Fishing for Fast Dinners

Since summer is in full swing, I am always trying to find new ways to sneak some garden veggies into my dinners. This recipe is actually a creation of mine that seems to be a hit everytime I serve it. It takes about 20 minutes to prepare from start to finish and uses only one pan. Why go to Olive Garden when you can make yummy seafood alfredo at home for a fraction of the cost!

Simple Seafood Alfredo
2-3 small yellow squash, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch chunks
1 pkg. fresh sliced mushrooms
1 onion, chopped
1 1/2 lb fresh assorted shellfish (I use a combo of scallops, shrimp, canned clams and/or imitation lobster/crab)
1 large jar of alfredo sauce (I have even used the dry pkg. type with great success--just follow the directions on the pkg.)

Saute mushrooms, yellow squash, and mushrooms in a lightly sprayed or oiled frying pan until onions are translucent and vegetables are cooked according to your preference. I cover the pan to keep in the juices. I usually add a little "garlic in a jar" too because everything tastes better with garlic!

As the vegetable mixture is cooking, clean the seafood and cut into small bite size pieces. Remember seafood shrinks as it cooks so don't go too small! When the veggies are done, add the seafood and stir frequently. Cook until scallops are opaque and shrimp is pink--it won't take long so watch carefully. Add the jar of alfredo sauce and cook until bubbly. Serve with your favorite pasta, top with a sprinkle of parmesan and enjoy!

I have never actually measured out any of this recipe so feel free to tinker with it according to your taste!

During the winter season, I mix it all together and throw it in the oven for about 15 minutes and bake with some mozzarella cheese on top....yummy! Serve with a green salad and call it good!

Pinkness

Every month on the 1st, I try to change out my contacts for a new pair. I tried really hard to make it until July 1st, but yesterday my eyes were wanting a new pair because I was having a hard time focusing. So, I broke my own rule and decided to treat myself two days early to a new pair.

This morning I woke up and stuck my contacts in. Everything was going as normal but I noticed that my left eye was not focusing well so I immediately thought that I had gotten into a bad batch of contacts. Then my eye itched and watered the whole day. Surprise, I have pink eye!

I am very prone to this little ailment but I don't ever remember getting it in the summer! So I dug out my trusted eyedrops and realized that they had expired in 2006. Hmmmm...should I live dangerously?

If my teaching job doesn't work out, I might go work for Longaberger

Today is a really sad day. Today is the last day of picking edible sized strawberries in my garden. I didn't have to buy any this year....I just picked every morning! Yummy. Hey, does anyone want some rhubarb? I have lots of that too! Oh, and I don't eat that every morning!

Enjoy your Sunday.

P.S. Nate just pointed out that my signature is back.....I guess it was just out for a visit somewhere.....weird.

A taste of summer in Michigan....

This is why I liked taking out the garbage last week:

















And this is why I love taking out the garbage this week:



Too bad they don't last all year!










Heidi (Can anyone tell me where my cool signature went? Maybe it has taken up residence with my pillows.)

Helping a friend in need.

Big Mama, a favorite blogger that I regularly stalk, is hungry. She seems to have hit the summertime cooking wall. She would like some new recipes so I thought I would help her out. Since she lives in the south, I decided that I'd better stick with something that doesn't need the oven! After tapping my creative juices this morning I am coming up a bit short of ideas. So I will fall back on one of my most uncreative but can't fail recipes.....

Chicken Throw

1 Whole Chicken, washed
Salt/Pepper
Chicken Seasoning (or just use some Paprika and garlic powder)
1 Crockpot

Generously sprinkle seasoning all over chicken. Throw it in a cooking sprayed crockpot mid morning with 1/2 cup water or broth. Cook on high for 5-7 hours. You can stick a whole onion, stalk of celery and a carrot in its cavity if you are feeling rather fancy. The chicken will fall off the bone when it's ready. Heat up a jar of gravy and a tray of mashed potatoes and your family will eat like kings! And it won't taste or smell like grilled hamburgers or hotdogs! Enjoy!

Cleaning Frenzy-Part 1

Today has been a very productive cleaning day! I have been looking forward to "reorganizing" and going through each room in the house since the beginning of summer vacation. May and June were so hectic that the house suffered....let's face it the whole school year was hectic so every room was falling apart! You know that the situation is really bad when your husband says one night, "You know, I've been thinking....maybe we should move to a new house very soon because our floorboards look disgusting and I don't really have time to clean them!"

