....waiting for a paint color decision to be made, but knew I had to cover the red, regardless!

Tuesday was just awesome, the welcome break we needed.  Some friends have a shack on a nearby lake so we went and spent the afternoon PLAYING!!  The girls and I both were able to relax and just have a really good time. Which was good, because the next 3 days have been super busy.  I've put in about 40 hrs in 3 days time - painting!!

I have had many people ask me how I find time to do various things -- mostly craft and sewing related and my answer has always been "I don't clean my house."  Usually the response is a chuckle and a whatever face, like they don't think I'm serious.  I AM!!  And just to show you how crazy it is at my house, I'm going to share the stress relief story that happened here this last week!!

As mentioned, we were going to the lake with some friends so I started looking for my bathing suit.  Now it's not something I wear very often and so therefore it doesn't hang out with all the other laundry that gets folded, just not put away before it gets worn :-)  Oh -- you know the stack I mean, I bet you have one hiding away somewhere!!

So, I started the hunt for my suit.  Now I should mention that the last couple of weeks, I've been searching for other clothes.  Asked the hubby and girls if they had seen (said piece of clothing) - no luck.  I also have not been able to find the camera charger.  Anyway -- back to the suit!  I did happen to find the new bottoms -- well they were new last year, but I got them at end of season and so hadn't worn them -- they were actually in the dresser drawer!!  Off to find the top -- no luck.  I dumped 2 laundry baskets of socks -- yes we actually have that many - -anyone want to come sort socks??  No top.  So down to the garage to rummage through the dirty clothes.  (the washer and dryer are in the garage) 

Adding to this story, is the fact that the entire time I'm searching I'm talking to my mother on the phone -- she's offering suggestions, but mostly laughing!!  By this time, I've looked the entire house over and am getting more than a little frustrated, feeling the time crunch of needing to be ready to go.  Finally, in one last attempt, I look in the family room downstairs.  I call it a family room, but it's really been just a storage area, it floods down there and we haven't used it for much. It does house all of K's music, an unused treadmill, some of the outgrown toys and a couple of futons.  I wasn't expecting it to be down there, especially since the girls decided to clean that room several weeks ago.  They really did a good job and nothing was hiding -- I had already glanced in there a couple of times to see if by chance my bathing suit top was there.  But.....I decided to do a little more digging and wouldn't you know it ---  Tucked away in the corner, hidden by the easel, not only did I find my top, but the ENTIRE LAUNDRY HAMPER of clothes I was missing.  The sad part is that I had been missing them since CAMPMEETING -- the first of June -- almost SIX WEEKS!!    All my favorite clothes, and wonder of wonders, the CAMERA CHARGER as well. 

By this time, my mother has lost it -- she's hysterically laughing, so I head back upstairs with the long lost suit, only to not be able to find the bottoms I just had laid on the bed!!  I'm about ready to hang up the hyena on the line!!  Dumped the socks back into the basket and found the bottoms!! 

Seriously people -- Anyone want to come ORGANIZE my house??

I'm back!!  Although only half-heartedly ......

Sometimes I feel like there is so much sadness in this world, that it should just pour rain for weeks and weeks, like somehow the earth needs to cry too.  I know, weird thought and if you analyze it too much, it just sound crazy. 

Talked with a friend tonight and am really struggling with how to help.  I totally understand how she feels, but have no good thoughts of how to help.  My heart aches because I'm where she is and I can understand exactly what she's saying, in fact, half the time I know what she's going to say because I think the same of my health.  I can only hope that by understanding that helps somehow.  And keep trying to think of something to brighten her day!!

On another note -- I'm going to have to quit procrastinating and see some sort of Dr. about my arm.  Sabbath I could hardly lift it without using my other arm to lift it.  I'm just afraid that it's going to be something major and I just can't afford to take the time off.  So until I can't use it, I'm living with it.

Busy week ahead, changes here on campus, I'm painting a house on campus, trying to get it ready for our new cafe person. And then it's going to be time for school!!  Next week we're off to Nashville for teacher's meetings.  I can't wait, I get to hang out with one of those timeless friends.  You know, one of those that it doesn't matter how long it's been since you've seen each other or talked to each other -- it's just awesome!!

And then school starts -- which is a good thing.  My biggest wish is that once school starts I can spend lots of time focusing on these silly puppies and get them house-trained.  Right now they are living in my kitchen and dining room and that's just getting old.  Would like for them to be able to spend more time with the family.  They need the extra space and attention.  But it seems like right now, the girls are undoing everything they have begun to learn. So maybe if they are in school, the dogs can learn and then we can teach the girls!!

Plus, hopefully it will at least get some of the fighting out of my house.  I would love to know the secret to raising sisters that get along.  Now, I know, there are some that say, "I fought terribly with my sister and now we're best friends"  Well, I DON'T want to wait that LONG!!  There has to be  a way.  My two are driving me crazy, it's pick, pick, fight, pick, fight all day long.

