Hello there

So, I missed a few days, this week has been crazy, and hectic, and draining, both mentally and physically, work related and personal.  It's just been a bit nuts for me this week.

Sunday Adam worked, I had church on my own and then deep cleaned my mom's house with her and cooked all day for her Lifegroup Social from church. We literally took apart all of her light fixtures and washed them, dusted the ceiling fans, scrubbed the baseboards and tile floors by hand, washed the kitchen cupboards, steam cleaned the carpeting, the works.  I was a bit wiped.

Monday I was originally scheduled at work 11:30-4, nice short Monday, ended up getting called in to cover at 9:00 and stayed until 4:30.  We'd been prepping for a review by the NYC visual team, so it was a lot of physical labor rearranging and cleaning the store, plus, I was the solo sales person for 2 hours while everyone else dealt with the 24 cases of new merchandise that came in that day.  Monday night was also when I taught my first guitar lesson in Houston. The preparation was definitely mentally draining after a 7 month break from teaching, but it was so worth it.

Tuesday I opened at work again, and stayed almost an hour late, as usual.  Adam had football Tuesday night as well, which went really well for him, they won, he got one touchdown, but let through the only touchdown by the other team.

Wednesday was normal work, I left on time, ran a bunch of errands went back to work to meet the NYC review people who were crazy late and I couldn't wait for, went to kids choir, led my kids in singing in service, ran normal choir had my last kid get picked up 35 minutes late, and went to Ladies Fellowship at Starbucks and got home at 10:30.

Today was more work, and cleaning, and tomorrow I need to deep clean our bedroom and bathroom and then work the close shift at work.

It's been a long week.

Also, it's been a weird week emotionally.  My husband is back on total speaking terms with his brother after our whole blow up disaster of name calling, swearing at, telling off and everything else this winter. Part of me is happy for him having his brother wanting to be back in his life, and the other part of me kind of hates that they're so friendly after all his brother did to me.  I really feel like to an extent, my husband not getting an apology of some form out of his brother is like he's saying what he did doesn't matter anymore. Or, it's coming across to his brother like he didn't care that he threatened and called me every name in the book and then some and disowned my husband and told him he was dead to him until he got away from me permanently. Part of me is happy that they've reconciled because I can't imagine that kind of anger from my sister and I know how that would hurt. But, part of me wants an apology. I can forgive him, but I can't trust him not to just do it all again. This was the third similar episode, the third without any admittance on his side that he was ever out of line, and really, I just get sick of being bashed by my brother in law and then reamed out by my mother in law for not begging his forgiveness and promising to stay out of he and my husband's lives. I get sick of being afraid of what this does to our marriage and I just really feel safer when he's not speaking to us. I know my husband's on my side, he's told his parents so, he's told them and his brother that they're out of line and treating me horribly and shouldn't even think that their words and actions could be appropriate, yet he forgives them and forgets. I'm getting good at forgiving, but the forgetting part is hard. 

On top of that my husband's had jerky members this week and horrible tips and has been moody about that, so I've just kind of been internalizing all week and am getting tired of it.  Sorry for the vent, especially on a "Thankful Thursday" but really, I don't know what else to say today.

This is me....

Children and music are officially back in my life! These are two of the things that make me happiest.

I started my first official, long term Houston student tonight and I couldn't stop raving about it to my mom the whole way home.  I've missed teaching so much!  I've missed their silly answers when they don't know the real answer, their trying to distract me from a song they haven't practiced, their cute little messy notes and buzzy strings and crazy goofy made up songs, and most importantly, their joy when you tell them how well they did.  I miss my musical kids in NY, but hopefully soon, my student roster will grow and I can start making new memories with kids here. No one will replace most of my NY students, but I need these emotions and feelings in my life on a regular basis.

Since September 2002 I've continually had students.  What started as one family, transitioned to 3 within 3 months, which grew to 7 withing 6 months, 10 within a year, and eventually 51 students. Over the course of my 7 years in NY I've had the opportunity to influence 73 children with one on one lessons, and I feel like after not teaching for 7 months that I've been missing a piece of me that's finally back.