This morning I became the "furniture assembler extraordinaire". I churned out two 72" bookcases in a few hours for Nate's room using only a hammer and screwdriver. (And a fan and a glass of water for comfort.) About a month ago out of desperation for space, we moved a 4 foot table into his room, covered it with a quilt and let him "go wild" with a Lego Kingdom. Let's just say that the entire Harry Potter Lego series was on that quilt! (Special thanks to Grandma Kay, Grampa Don, Uncle Jon, and Santa for their ongoing financial commitment to Nate's building abilities.) Anyway, by early afternoon Nate had moved his books and his Harry Potter Lego Kingdom as well as his Star Wars Lego Kingdom onto proper shelves for proud display for future visitors to his room. He is very proud of his new found arranging skills! And I am sort of proud to say that Sauder Furniture worked for me today! (I just hope we don't move because that stuff is HEAVY.)

This afternoon was filled with more cleaning of Nate's room and some cleaning of my room as well. It always feels great to organize. I now have extra storage space in my sewing room because of simply getting the paper piles under control.

Hopefully I won't lose the momentum and I will be able to post another incredibly boring post tomorrow titled "Cleaning Frenzy-Part 2". It is so great to be on vacation!

And a bit off topic....but things that I know are important to your daily existence: 1) My pillows have not come back and 2) We have now finished all 18 hours of Little House. Three cheers for Michael Landon!

Am I going to jail?

My friend Jennifer and I just got done IMing each other. (For those of you who may not know, IM stands for instant messaging). As Jennifer puts it, "it's the middle school way of communicating". That made me giggle!

Anyway, she mentioned the fact that I might go to jail for using a copyrighted picture on my blog. (The Little House On the Praire one) She then mentioned that she might go to jail too because she used a picture of a puma that she stole off of google images or something. Then we decided that we could be room mates. She then asked me if I snored. What a true friend!

So Jennifer (and all others that might be interested in being my room mate sometime), here are a few things that you might want to know about me before you "sign up" to be my roomie:

1. I covet my pillows which, as of this post, have not been returned to my home yet.

2. I pretend to be cool with staying up late but most of the time a 9p.m. bedtime works for me.

3. I get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Every night.

4. I flush. Always. And I don't care if it wakes everyone up.

5. I wake up with the sun. But I pretend to be asleep until 6 a.m.

6. I wear jammies. I like my etremely worn out and soft ones the best. Long pants and a short sleeved shirt.

7. I like a fan. It is on every night but it doesn't always blow at me.

8. I don't take care of the kids at night. Stu does this. Always. Which means that I probably won't take care of a room mate in the middle of the night either.

9. And lastly, I probably snore a little bit. I prefer to call it "breaving heavily". That is what Madsion used to say about herself!

Although I am quite happy with my current room mate situation, I can put you on my waiting list!
Make it a good day.

Don't tell anyone but the boys are watching too!

As part of our relaxing and catching up on sleep weekend, Madison decided that it would be a great idea to go to the libary and get our next installment of the Little House series on DVD. We watched seasons one, two, and couldn't find three so we ended up checking out season four. Each of these seasons consist of a few DVD's and last about 6-8 hours each. Season four has six CD's and lasts 18 HOURS. Needless to say, my whole family is walking around in a daze this weekend singing the theme song to Little House and saying that they want to learn how to play the fiddle. I may just break out my bonnet to clean the house tomorrow.

The foamy part of me is lost.

A tragedy has happened in our family. (Besides the eyebrow tragedy.) Thursday night Stu and I went to Big Rapids and slept at a hotel so that we wouldn't have to get up at the crack of dawn to be on time to pick up the kids from camp.

Every time we spend the night away from home I get into a debate about whether I should take my two pillows along. I can not tell you how many times my entire night has been ruined because of crappy pillows. I like thin foamy pillows....hotels usually supply these big but very squishy pillows. If I do decide to use theirs, I usually wake up several times to "adjust" my pillow and it makes for a very sleep deprived night.

