I haven’t died!!!!
Ok, so that is kind of is obvious by this post. I had a few health problems, and life got bumpy. But, here I am! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, with a recipe I came up with! I discovered to my utter humiliation that I am 40 pounds overweight. For real? That snuck up on me. So, I am going to lose the weight. In fact, I’ve already shed some of the offensive pounds.
Now, what the family doesn’t know is, they’ve been put on a healthier diet too! We’ve been doing a lot of chicken, a ton of steamed vegetables, and I’ve revamped some of our favorite recipes.
It’s been chilly here in Oregon lately. I wanted soup, but my go to soup has high fat sausage, so that was a no-go. The next was just to make chicken alfredo. But….I’m avoiding cream based products. Out of desperation, I came up with my own recipe. Given the fact everyone had seconds, I’d say it’s a make again.
Better for you Chicken Soup
1 can diced tomatos (with green chilis)
1 package brussel sprouts
3 cups of baby carrots
1 tsp italian herb mix
4 chicken breasts, cut into bite size pieces
1 small can tomato sauca
Combine all of the ingredients in a slow cooker. If your brussel sprouts are big, cut them into halves or quarters. Add enough water to make the soup the consistency you want. Cook it on high for 4 hours, or on low for 7 hours. The best part of this soup? 180 for a cup and a half of soup. Oh, yeah!
Day ten: My Most Embarrassing Moment
Well, today, I’m supposed to be sharing my most embarrassing moment.
When I was in my early teen and extremely awkward years, I went to camp in a city 13 hours away. It rained consistently that week. Now, I was not the skinniest teenager. Ok. I was plump. Fine! Fat. I was fat.
Anyways, at this camp I went to, capture the flag was the game we all played. I got really good at it. As time went on, we found new places to play. We decided that the side of a hill would be perfect! Because it was muddy and rainy, we were playing without our shoes.
After some hemming and hawing, I made a run for our flag. I was almost there, the flag was almost in my hand when the unthinkable happened. I slipped. My mud-caked feet had no traction. During that time, I also wore coolottes. Coolottes, that were water logged, and had bad elastic. Coolottes….that didn’t stay up-and pulled my undies down with it!
So there I was, fat, covered in mud, with a very white bottom showing. Humiliated, I pulled my pants up, and ran back to my cabin.
I avoid things with elastic like the plague now…..and mud. I definitely avoid mud.
Day Nine: A Moment in My Day
Story time is Lil J’s favorite thing to do. His favorite question is “Is it Thursday yet?” I love the fact he can sit still for a couple stories…as a three year old, that is amazing! He’s usually running around as fast as he can, pretending to be all sorts of things. It’s just a short half hour in my day, but it’s a half hour well spent.
Day Eight: A piece of advice
My advice, is don’t stress over the small things! When you look back, it isn’t going to matter as much as you think it will later.
Put people first. If you have guests over, yes, clean, but for pete’s sake, don’t make your family feel horrible about it. If someone cleans the bathroom, then leave it alone. There is no reason to stress over the shower-especially if you are only having dinner guests! Small touches make all the difference…not stress.
I’m going to keep it short, since it’s late here. Night y’all!
The day six flub.
I had just finished typing and proofreading my day six post….when…..*poof!* The whole thing vanished. I’ve checked my drafts and everything. It’s…completely gone! So, that is why this post is late.
Day six: The challenge is to answer the question “What do you do?” Here is the catch…answer it without your job.
I guess you could say I’m a fill in mom. I spend most days doing fun things with three year old. We go to the mall and he plays in the play areas, and we go the the park. He loves to read! Some days we end up at the library, or read every single book he owns several times. We do crazy things, and sometimes he has to do things he doesn’t like-naps, baths, and putting on underwear. For some reason he really isn’t a fan of any of those.
When his parents get off work, I head home to make dinner, do the dishes and crash on the couch. Not very eventful, but restful thankfully. Life as a nanny is far from boring. Sometimes hard, sometimes fun, sometimes insane. But I love it.
Lil J workin on his craft
Day Seven is things that scare me.
Well, there are things that scare me that are legitimate, like being raped or dying in a freak accident, or getting cancer. Then…there are things that are silly that terrify me.
1. I am completely terrified that one day, I’m going to get up to speak in front of a crowd, and discover that my dress is hooked into my slip, and my panties are showing! How horrible would that be? To have my skivvies exposed to all of humanity. What if they don’t match? It’s a horrible scenario!
2. Or…or what if the cat throws up on me while I’m sleeping? To wake up covered in regurgitated kitty food. Oh, gracious. He’d be an outdoor kitty.
3. And my greatest irrational fear….frogs.
When I was little, my dad told my mom to go get the car keys for him. She told him to wait. He kept pushing and pushing. Finally, she’d had enough. Irritated, she marched over to her purse, opened it, and got the car keys out. Then she froze, thought about what she saw, and started screaming. My father had caught a giant bullfrog and put it in her purse. Why he thought it was a good idea, I really don’t know. He is still alive, just for the record.
Ever since then, I have not been able to deal with frogs. Getting one caught in my hair helped that fear along, too.