At the beginning of September I started working with a kids choir again. In September 1999 I started accompanying my first kids choir, in 2002 I was assistant directing/accompanying, 2004 co-directing, 2007 choreographing special services for church with kids, and before all of that, I grew up participating in kids choir since I was 5.  Also, a huge part of me that's been missing.  It doesn't matter how bad my kids are, and how many times I have to do the "music teacher clap" I love my choir nights.

Kids and Music, this is me.

Friday Fail!

So basically, I should just plan on messing up at this point, seriously, I stink at Friday posts.

This week was filled with new TV show nights!

Monday we checked out "Hawaii 5-0", which was really pretty good. We were big fans of "Las Vegas" on NBC a few years back and Scott Caan is alot like his dad, who made "Vegas", so I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Plus, I grew up on re-runs of the original so that made it even better because it wasn't nearly as corny.

Tuesday we had both NCIS and NCIS:Los Angeles which are ALWAYS PHENOMENAL!!!!

Wednesday we were show less, though I may try to find something online to check out the pilot or season opener for to start watching next week, any suggestions??

Thursday I had my ever wonderful "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice". I've been with them both since the beginning, and as pathetic as it may be, it's as if I know them.  Thursday was also "The Mentalist", which, if you've never seen the original "Thin Man" movies, I highly recommend finding them in a library somewhere, classic William Powell and Myrna Loy from the late 30's.  "The Mentalist reminds me of them somewhat.

Friday we're also showless, but that's okay for right now.  I meant to check out "Blue Bloods", did anyone else watch it to give me a review?

Still waiting for Sunday for "Brothers and Sisters" though I'm a bit worried that it will lose me this year with all the good couples killed off or destroyed and only the scary gay couple left.  Besides being massively Biblically wrong, I'm just not a fan of men making out with each other on my TV and I usually fast forward their scenes on Tivo.

So, I've raved about my shows, what are your shows?

Thankful Thursday

This week has been pretty decent

I've had Starbucks 4 times this week....major happiness!!!!

It's been cool enough for jeans every day this week (by cool, I mean below 90):)

My husband and I had 2 half days, and one whole day off together this week!!

My husband successfully replaced the fuel filter in our car for $45 instead of $125 by doing it himself!  It took 3 1/2 hours instead of the half our the instructions said because they stopped making the exact part and he had to make new fittings to make the new filter fit, but he did it and I'm very proud of him for him industriousness!

Grey's is back! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  And my husband even watched it with me tonight.

I'm a happy girl!

Wordless Wednesday

 

 My morning, until the rain and black clouds came.......

 

I hate it when the weather man is actually right, especially when he's only right about a few minutes worth of weather that are just enough to mess up your plans.

I am a happy girl!

I worked this morning and got off on time for once!

I had lunch from here.....

Went shopping here.....

And got a "Duke Blue" Sweater, yes, it is a color to me!

I got to spend the afternoon running errands with my husband.

Make homemade Macaroni & Cheese for dinner.

Buy one of these.....

And go watch my husband, play, win and not get hurt at flag football with church while only getting three mosquito bites!

And now I'm going to shower the bug spray off of me and eat one of these.....

For dessert. :)

Oh, and NCIS and NCIS:LA  are waiting on my Tivo!!

Next week....

is going to look something like this......

 

 

 

 

It's going to be a good week!!

And yes, I realize I missed my Friday post again, I'm just not good at Fridays!

Thankful Thursday

Today was a really great day!!!

Last night was an awesome night with my kids choir, they make me laugh, even when they make me crazy!  And, they know their hymn so well! Nothing like 28 kids singing "What a Friend We Have in Jesus".  Next week we start "All Hail the Power of Jesus Name" and I'll be teaching them the sign language for it, I can't wait!!!

Last night was also a wonderful coffee night with my ladies from church. We spent our evening praising our husbands, talking about ways to help them be better spiritual leaders, and praying for them.  It was phenomenal!