In order to ensure that I would be in a restful state for the big pick up day, I opted to take my fabulously comfortable pillows complete with two pretty blue pillow cases. Because no hotel I have ever stayed in has blue pillowcases and if I should stay multiple days in the same room, the maid will not mistake them for the hotel's pillows and try to mess with them. This easy packing step has always worked well until Fateful Friday Morning. In the hustle and bustle of the morning, I forgot to leave with my pillows. Somewhere they are sitting, very lonely for me; probably squished onto a shelf in a dark room with no heat. It is absolutely horrific for me to think about.

But wait!! Dry your tears of empathy!
I actually remembered that I forgot them as we left the camp so we were able to stop by the hotel and retrieve them....I call this the fairy tale ending. Here is the harsh reality:

After 20 minutes of "searching" for my pillows in room 251, no one could find them. The manager was nice about it and said he would mail them back to me in K'zoo. I am devastated...do you really think someone is going to actually mail me used pillows?

Anyway, I am blogging this while my head is resting on my replacement pillows. I already can tell that my neck is going to hurt in the morning. And the color of my pillowcases?....they are black because that is how you dress pillows up when you are experiencing death.

Spring Hill Camp Rocks! Again!

For the second summer in a row, I have looked forward to picking my children up at camp. I love the break from parenthood but I miss my kids by day 5 and can't wait to get my family back! Some of the best conversations of the summer occur during that first hour in the car during the 3 hour ride home. It is so special to hear about the real connections they made with campers and counselors. They both are hoarse from singing and shouting so much but they loved every minute of camp! Here are some pictures from the week!







As you can probably tell, they really want to go back!

I probably won't do this again

It is with great fear that I begin this post. More of the " judgemental fear" but I will try to be brave and continue.

Yesterday I went to my favorite hairdresser for my normal cut/color/highlight and eyebrow wax. (Trust me, I need a lot of help in the beauty department.) It was a typical appointment complete with idle chit chat and "catching up" from five weeks ago when I had last been in. Beth has always been quite conservative in her color and cutting choices for my hair. I am not really that picky since I know things will eventually grow out so I usually go along with her whims and everything is fine.

Yesterday she decided that I needed to go ahead and dye my eyebrows to match my hair. We had been talking about it for a few visits now and she kept reminding me that my eyebrows were turning a bit grayer....so I said yes. And took a big silent gulp. So 30 minutes after the eyebrows had "set", she brought me over to the rinsing station. Ladies, brace yourselves. Beth forgot to mention and I forgot to really think about the fact that she was going to have to "scrub" my eyebrows in order to get the dye off my skin. Dark brown with one part red off my skin. Well, I don't know about the rest of you but my eyebrow skin is very delicate and that scrubbing was the most horrific things I have felt in a long time. I clenched my teeth and put my survival face on and endured what felt like 10 minutes of scrubbing. BTW, the scrubbing was done with a towel and some "dye remover". So basically it was like feeling a dry towel smash against your face repeated times. It was probably similar to water boarding.

Today when I woke up, my face felt a bit peculiar in the eyebrow area. Since we are friends, I will share with you my horror:

The top part of my eyebrow is bruised and the
bottom part of my eyebrow is rug burned.

Oh the dear price we pay for beauty.

Identity Crisis

If you are a daily reader of my blog, you may have noticed the plethora of new templates that I have been trying out lately. I do apologize for the indecisiveness but it is really hard to find the perfect fit that describes my personality. Maybe my personality is too big....therefore no blog template will work and maybe my personality is too small....therefore no template will work. I will stop now before I start to lose my huge readership!

I am tired!

A Vacation!

Today at 11a.m. we started our trek up to Spring Hill Camps for a week of vacation for the kids. Here are the major differences I can think of with the parent vacation week and their vacation week!

1. We get to sleep in an air conditioned bedroom!
THEY sleep on an itty bitty matresses and hope for cool evenings!

2. We sleep in each morning and awaken at our leisure.
THEY have breakfast (which is a long walk away) at 7:30 everyday.

3. We choose what we will eat throughout the day.
THEY get to have preplanned meals and sometimes think it is fun to have a "NO utensils allowed" meal.

4. We do our laundry each day.
THEY just turn their clothes inside out and call it good.

5. We can choose to paint a bedroom in a day.
THEY can choose to paint a rock at the the craft house.

6. We can ride in a car, grill a steak, and go for a boat ride.
THEY can ride a horse, cookout at Burger Island, and go kayaking.