On a brighter note -- I still haven't found my camera charger, but was able to use Kevin's phone to take a few pictures and send to my email -- here's my latest creations!!

My way of saying Goodbye

It's been two weeks since I found out one of my best friends from high school died.  Is it crazy to feel like part of you is missing, when you didn't even know that part was still there??  Joseph and I met in high school and instantly hit it off.  Our senior year we went to every function together and were best buds :-)  After we graduated we stayed in contact and then went on a super fun road trip to Colorado.  One of the funniest memories from that trip was that when we stopped at a motel (we were trying to save money, so shared a room, just made sure there were two beds!) it was super late and we were exhausted.  This was the only room we could find and after checking in and asking for two beds, we went to the room only to discover there was only one bed.  The look on Joseph's face was priceless!  He stammered and sputtered and then finally pulled the mattress off the bed, he slept on the box springs and I slept on the mattress.  Guess you had to be there!

Christmas of 1992

A year or so later, I moved to Chattanooga - where once again we we totally inseparable.  Joseph lived only a couple of miles away and we spent lots of time together.  After a year or so, I moved back home and would frequent Chattanooga when time allowed, always had a place to stay on his couch, I'm sure his roommates got tired of me!!

Valentines - 1993




We eventually drifted apart, I got married, went from Boston to Denver to North Carolina and lost touch.  I heard snippets of his life from mutual friends, but we never really connected again.  I just knew he was there and every time I heard of him, it made my heart happy.  He was one of my rocks, the solid good guy!!

So it was a major surprise when I heard he had died and I've been weirdly grieving ever since.  Tonight I went through all of my old annuals and scrapbooks -- thought I'd share a few pictures, all from our senior year.  This is my tribute to the guy I can honestly say knew how to love unconditionally.

Junior/Senior Banquet, Spring 1993 - I love his smile in this one!

This one is my all time favorite - I had been super super sick and didn't know if I was going to be able to make it back for the banquet -- Joseph put up with it all and treated me like a princess. In a lot of these pictures, I was so weak he was practically holding me up. This is a rare moment between "poses" we were talking and just enjoying being with each other!

A couple more from graduation weekend -- Joseph and I sat next to each other at every part of the program, so I don't have any pictures of us together - if you look close in this one, you can see me behind him, so that we could be beside each other and not opposite.

This last one is a group of guys that were mischievous!!  Had to put it in.  Super good group of guys and good friends.

Amazing how much better I feel, loved looking through and reliving all these fantastic memories.  Thank you for allowing me to just be and put together a memory page.  There are so many emotions that I can't begin to describe them all, but by looking at these pictures, my heart is healing.

Bring on the RAIN!!

Hard to believe it's Friday - this week has gone super quick with doing nothing.  H is still sick, coughing and sniffles.  R is pretty content to do much of nothing!  Which is great for me, I still don't feel back up to par.

Have had a decent week except for yesterday.  Decided to do a little shopping - haven't had any new clothes in forever and thought this weekend activities were a great excuse :-)  Unfortunately, I didn't stop to think that the "activities" included a funeral, not just the women's retreat.  Absolutely nothing worked!!  In fact I found myself ready to cry in the middle of the store.  How do you find something to wear to a funeral for somebody that you didn't realize was still such a major part of your life.  It's crazy, not having talked to this person for years and I do mean years, but yet, the love and memories of the fun together is still just as strong.  My heart breaks, but I can only imagine the grief and pain those who know him best and longest are feeling.  I can only let my heart ask for strength and peace for them.  My voice just can't find the words.

Crazy health

Today is actually a do nothing day -- well except for a little appointment for Rachel this afternoon.  Other than that - nothing.  Actually more than nothing, because we don't have any water.  Technically we have water, but there is a leak in the basement that's dripping on the breaker box and making a mess on the floor, so I've turned the water off to the house.

I'm actually glad it's a do nothing day because I'm wiped out!  Last week was super busy, the weekend was crazy and yesterday was paint till I'm done day :-)  Everything I set out to do was accomplished, but I'm now paying the price. 

I don't talk about it a lot or let it dictate my life - but I deal with the effects of lupus on a daily basis.  It's frustrating because I've had one positive blood test and the rest aren't, so everytime I switch doctors the process starts over again.  End result at the moment -- I am taking nothing!!  Which I think is better for me in the long run, if I can manage symptoms as they appear, but some days I just wish I had something to take the edge off and give me some energy. 