Last night I also got to sleep through the night for the first time in 3 months!!!  My side of our Select Comfort Adjustable Mattress (NEVER BUY ONE!!!!!) is no longer a sink hole!!!!!  The hose on my side was leaking and we finally had time to go to the big mall on the other side of town to get caps, now it's pumped up and staying pumped!! Yay for sleep!!!

Today we were both off and able to take care of our car insurance, registration, and driver's licenses and we still have money left over and time to spend together this evening!

Wordy Wednesday

Crazy Quotes from my Choir Kids!

Oh how I wish all those words started with the same letter because they all make the hard "C" sound! Yes, I'm that much of a nerd and have that much obsession with alliteration!

Anyways, on to some funny quotes from some very funny kids!

My second graders who will all remain nameless-

2 weeks ago craft assignment - draw a picture of something you're praying for this week
Picture drawn by "little boy 1" - stick figure with a big circle on it's head and lots of red on the page
Me- ______ can I ask what you're praying for?
Little Boy 1- "A really big rock to splat my brother"  (me turning around so he can't see me laughing!)
When mom comes I show her the picture, her reaction- "Great! Wonder what fight I tuned out today!"

Tonight craft assignment- Make a paper bag puppet of your best friend (most of the boys best friends carried large swords or guns in their hands-lovely!)
Two boys chasing each other around the room with their "puppets" all over each other.
Me- "Do I need to take your puppets away since you can't keep them to yourselves?"
Boy 1-"NO!!!! Mine's winning!"
Boy 2-"Only cause yours has a machine gun and mine has a sword!"
(Again, me turning around to hide laughter!)

Little girl 1- (almost all night!)  "teacher, Teach, TEACHER!!!!!" comes running face planting into my stomach to hug me, goes back to seat (literally, 5 times in 75 minutes!)

Little girl 2-"It's okay if my mom's late cause she's talking, it's not like I ever go to sleep when she puts me to bed anyways, I always wait till I see 11:11 on my clock"

Mr Energy(yes he answers to that for me now!)- "If he's REALLLLLLY late, how much sugar do I get?"
After I bribed him to not run laps around the room while waiting for his perpetually late father.

Little Boy 2- "I promise I won't touch ANYTHING!!!!! Just don't let any girls near me, they're SCARY!!!!!!"  (After I'd made him move to a mostly girl table when he wouldn't keep his hands to himself, found out later he has two middle school sisters)




Yeah, I love my choir!

Thoughtful Tuesday

So, I was going for "thankful", but I have a moody, just lost his first football game pouting husband to deal with tonight, that kind of kills my thankful spirit, so, "thoughtful" will have to do.

High points this week-

Class on Sunday got me thinking about this song-



















I honestly haven't watched the video, I'm just in love with the song.  I was a huge Amy Grant fan growing up, and something about her voice on this one is just captivating, if the lyrics don't get you thinking, sorry, they get me thinking.

Work is going well. I'm definitely on my managers good side, and getting lots of extra jobs and responsibilities because of it.  I'm loving it though. I've been training our new hires that have taken over my spot as a normal sales associate before my promotion. It's been really fun to be the crazy over enthusiastic person getting them excited about their work.

One in particular has sort of become my mission field.  She and her husband have been through 3 job changes in the year and a half they've been married and he's currently un-employed completely. She grew up in church and was saved as a child but strayed and is working her way back.  He grew up with a strict Catholic mom and wanted nothing to do with the church ever. They've been to our class twice and she's seen a lot of improvement in his attitude, so we're hoping and praying together that the right things will be said and he'll come around.  They had been having some marital issues he was denying, but now he's actually admitting them and taking responsibility and she's really excited.  It's fun, and keeps me praying.

Another one of my big prayer focuses, is one of my youth group kids from NY. She's in a rough family situation, but I'm seeing God working in her so much in each of our conversations and her facebook statuses.  I love this girl and I can't wait to see how God's going to use all the strength he's given her as she grows up.