7. We take showers.
THEY ride down a water slide (the biggest one in MI!) and THEN take a shower!

8. We can light a candle.
THEY get a giant campfire each night.

So..... would you like to be a "we" or "THEM" this week?

A houseful of people....that I love.

My parents are currently hosting a spectacular event! It is called "Drop In and Stay a While Festival of Fun". In other words, the whole family has come over for a visit. Here are the highlights of the Festival thus far:

After great planning and spectacular anticipation, Mom and I planned to surprise Sally, my sister, with an impromptu visit. I haven't seen her for 2 years so this was a big deal. The plan was to have my Mom and Sally go to Big Apple Bagel in Davison and the kids and I would just "show up" which for us is a 2 hour trip to this restaurant! To celebrate Nate's 5th grade graduation, I told the kids at 4p.m. on Wednesday that we would be leaving for a night of swimming at a hotel. They were pumped and got busy packing and we were out of the house in 30 minutes flat!

In order to try my hand at being frugal, I had some "points" that I had accrued for a free night at a hotel. I decided that we would stay at the Davison hotel so that we would be "in town" for the big surprise. When we arrived, after 2 hours of anticipation and excitement, I was quickly able to crush my children's hopes and dreams with one single sentence. "Guys, the pool is being renovated." My children were not happy with me at all. It was not the best of 5th grade graduation celebrations.

The next morning we arrived at BAB and quickly took our position for "Operation Sally". We carefully parked our car so that we could case out the entrance to the restaurant. Once they arrived, we quietly snuck in after them and positioned ourselves right behind them in line. When Mom placed her order, I loudly said, "Hey Mom, could you order me one of those too?"
Sally spun around and with her mouth gaping open started to scream and then cry and then hyperventilate. She really is fun to surprise!

She obviously had no idea that I was coming because she had on no makeup, wore a frumpy overshirt, pink t shirt, blue jean capris, bobby sock,s tennis shoes (she NEVER wears these out in public), and didn't even have her purse! I was really happy that my plan had worked!

We head back to Kalamazoo today which is a little quick but I think the visit was totally worth the gas!

Somebody's watching.....

I have this little button at the bottom of my blog called a sitemeter. If I click on it and sign in, I can see the traffic on this blog. Today I had the privilege (??) of having a person from Kohls.com visit my site and read yesterday's post. Hmmmm.....I guess things aren't so private here! Maybe I'll get a free coupon in the mail or something...

Deadlines of plenty.

Nathan graduated from 5th grade today. It was a bittersweet moment. My baby is no longer a baby anymore. Gone are those nightly cuddles. Sadness. But every once in a while he is still my baby and I cherish those little hugs or kisses that come flying my way when I least expect them.

I have been living under big deadlines lately. Last weekend was actually a duel deadline- one for my personal life and one for my professional life. The professional life was fulfilled on Friday with the culmination of high school graduation at Wings Stadium. We have always had our graduation at our football field and since our bleachers were condemned, we had to find a new venue. Since I run the auditorium and pretend to be good at logistics, I was all the sudden put in charge of a tremendous amount of the ceremony and all the behind the scenes work. To add to the stress, my principal spent the majority of the beginning of last week in the hospital so I became the "go to" person for all the questions. It was stressful to say the least. But the ceremony went as planned and it was well run.

My personal life deadline was the completion of the fifth grade moving on video that I had signed up for in November. It involved pulling together pictures, music, video footage, and a plan for a 40 minute show. My friend Britt came to the rescue with her video production expertise in April because I knew that I had gotten in way over my head. She worked countless hours on this project and although I didn't "make" the show, I was involved in the actual planning of how it should look and unfold. Most of you know that I don't do well with handing over "my projects" to other people. But I knew that Britt could handle it. She had hoped to be done the week before last but "life" got in the way and we quickly both realized that this project had to get done on GRADUATION day. The afternoon that we transfered over the footage from my machine to hers, we went through the following "weather events" in one hour--1 severe thunderstorm warning, 2 different tornado warnings and hail that was a 3/4 inch in diameter. So the entire Britt family of 5 plus two neighborhood friends and me were huddled in the basement with our laptops trying to transfer data and hoping the power wouldn't go out. I think it was one of my top ten most stressed out moments. Looking back on it....well, it is quite funny! After a little more editing, we were ready for the final product and the big show today! The fifth graders absolutely loved it. They sang to the songs, danced in their seats and laughed at their classmate's great video clips. Yay! Stress over. And there were no negative comments about anything. I came home and literally passed out on the couch for 2 hours.