What about you? Do you have any irrational fears?
Days four and five….oopsie!
Day four is a quote, and why it means so much to me. And day five is to profess my love for a blogger I love. I’m going to combine them!
If you don’t understand how a woman could both love her sister dearly and want to wring her neck at the same time, then you were probably an only child. ~Linda Sunshine
that’s my quote. And the person I am going to write about is my sister, Becca, from Brazil Meets America.
Becca on her wedding day
Beautiful, isn’t she? We weren’t always super close, because there were three of us. Growing up we were always fighting over something, and sides had to be taken…Why, I have no idea, but that’s the way life works. As we got older we did more things together, our of necessity, and then we ended up finding out we had things in common.
Stuff like…We’re crazy! And we both liked to cook. We ended up making some crazy creations….not all edible, unfortunately. But, shhhhhhhhhh. Don’t tell. We would head downtown and spend all day chilling, or end up at the mall. She lives in Brazil, and is so far away. Sometimes it feels impossible to keep in touch.
We’ve both grown up, and she’s an amazing person. She just got married to a great guy, and I can’t wait til there are little Becca’s running around for me to spoil….and to teach them the tricks their mom used to survive being a teenager. 
Love ya Becca!
Max, shouting, and bikinis.
Today’s topic is things that makes me uncomfortable…Here we go, y’all!
1. The MAX
Here in Portland we have the MAX, or Metropolitan Area Express. It’s a Light Rail, or as I call it, the above ground subway. It’s just simpler. But it isn’t the MAX itself that makes me uncomfortable. It’s the people. I swear, the people who take the MAX at the same time as me are thugs! Flat out thugs! (Except for that nice lady that I met today). There was that druggie last week, and then there was the guy who asked if Mansfield Park (a classic by Jane Austen) was a porn book! I was speechless at that one. Someone tried to sell me drugs, and I very politely said no thanks. I have no idea what they are thinking, but the MAX makes me very uncomfortable.
2. Yelling mothers
I know that sometimes it is necessary to discipline your children, but do you have to flat out yell at them? There was a lady who was calling her 3 year old all sorts of nasty names, and was saying she was going to sell her if she didn’t obey. And then there was the one who was threatening to not feed her kid for the rest of the day (it was 9 AM). Plus, what do you do? Look the other way? Yell back? Or…just be uncomfortable….
3. People who wander around in bikinis
I’m not talking about in a beach town, that’s to be expected. But, there are those people that when it’s barely warm enough for shorts! I mean, if you are a model, ok. I just don’t like seeing everyone’s everything jiggling when they walk. So uncomfortable….
A Grief-filled experience
Day two is supposed to be something I know about. I was going to do something about the best cookies or how to make a cake, but it all seemed to be shallow. This is a topic I am unfortunately knowledgeable about. The topic I picked is grief. I’ve been told I’m too young to understand grief. I wish I didn’t understand it…But….well, let me start at the beginning of the story.
Almost two years ago now, I went on vacation with my boyfriend….and….met someone. Horrible I know. But….he made me smile and it just kind of went from there. I was in college at the time and he would come visit me. I guess you could call it a whirlwind romance. He was 8 years older and I teased him consistently about robbing the cradle. He was in the Marines. Or is. Not even death can take that away from him. He taught me so many things…like, a sense of patriotism. How to embrace life. How to smile through tears. And I taught him something to. I taught the man who couldn’t believe in love how to love. I guess that’s my greatest achievement so far. Because of his job we knew our relationship wasn’t going to anywhere. So….I ended it. I didn’t want to. December 2 we broke up. In March I was looking forward to a visit from him. I didn’t know why he was coming at all. I do now-he was coming to sweep me off my feet and give me forever. March 3, 2012, I was sitting in my room about to lay down for a nap, when a mutual friend of our texted me. Chris was overseas, and I tried not to think of it. I can still see the exact text. “Chris is gone.” A single bullet took him from me in an instant.
At that moment, time stopped. I’m told I started saying no over and over. My roommates say they tried to talk to me. I ran to my best friends room and hysterically told her what had happened. The tears came then. I remember it. The feeling of numbness that sets in is overwhelming.
And, that leads me to our educational topic. How do you deal with a grieving person? What do you do with someone who can cry at the drop of a hat? Surround them with tissue boxes for starters! I have 3 tips for handling grief. Here we go…
1. Don’t run from their tears.
There were so many people that would see me walking around campus with tears streaming down my face and look away. I wondered what was wrong with tears? I couldn’t help them, I was completely powerless to stop them. Everywhere I looked I saw another memory of Chris.
I walked into my science class that Monday morning. I could see the expression on people’s faces. I even heard someone say, “She looks awful!” My selfish thought was, “If someone killed your boyfriend, you’d look like this too.” I sat in that class and took notes. I looked down and realized the page was wet with tears. My teacher pulled me aside after class. I explained what had happened. And for some reason, he had compassion. He took the tears, and checked in on me when he saw me around campus.
My floorleader walked by me. She had no idea what was going on. But she sat down beside me and put her arm around me until I could stop sobbing.