Movie night with my husband, so I'm going to go find him some dessert, get the movie going, and offer a backrub to make him un-grumpy from his game. :)

We rented this-

Hopefully it's good, though the cast kind of has me doubtful. Maybe I'll sneak a review in tomorrow if I have time after work.

Goodnight all!

Monday Musings

Technically on Tuesday morning....oops!

Quick thought from church yesterday-

If you had 1000 people put their current trial in a hat with yours, what chance do you think that you'd want your own back? Everyone's struggling with something, yours is probably not the worst!

Mourning my Husband

So, I realized this weekend that my 9 months of single living is back.....

Football season started this weekend

Tennis US Open still finishing

Baseball is still going, and I never thought I'd say it, but I'm rejoicing in the fact that our RedSox stink this year

Fantasy Hockey draft is next weekend

FedEx Cup and Ryder Cup are still coming for PGA

Hockey season officially kicks off October 7th

By the time Baseball ends, Hockey and NCAA Basketball will be going full swing

By the time Football ends, baseball will be back

By the time Hockey ends, golf and tennis will be back

I can't win......

So I stink at Friday posts!

I really just can't get organized enough at the end of the week to remember to post on Fridays!

Maybe it has something to do that I'm working a more weekend based schedule and by Friday I'm fairly tired and just trying to get trough.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I don't truly have my own kitchen and feel kind of weird posing food for a picture.

Probably the latter. :)

So, I don't have any pictures from the food this week, other than archived pictures from older, and my previous blog.... 

Earlier this week I made one of these....

 Raspberry Bundt Cake Recipe-
1 Box Yellow Cake Mix
1 Stick Softened Butter
3 Eggs
1/2 Cup Vanilla Coffee Creamer
1/2 Cup Milk
1/3 Brown Sugar
Dash of Cinnamon
Dash of Nutmeg
2 Containers (little plastic, half pints?) Raspberries.

Preheat Oven to 350. Generously grease and flour Bundt cake pan.
Beat first five ingredients.  Fold in Sugar and Spices.  Fold in half of the raspberries.  Pour into greased pan.  Cover batter with remaining raspberries and push into batter with spatula.  Bake 40-45 minutes, or until it passed the "toothpick test".  Let cool 10 minutes, flip out of pan and let cool on plate or wire rack for an hour to drizzle with frosting, or sprinkle with powdered sugar immediately.

And some of these....

(only two left)

And bought blueberries to make some of this....(which never got made, had to buy more blueberries and will try again tomorrow!)

One of the husband's favorite foods!

I'm pretty traditional, basically, it's the batter for scratch blueberry muffins, Betty Crocker Style, slightly doctored up.

Whisk together-
1 Egg
1/4 C Oil
3/4 C Milk
1 ts Vanilla Extract
1 Tbs French Vanilla Coffee Creamer

Stir in-
2 C Flour
1/2 C Sugar
2 Tbs Baking Powder
1/2 ts Salt

Fold in-
1 Cup fresh or frozen blueberries (rinse frozen ones in room temperature water first)

Pour into greased Bundt Cake pan, bake 20-22 minutes at 400 degrees.
You can also do it in a loaf pan, but I like the way it comes out better (consistency wise) in the Bundt cake pan, but to do a loaf pan, bake 28-30 minutes at 375 degrees.

Serve warm and buttered! And preferably with fresh coffee!

And for tonight I'm making these.....

Brownie Batter-
Ingredients-
4oz. Unsweetened Chocolate
2/3 C Butter
4 Eggs
2 C Sugar
2 Ts Vanilla
1 1/3 C Flour
1 Ts Baking Powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 9x13" pan.

Melt Chocolate for one minute in microwaveable dish, add Butter, melt one more minute, stir, set aside.

In medium mixing bowl, beat Eggs and Sugar.
Add Chocolate Mixture and Vanilla.
Stir in Flour and Baking Powder.

Bake 25 minutes.

Frosting-
1/3 C Softened Butter  *(leave out remaining 1/3 Cup to soften when making batter)*
Roughly 2 C Confectioners Sugar
2 TBS Milk Chocolate Instant Jello Mix
1 Ts Vanilla
Enough Milk to make it spreadable.