And finally, my deadline for tomorrow is to submit my grades. Shhhh....don't tell anyone.....I got that done today when no one was looking!

Happy summer everyone! Time to go pick out a new cross stitch project!

Kohl's Dressing Rooms

Many of you know from a previous post that I like to shop at Kohl's. I don't usually buy things for myself but rather for my children. But I will proudly admit that I do believe that Kohl's has a great selection of bras. And today during school, my underwire started poking me in the armpit and by 3 o'clock I knew that I had to go "replacement" shopping. To make things even better, I had a 30% off coupon that was going to expire tomorrow so it was now or never!

Madison decided to accompany me on this trip since she wanted to find a new bathing suit for Spring Hill next week! So we stopped at Speedway and spent a whopping $56 on 3/4 of a tank of gas and then proceeded on to find some OTHER great deals.

Since Madison is growing so quickly and camp begins on Sunday, I decided that it would be wise to try on the bathing suit before buying it tonight. Maddie and Nate are very spoiled in the "trying on" department because I usually just bring multiple sizes home and then return what doesn't fit. At the moment we decided that the trying on thing needed to happen, I was shopping for bras. Or should I say that Madison was trying to shop with me and deciding that she could speed the process along if she shouted my size nice and loudly every time she found a bra that would suffice. It was not an experience or memory that I wish to think about anymore. Thank you.

We made it to the dressing room and she and I took the handicapped one since that would give us both ample space for trying things on. She is very private (just like me!) and so we changed back to back. After the first try on was complete, we both realized at about the same time that there was a MAN in the stall next to us. She knew right away that this was not right and managed to whisper her concern to me. I, on the other hand was not really worried about the man thing but was more concerned about those very wide slatted doors that I happened to be in front of. I figured that if I can see out, then they can see in! Let's just say that we were dressed and out very quickly. People with our last name can move quickly in a stranger danger weird sort of situation.

We were quite successful in our shopping experience even if everyone in the store now new my bra size. And with a 3o% additional amount off the total, we saved a lot of money! I just hope no one that I knew was around that bra section tonight.

Happy 9th Madison!

Nine years ago today at 9:53 a.m., Madison came squawking into this world! She was a big baby due to my gestational diabetes. She weighed a whopping 10 lbs/5 ounces. Because of my condition, it was standard protocol to have the baby spend the first 24 hours in the NICU (Neonatal intensive care unit). My doctor forgot to tell me this little tidbit of information ahead of time, so I remember the stress that I endured as she was wheeled away for "observation". The first time, later that day, that Stu and I visited the unit together was absolutely amazing. I couldn't get over how many nurses were tending to these babies....these babies that were very tiny and had a myriad of problems. Madison, on the other hand, had no problems. I remember a nurse commenting to me that "it is always "fun" to have a baby that weighs more than the other 3 babies combined" that shared her suite! In fact, they had to order diapers from the regular wing because she couldn't fit into the preemies!

That first year of life could be considered a "decline" of sorts. I remember taking her to every pediatric appointment and listening to the doctor comment that she was "falling" on the height and weight charts. What did they expect? She started at the 150th percentile. By her first birthday, she was in the 50th percentile for weight and the 10th percentile for height. If you look at her parents, you can see the genetic resemblence from these stats!

So where is she now? Nine years later, I am happy to report that Madison is now 50 inches tall and still in the 50th percentile for weight. Somehow a few days ago, she rigged up a measuring tape so that she could find out how tall she was! She then proclaimed to me that "if gas prices are too high and we can't go to Disney World it's ok Mom. According to Cedar Point's website, I can ride a lot of the rides now so we should go there instead."

I am so thankful to have a girl that can adapt to the economy so quickly! Happy Birthday Madison Kay!

Why I blog.

WARNING: SERIOUS AND ALMOST THOUGHTFUL POST BELOW:


Many posts that I have written are strictly for entertainment. I like to make people laugh. I don't really even mind if people are laughing at me. I just find it extremely rewarding to make people smile. It is something that I can do without spending money and I seem to be pretty good at the making people laugh thing, because I feel that most of my days are filled with a fair amount of it!