Anyway, long story short - my hands and arms are killing me.  I have braces on my hands, so hopefully that will help some, but for today, nothing that requires fingerwork.  They are numb and difficult to command.  I've already dropped a couple of things, don't know if it's the fingers or the lack of arm strength.  Oh well, we move forward, it will only last a couple of days.  Thankfully I've dealt with it long enough to know the time frame, which is why I did all the painting yesterday!  My body takes about 2-3 days to respond with pain and fatigue, so I figured that yesterday was my only opportunity to do anything this week.  The rest of the week will be spent in recovery.

The girls were also gone last week, they had a busy week of fun with the grandparents -- down side is they are tired and both fighting little bits of cold.  So we're all just laying around --

I DID MAKE MY BED THOUGH!!!

Vegan Cake Recipe and Pictures

Hurray, this weekend is over and now I can relax!!  Actually, I'm not really complaining -- it was just one of those busy weeks.  Good thing the girls were with my folks -- poor Kevin had to fend for himself, thankfully he was nice enough to bring me home take-out every now and then.

I was going to be this awesome blogger and post pictures from my kitchen, showing all these wonderful ingredients, cakes in the pan before baking, etc..... I even cleaned my kitchen so all the mirrored backsplash wouldn't refect all the dirty counters.  But as luck would have it -- I couldn't find the charger for the camera battery and the girls weren't home, so who knows what black hole it ended up in :-)

But the cake turned out wonderful.  I needed a pound cake consistency, something a little more dense than your typical cake box cake -- this was a decent sized wedding cake, not the biggest I've done, but still a lot of weight.  So after much trial and LOTS of ERROR, here is the recipe I came up with.

2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
1tablespoon EnerG egg replacer
1/4 c warm/hot water

3 cups all purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 medium sized lemon -- zest

1 1/2 cups soymilk  ( I used half unsweetened SILK and half SILK Almond)
4 teaspoons vanilla
juice from the two lemons that were zested (approx. 2 Tablespoons)

And then the fun begins --

Take the oil and sugar and beat it till combined, add the egg replacer powder and warm water and beat it to death.  I mean lots and lots on high speed.  I turned my Bosch on and let it go while I put together the rest of the ingredients.

In another bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt and lemon zest.

In another small bowl, combine the milk and vanilla.  Squeeze the lemon juice into the mixture and give it a good stir.  It will curdle a little.

Alternately add the flour mixture and the milk mixture and mix until well combined.

Pour into a 8 or 9 inch square pan that's greased and floured.  Bake at 350 approx 50 minutes, or until done.  It should raise a little and pull away from the sides a tad.

That's it!!  I thought it was pretty good.  The cake I made was 2 layers of each size with raspberry jam between the layers.  The middle tier had homemade lemon filling (that needed to be vegan too, so store-bought curd didn't work).

This was a really moist cake and it had good flavor -- well if you like lemon!!  That was the bride's request.  You could certainly change it by omitting the zest, but I would still put in the juice to curdle the milk.

Here's the cake once all the layers had been filled with jam, they were all crumb coated with icing and then covered with fondant, and then stacked with all the necessary support system :-)

Once it was all stacked and ready to go, we hit the road to the reception hall.  (Oh, there was another big cake that was not stacked -- it wasn't proportionally good, so I just made another one to cut and serve, not to look pretty, although it looked pretty good too!!)

Safely arrived at the hall and proceeded to decorate -- here's the finished project.  Tablescape and all.  Notice the "crooked" wine glasses!!

Here's another of just the cake

The white flower is a rose of some sort, the rest are hydrangea's of different colors and then the peacock feathers.  You can't see the icing work from this angle, but I'll show you a close-up. Each tier had designs on it.  The bottom two are pieces of wood covered with fondant and ribbon.  Kudos to my dear brother for cutting them for me!

Notice how the bride is standing on the suitcase.  This is especially true of this couple, he's a pretty tall dude.  You may not be able to read it, but the tag on the suitcase says "Honeymoon Bound."  The color is not the best, but the ribbon is a dark teal - not a color you see everyday, in fact it was impossible to find ribbon to match, so Bonny (the groom's mom) actually made it!  It really was a pretty cake!  I think it's a great one to end my cake decorating career on -- Nothing like going out with a bang :-)

Vegan Cake Adventures

For all of you who are wondering -- YES!!  I've made the bed the last couple of days (well not yesterday, because the dogs jumped on it before it was made and I just had to put clean sheets on it, so stripped and then made it!)

Onto the latest adventure --  I'm trying to make a vegan wedding cake.  I've done lots and lots of wedding cakes, but not any that were vegan.  I have a basic recipe but am not happy with the way it turned out so now I'm trying to tweak it.  The flavor is really good, but I can't get the texture right.  Funny how something without any eggs, tastes super eggy and rubbery.  Oh well -- we'll see how batch #3 turns out!!

UPDATE - #3 turned out great.  I'll post recipe later - but I went back to what I knew about baking and did my own thing, using a combination of several recipes I found!! 