Beat all ingredients together, gradually adding milk until it reaches the desired consistency.

Spread on cooled brownies.

And tomorrow afternoon I'm making two of these....

Pie Filling-

4 Large Apples any variety
my favorite combination is 2 Granny Smith, 1 Cortland, 1 Yellow Delicious, I like a slightly tart, non-mushy pie.

Peel, core and thinly slice into large bowl.

Cover in-
1/4 Cup Sugar
1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
Cinnamon, Cloves and Nutmeg to "smell"

Let sit and get juicy while you do crust.

Crust-

Sugar cookie dough! You can use store bought (like the Pillsbury in a tube kind), half a batch of your standard dough, or this-

Mix together-
1 stick softened butter
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 Egg
1 tsp Vanilla

Add-
1 Cup Flour
1/2 tsp Baking Powder

Press into the bottom and sides of a greased, deep pie dish.

Bake at 375 for 15 minutes (it will settle into the bottom and corners of the pan).

French Crumb Topping-

Mix together until crumbly-
1 stick softened butter
2/3 Cup Flour
1/3 Cup Sugar
1/3 Cup Brown Sugar
1 tsp Cinnamon

Fill crust while still hot, cover with French Crumb Topping, cover with foil.

Bake at 375 for 35 minutes, then remove foil and bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until top of crust starts to brown. (TOTAL of 45-50 minutes)

Let sit 45-60 minutes before cutting.

I think that's all in the food department, I'll post more about the weekend in general tomorrow, maybe, if I think of it, or anything interesting to say. :)

Thankful Thursday

This week has been good to us....

Thanks to the nice little tropical storm, we had three days off together this week

My wonderful husband got a bunch of work done on his car, and a bunch of cleaning for me

My husband bought me a new blow dryer-yay straight hair again!!

We were able to get some great deals at our Christian Book Store

Our health insurance plan got approved and started

Our car passed the Texas inspection system

We hit the 40% mark in paying off all of our debt, a project started only 6 months ago!

The storm finally broke and let us go walk around Old Town Spring today and enjoy an afternoon outside

We were hired to cat sit again for a neighbor for 3 weeks, they pay $10 a day, bonus $200 for petting a car 30 minutes a day

We have awesome friends who invited us over for dinner Saturday, double date night!

My hair is freshly colored and nails freshly painted-I love the little things!

Wordless Wednesday

A morning off....
 

Recipe

Thankful Tuesday

It's raining and finally below 95 degrees!!!! I'm in jeans today and it's only 77!! I'm loving it!

I'm definitely fully acclimated because I was complaining last night that I was freezing and it was 69, I've turned into a southern wimp! :)

My husband is off for 2-3 days because of tropical storm/hurricane "Hermoine" and I'm off for the next two days! Lots of time together!

I baked cookies last night!

My new friend Amber from work and her husband checked out our lifegroup on Sunday and he's asking about salvation and Jesus! (Praise/Prayer for understanding)

We're getting our car registered in Texas finally! Which means, Texas Driver's Licenses and no more explaining why my addresses don't match up.

We finally have health insurance again! Yay raise that lets us afford it!

Monday Musings

So we started a new series in our Lifegroup at church yesterday.  It's fantastic.  It's perfect for basically anyone.  And, amazingly enough, I kind of feel like we're on the better off end of it.

Check it out if you get a chance. There is a clip from the first lesson is on youtube-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiDLv24Xd64 

Also, if someone wants to tell me how to upload a video instead of a link, I'd appreciate it. Thanks :)

So.....

2 days into it and I already missed a post! Not a good sign!

I do have a decent excuse though, my husband got asked to work a double, so I had to drive my mom to work to be able to use her car to get to work later, then I got called into work 2 1/2 hours early, so, basically I had an hour free in the afternoon on the computer and didn't get to posting after paying the bills.

Our food was not very interesting this week anyways.