As I write my 46th post, I realize that I don't just blog to entertain. I simply like to keep a blog. I like to write. I am not extremely eloquent and I don't have much to say in general, but I find that blogging is a good way to end the night and also rethink and mentally process through the day. Many times I find that blogging will leave a smile on my face and after many long, hard, STRESS filled days; this is a very good thing. I pretend to have an extremely cosmopolitan audience of 10,000 that revisits my site faithfully but truth be told, it's still only about 5 steady readers and I think only 3 of those actually know how to leave a comment! Comments really do help motivate me....so I encourage you to be bold and come out of the bloggy closet. It really is very safe in here.

Tomorrow is graduation day. I am willing myself to be tough. No visible tears. But I have been torn to pieces on the inside for days because I don't want to say goodbye to this group. They are so unique and fabulous and thoughtful and just cool. And now they have to grow up and many of them will move away. And choir will fade from their memories. And although it is selfish, that means that I fade too. I know that graduating and moving on is natural and I know it is right.....but it is really hard to deal with the grief of losing 13 kids that you have grown to love all at the same time. Maybe this is why some people choose not to ever teach high school. Anyway, please say a prayer for Cortnie, Toni, Nayt, Dillon, Kaitlyn, Nick, Felicia, Pam, Tara, Shameka, Jerimiah, Michelle, and Britt. Their future is now far away from the safe and predictable walls within our little high school. It is a really big step for most of them and a lot of them have already told me that they are really scared and very overwhelmed. And truth be told, I am really scared and very overwhelmed for some of them because they have a rough road ahead of them.

But tomorrow will be ok. And I will get through the cermony. And so will they. We will all be fine. And I will make jokes and laugh with them because that is what I do best. And laughing is more socially acceptable than crying....

39 Years...and possibly holding. Forever.

It is with a bit of fear that I write this post. It is not everyday that one hits the the cool age of 39. For real. So here is a list (surprise, surprise!) of highlights from last year just to remember me by if I don't make it to 40.

July: The month that it became "official" that I would be the auditorium manager for the High School. My training for the entire job lasted 1 hour. It included giving me multiple forms that I was supposed to know how to fill out and a big bunch of keys. AND Harry Potter Book 7 was delivered to our front porch on July 21st. My man decided that we should take a picture of the historic occasion. Reading order: Husband, Nathan, Heidi, and then Madison. We were all finished with it by the end of August. What a great book. OH! Stu and I spent two weeks in England....awesome vacation but we are still paying for it I think!

August: I decided that this was the year to "outfit" the choir with new concert dress. When it was all said and done, we spent close to 6,000 dollars. But they look great! Sorry, my pictures are at school.

September: School started (I made that cake over there on the right the night before the big day!) and I realized within the first week that my varsity choir had the makings to be really good if they bought into my philosophy of vocal pedagogy. They did....and I will miss them so much.

October: I don't remember anything about this month except that Halloween was warm. In Michigan. Go figure.

November: We went to Great Wolf Lodge for Thanksgiving. It was relaxing and extremely fun. There were many "moms" in bathing suits so I got over my shyness quite quickly. The kids were so happy and Stan and I had much time to just chill by the pool. I won't include a picture of me at the pool....it would be too much to handle. Please just trust me on this one.

December: I was only home for 5 evenings in three weeks because of all the auditorium bookings. I was beginning to feel really resentful of this job. Christmas was held at our house and Uncle Jon and Uncle Bill and my parents were there. Nate got the Guitar Hero. BFF.

January: A lot of snow....3 snow days which is a huge amount for our district. It never got extremely cold but it sure liked to snow!

February: The shortest month of the year! My sister Sally turned 40! That is when I started thinking about turning 39. It was a lot of thinking.....

March: Stu, (this is what I called my husband when we first met and I really thought it was his name) decided that he would landscape our back yard in the spring. Since we didn't agree on ideas of the "perfect" yard, we just decided to split the yard up right down the middle. Here is his half (in progress):

And here is mine: (Those are last fall's leaves if you can't quite see them).

We won't talk about this anymore.