Tired and Sad

My heart is sad this morning.  I just found out that a high school classmate of mine died.  It's amazing how such a thing can touch you.  I hadn't spoken with this person in many many years, but there was a time when he was my best friend.  The only thing that kept me sane when I moved to Chattanooga. There have been many many times I wished I could have loved him as he deserved.  Yet, one can't force the heart and so I respectfully tried to bow out of his life, although he was in my prayers, thoughts, and many many happy memories. 

I can now only pray that there was some sort of peace in his life.  I miss just knowing he's somewhere.

New Adventures in Cake

So today has been busy busy -- I woke up and made the bed because I didn't have time to think about it later today - hit the floor running.

I am helping a friend make two little flower girl dresses for a wedding this weekend, spent most of the day putting those together.  I had forgotten what it was like to sew for little ones - kind of fun!

Then I made a co-op pickup run and went into Earth Fare to pick up some foreign ingredients -- well foreign to my kitchen at least.  Xantham Gum and egg replacer.  I am embarking on an adventure tomorrow -- making my first vegan cake.  I am also making the cake for this wedding and it will be vegan - frosting included!!  So to figure out how it's going to work, tomorrow is a test run in a smaller size.  I'm hoping it's dense enough to hold the weight of fondant - it's 3 tall tiers, so we'll see.  I also have never covered a square cake in fondant, so we're giving that a go as well tomorrow -- we'll maybe Wednesday -- tomorrow will be spent working on the dresses some more!!

Wow -- sounds like another busy day -- guess I better get some sleep!

But before I do -- Kevin and I had a culinary adventure for supper.  While at Earth Fare we hit up the deli counter and he got the New Year's Salad -- it's kale with black eyed peas, roasted garlic, red pepper flakes and some dressing.  Came up and I whipped up a simple mozzarella, tomato and basil salad and then tried a red pepper dip.  We had also picked up some crusty bread while in town. 

Used this recipe as inspiration - Roasted Red Pepper Dip.  I didn't follow it exactly --I left out the onion, garlic and parmesan (it triggers migraines for Kevin) and didn't measure anything!! It actually reminded me a lot of the pimento cheese that I make, except that it was hot and bubbly.  Really good on the crusty bread.  I think I will be making it again, but adding a little sour cream and using about half the cheese.  I also think grating some onion and garlic into it would cut the cheesiness of it.  It was pretty rich.  Plus we were in a hurry and I think it would do better to bake a little longer.  It would also taste good if you were to throw in some artichokes or some green chile.  Yummy!

One Week -- Hurray

I have officially made it for one week.  Amazing that I have actually stuck with it and accomplished my goal.  I know, little things make me happy :-)  I can't say I have a great sense of feeling like making my bed has made any difference in my life!!  But I do have to start with small steps and I have learned a couple of things about myself this week.  Number 1 -- I like to have what I've done NOTICED!! 

That one thing has really opened my thinking about lots of other things in my life --

How amazingly lucky we are that God doesn't relate to us the way we do others or expect others to towards us.  Think about for a minute -- what if God only did things for us if we acknowledged them.  We wouldn't survive.  He is just there regardless of if we do anything to help (earlier this week I was frustrated that I hadn't gotten any offers of help - I am making both sides of the bed you know!)  He doesn't withhold blessings if we forget to say "thank you."  He remains steady and constant.  He also doesn't determine how many or if we get blessings based on our behavior (there were days this week when I wasn't real happy at the other side of the bed and definitely didn't feel like making it.)
What an eye-opener.  I've tried to say and show a little more appreciation for my Heavenly Father this week :-)

It also turned my thoughts to my children.  If I feel the need for affirmation (as a grown adult) with such a simple little thing - what do my children need.  Things that are seemingly unimportant to me are a big deal to them and I need to support them on that.  So many times I'm too busy or don't want to take the time - I need to remember that even the tiniest of things deserve time and attention.  I also need to be more aware of what they have done.  Take time to notice the tiny details.  Don't focus on the big negatives, FIND the tiny positive.

And lastly  - how I relate to the other side of the bed.  Do "I" notice the small things that are done every day??  How much do I take for granted.  I'm sure there are days when he doesn't feel like getting up and going to work, or he feels like ignoring that overflowing trash can (yet again), or .... the list can go on and on.  How often to I take the time to tell him "Thanks."  Or even a simple "I love you"  not for anything special, just for the millions of little teeny tiny things he does all the time. And how about the things he doesn't do - not complaining about the disaster of a house, not getting upset because his wife is exhausted all the time, not getting frustrated with beads all over, again, the list could go on and on!! 

So I guess this week has been a little more than just "making the bed."  Now on to week 2!!  Wish me luck :-)

Totally different subject -- I LOVE LOVE LOVE my hair -- Donna R. at Professional Touch ROCKS!!