This coming week I'm only closing once, so hopefully I can get a few good meals out.  I'm looking forward to some baking today, maybe, after my mom leaves for work. My dad has company coming tonight, so she'll freak if I even start to use the kitchen, but I'm really in the mood, so I'll just have to deep clean again when I'm done.  These-

were on sale this week, which means cookies need to be made!

And these-

looked good and fresh, which means bread for tomorrow morning.

Unfortunately all of my pictures are stored on my computer, (and hard drive, don't worry!) and my computer decided to die, so I'm going to have to take some new pictures since all of my archives of food pictures are a bit of a pain to access at the moment.

This afternoon Adam should be getting home earlier from work and I'm hoping to get out to the outlet mall for some Labor Day weekend specials.  He needs cleats and some more dri-fit/heat gear type shirts, and new sneakers, because his are getting destroyed at work. I just want to shop! I let myself buy two things at work yesterday, I have at least one more I really want, but, I'd just as soon get some good deals on shoes at the outlets.  I'm discovering that all of my boot type shoes are a bit impractical for down here and peeptoes and sandals are the way to go.

I'm drooling over these-

at the moment.  At $130, I'll be looking for some lookalikes at about 80% off :)

Have a great weekend, off to clean so my mom stops freaking out at me. You'd think I'd never been responsible before sometimes. :)

Thankful Thursday

The Blessings from the last 3-4 days!

I have a wonderful husband who was off work today while I was at work and took it upon himself to fix our noisy ceiling fan and sort through his paper pile and put away his laundry!

I have a job that I love 99% of the time, and a new hire who is currently my mission field.

I have a manger that is so supportive of my time off requests for church events, and excited with me when I share answered prayers!

I have a Lifegroup at church, and Ladies Fellowship group that holds me accountable and prays with me through everything.

My kids choir is growing and so are my helpers! My kids already know their hymn of the month after only 2 weeks and are so enthusiastic to learn more (though silly band prizes are good incentive!)

Our car finally has working air conditioning again.

It's getting cooler! It's amazing the difference it makes when you drop from 105 to 95!

The police arrested the armed robbers who've been preying on my work plaza! BIG YAY!!!!!

It's cool enough to wear jeans today!

My husband is back on speaking terms with his brother.

Not deliberately hiding away

So, it's been 5 weeks since I've blogged.  I'm not really sure what's kept me from posting, other than that I feel like I don't have anything interesting to say.  My life in Texas is very very VERY different than my life in New York. My life in NY was non-stop, always busy, filled with people, stories, events, crazy schedules and someone interesting seemed to happen almost daily.  Here in TX, things run quite a bit slower. I'm working 25 hours a week instead of 50. I'm only working in 1 ministry instead of 4. I'm not keeping my own house since we're living with my parents, so less cooking, decorating and housework. I'm paying off debt left and right, so less shopping and deal finding.  I'm much more relaxed without the in-laws around, so less venting. Things are just different.  In NY I could always find something interesting to write about, here, it's basically just my rambling mind.

But, this blog was originally started for me, so my rambling is going to become public once again.

I need to blog.

I need to express myself with words.

I need a sounding board.

I need interaction with people, even if it is just through the internet.

And I'm learning and studying things I feel like I should be sharing and spiritually I feel like I'm in the closest relationship with God I've ever had.

So, my new system.....

Monday Musings-ramblings from the weekend
Thankful Tuesdays-no complaining allowed!
Wordless Wednesday-my excuse to take a few pictures
Thankful Thursday-because I need to be positive!
Food Fridays-I can't meal plan, but I can meal recap!

Weekends will be whatever pops into my head. And yes I know I have a thing for alliteration.

Feel free to link up and join me on any of these.  I'd love to see a whole group of thankful people during my week. We're all so blessed in ways we don't see, and acknowledging that can make a huge impact on our attitudes towards the little things that bother us.

I'll be back tomorrow with my first official post.  Today is not a good picture day, gym clothes, laundry piles and cooking chickens are not nice things to show off to the world, and I didn't plan ahead by taking any earlier this week. :)