April: This is the month that I decided to accept the position as the new director of the Kalamazoo Community Chorale. I am looking forward to working with this great bunch of ladies in he fall.

May: Hold on! The busiest month of my life. Every weekend was booked with rentals and every weekday was booked with concerts/awards ceremonies. It was a month that I don't want to repeat for a long time-- at least 12 more months that is!

June: I am four days in. I am totally exhausted from the trip to Cedar Point yesterday and remembering fondly all the roller coasters I rode. I don't know their names (because it didn't seem important at the time) but each one was very unique. It was fun to the max! Oh, and for the record, I don't ride anything that looks remotely like a swinging pirate ship or any ride that spins around in circles. The younger generation handled those rides! Anyway, it was a great way to spend the day.

We had a fabulous birthday dinner of take out Chinese and store bought German Chocolate cake. What a carb filled day! So, there you have it. I am off to early bed! Because a 39 year old will definitely need some beauty rest.

The crisis of being bored.

Summer vacation will start for my children in less than a week. My 8 and 10 year old daughter and son are already getting geared up for the last day of school. Since I teach during the school year, it is very irritating and exhausting to hear the words, "I'm bored" sneak out of my children's mouths. So, in order to combat this horrible phrase, I am going to start a summer writing project with my children and totally brainwash them into thinking that this project is "cool". Each day, I am going to begin my morning by writing a few sentences in a notebook. I will then wait for the first child to utter the "magic words". If they say they are bored, they will add a few sentences to the story and we will continue to write the story together throughout the summer. I find that by giving children a "thinking platform", they are able to change gears and possibly prevent real boredom from setting in!
My kids love to write....so they will probably look forward to this. For other families, this may be a total punishment. If your children don't like to write, sit with them and dictate their thoughts....sometimes a little parent/child time can go a long way!

Happy Birthday Mom!

I don't tell you often enough how much I appreciate you. You are my biggest fan even when my fan club is super small. You always try not to give me advice but sometimes that is all I really want and need. You lovingly tell me that I have enough time to get things that are "really important" done. And you seem to be interested in so many things that I talk about on the phone at 3:20 every weekday. Even if you don't understand those things at all! You pretend really well.

And that is why I am happy that you are still around! How old are you anyway?

I figured that my birthday gift to you would be to post this 10 year old picture!

Love daughter #2,

Feet and Wrists

I have had a plethura of emails asking about my new watch so I thought I would share what it looks like with you! (That last sentence was all a lie but it was extremely fulfilling to write!) Since I got my once-a season pedicure this weekend so that I can start sporting sandals, I thought I would kill two birds (baby cardinal rest in peace) with one stone and just take one picture. The following snapshot is quite disturbing so do brace yourself!








Get rid of all liquid in your mouth.













A few things I have learned:
1. My future is not in foot modeling or self portrait picture taking.
2. NEVER let the nail tech pick out a polish color for you.
3. Watches and feet don't mix. Ever.

There you have it. BTW, I will probably not be wearing sandals this week. Red toenails and high school students---they don't mix well either!

A Party at the lake....

If I were rich (wo)man, I would live on Gull Lake. Eidle deidle dum...... It is a moderately sized lake and is filled with multi million dollar homes owned by the big wigs of Western Michigan. I don't think many teachers live on this lake. There are also a fair amount of small homes but most are being bought up by rich people and renovated/torn down to make way for extravagant living. Today we got to go to Gull Lake for an end of the year church choir picnic. Everyone brought a dish to pass--I brought some spinach balls that were not healthy at all but they fell in the category of "appetizers" so I thought that the green spinach "look" was a nice touch for the health conscious people that were present. I then offset those babies with some throw-in-the-oven pizza rolls that had been in my freezer forever. And those were a heart attack waiting to happen! BTW, leftovers: Spinach Balls 4, Pizza Rolls 0. Hmmmm.....

The highlights of our outing were the chocolate sheet cake, the casual conversation, and the boat ride. The low lights were that the cottonwood trees were shedding a lot of cotton bits, the host's cat caught a baby cardinal while everyone just watched (I told everyone around me to just think of it as a "fluffy hamburger" and you wouldn't feel so bad), we all got a little sunburned, and Nate came back sporting some awesome giant bug bites on his legs.

But it was fun and memories were made. And everyone smiled a lot! Happy Sunday friends!