There are so many stories I could tell of people who walked away because they couldn’t handle the tears. But…there are people who stepped up to the plate, that I didn’t expect to…and we have a very good friendship because of it.
2. Do make sure they eat.
I kept forgetting to eat. I know it’s something silly, but we need food to function! I remember getting back from classes and trying to sleep away my grief. At the time, I was furious with Daina for waking me up, but everyday she dragged my butt down to the dining halls and forcing me to eat. She kept me stocked with snack foods, and my roommates made sure I was getting fluids. Even with all that, I still lost a lot of weight. Make sure your grieving loved one eats-it’s not going to be their top priority.
3. Listen
Your grieving loved one may ramble. I realized how much I was talking about Chris and tried to stop. I couldn’t. Someone finally bought me a journal. I filled that sucker with page after page about Chris. Things I missed about him, my favorite memory, the anger I felt for him leaving me, and the loss I felt. Only time is going to heal their wound-but having someone listen to them will help.
Day 1: A Paragraph of Me!
Well, I guess we should start at the beginning. My parents are missionaries in Brazil. On a hot summer day on December 1, 1990, my parents were blessed with their second child. I’m sure they reconsidered that blessing every time they had to help me with my math homework! Having 3 kids from October of 89 to May of 92, my parents were kept busy running after us.
I call this the family picture gone wrong…so many mistakes…love it! I’m the blonde in the red dress.
During my 18 years at home, we moved 26 times. I was for all practical purposes, homeschooled, along with my two sisters. We were kept busy in Brazil helping out with our parents ministry. Buy the time I was 16, I was in charge of the Children’s Choir, Sunday Evening Children’s Church, and I also taught Sunday School on Sunday mornings. At the time I enjoyed helping out, but now I see alot of growing that I missed. I don’t regret it, because I learned some valuable life lessons like, don’t bite off more than you can chew and don’t let your age stop you from doing things.
Our last family photo, taken right before I went college
When I turned 18, I left for college. I was there for 3 years and left. Now I’m studying to be a teacher, and can’t wait to get out there!
This picture was taken about 2k into the 10k 2013 March of Dimes, Portland, OR.
Anyways, that is the story of me!
Oh…………Boy.
Well, I was reading my sister’s blog, and saw a challenge. A challenge to blog every day in the month of May. This whole thing is being hosted by Jenni from Story of My Life. She even gives us topics to make it easier on us. Now, this will be a challenge, but one I’m looking forward to. Maybe you’ll even join me!
Day 1, Wednesday: The story of your life in 250 words or less (or one paragraph… no one will be counting your words… probably)
Day 2, Thursday: Educate us on something you know alot about or are good at. Take any approach you’d like (serious and educational or funny and sarcastic)
Day 3, Friday: Things that make you uncomfortable
Day 4, Saturday: Favorite quote (from a person, from a book, etc) and why you love it
Day 5, Sunday: Publicly profess your love and devotion for one of your blogger friends. What makes them great? Why do you love them? If you don’t have blogger friends, talk about a real-life friend or even a family member
Day 6, Monday: If you couldn’t answer with your job, how would you answer the question, ‘what do you do’?
Day 7, Tuesday: The thing(s) you’re most afraid of
Day 8, Wednesday: A piece of advice you have for others. Anything at all.
Day 9, Thursday: A moment in your day (this can be just a photo or both a photo and words)
Day 10, Friday: Most embarrassing moment (s). Spill.
Day 11, Saturday: Sell yourself in 10 words or less
Day 12, Sunday: What do you miss? (a person, a thing, a place, a time of your life…)
Day 13, Monday: Issue a public apology. This can be as funny or as serious or as creative as you want it to be.
Day 14, Tuesday: Ten things that make you really happy
Day 15, Wednesday: A Day in the life (include photos from throughout your typical day – this could be “a photo an hour” if you’d like)
Day 16, Thursday: Something difficult about your “lot in life” and how you’re working to overcome it
Day 17, Friday: A favorite photo of yourself and why
Day 18, Saturday: Tell a story from your childhood. Dig deep and try to be descriptive about what you remember and how you felt.
Day 19, Sunday: Five of your favorite blogs and what you love about them
Day 20, Monday: Get real. Share something you’re struggling with right now.
Day 21, Tuesday: A list of links to your favorite posts in your archives
Day 22, Wednesday: Rant about something. Get up on your soapbox and tell us how you really feel. (a pet peeve, a current event, a controversial topic, something your husband or roommate or neighbor or boss does that really ticks you off)
Day 23, Thursday: Things you’ve learned that school won’t teach you
Day 24, Friday: Your top 3 worst traits
Day 25, Saturday: Something someone told you about yourself that you’ll never forget (good or bad)
Day 26, Sunday: Something you read online. Leave a link and discuss, if you’d like.
Day 27, Monday: A letter to your readers
Day 28, Tuesday: Only pictures
Day 29, Wednesday: Five songs or pieces of music that speak to you or bring back memories. Use Grooveshark or YouTube to include them in the post
Day 30, Thursday: React to this term: Letting Go
Day 31, Friday: A vivid memory
