Wordless Wednesday

Setbacks

In the past I've been very open about my life on my blog & social media. I've shared a lot of personal things when it came to my health ~ infertility, cancer and the start of what the doctor thinks is MS. Then I had G and my blogging really slowed down.

I realize people only put out there what they want people to see. Sometimes I can vomit what's going on in my life. That's my way of healing and handling the curveballs that are being thrown at me. 

Ten years ago if I could see into the future I would have said I was being shown the wrong life. Those things happen to other people not me. I've learned I am those other people to everyone else. 

A few weeks back I complained to someone how I just couldn't do all this. Work full time, be a full time mom, and battle 2 diseases. The person pretty much told me I needed to suck it up because that's what all working moms go through. Those comments have stung. I learned though that person has absolutely no idea what I go through in life and really is not a friend. 

Moms take on the world. We take on so much with so little help. We just think we can do it all. Reality is we need help and can't do it all. Sometimes we just need some encouragement and sympathy/empathy. 

I spend a good portion weekly reading/researching about my cancer. Trying to make sure I'm getting the best care available. This is not a normal thing most other mothers even worry about on a daily basis. Sure we all worry in the back of our minds that we will be there for their children life. Unfortunately I get a quarterly reminder how short my life can be.

I try to take that to stop & enjoy each moment I am given. I keep my camera close by because I want to catch every moment I can. I journal daily for G. Part of it so one day I can look back and remember all the little things. Another part is I want him to know how much I loved being his mom. 

I started writing this blog post back in October. I have struggled some with the setbacks I have been dealing with over the past few months. I had an ah-ha moment the other day. I was struggling with the actions of people, why things can be such a challenge and just feeling overwhelmed. In my ah-ha moment I realized I am going through a time of setback right now in life. I need to take a moment to see what I can learn from all this. There must be something to learn in a period of a setback. I have no idea what I am supposed to be learning, but I don't have any doubt that I will learn something.

Menu Monday

The past week I have been eating clean. I followed a FB group where everything was planned out for the group. It really was fabulous. The grocery list to daily menus for all 3 meals were all included. I loved it! Following this group helped me get back on track. I have been eating waaaaay too much sugar lately.

I decided to create my own weekly plan from breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. This way I have a plan for everything I need to eat. When I plan out what to eat I grab much better things. I also can't get over hungry or I eat junk.

I thought I would share my plan with you for the week.

MONDAY

Breakfast - overnight oats
Snack - hard boiled egg
Lunch - Salad ~ lettuce, chicken, tomatoes, walnuts, or whatever else we have around to add
Snack - Celery with nut butter
Dinner - BBQ in a jar ~ I saw this on Pinterest and thought it was adorable. I will make a roast in the crockpot, then put some coleslaw and baked beans in a jar.

TUESDAY

Breakfast - eggs ~ I like to either fry an egg, egg with kale and salsa. I make them different each time
Snack - yogurt
Lunch - chicken, veggie and rice bowl
Snack - fruit with some nuts
Dinner- Fish, sweet potatoes and green beans

WEDNESDAY

Breakfast - Eggs
Snack - Hard Boiled Egg
Lunch - Salad
Snack - Yogurt
Dinner - Burrito Bowls ~ leftover shredded pork, rice, avocado, tomatoes, salsa etc

THURSDAY

Breakfast - overnight oats
Snack - celery with nut butter
Lunch - I have a work thing, so I will get food while I am out
Snack - Apple
Dinner - Cobb Salad

FRIDAY ~ TGIF!!!!

Breakfast - Eggs
Snack - Yogurt
Lunch - Taco Salad (use leftovers from burrito bowls)
Snack - Hummus & Veggies
Dinner - Meat Loaf, Mash Potatoes and a veggies

There you have it! I made my shopping list as I made my menu. I like to look at different blogs or Pinterest while I am making my menu for different ideas.

Vegan cheese

I think I mentioned on a previous post that I have given up dairy. Cheese is the hardest part. Pizza and Mexican food.....oh boy! Thankfully there are so many options these days. Sprout's has a lot of options for a good price. I found Daiya sliced cheese that melts amazing on a grilled cheese. I was looking through the frozen section at Sprout's and found the dairy free pizza below. It really tasted good. The meatless meat on it even was tasty. I would like to find a vegan pizza with actual meat though lol

Earth Balance vegan mac & cheese is really good too. I used coconut milk when I made it. Of course it doesn't taste like Kraft, but it's a good substitute.

There are just a couple of the substitutes I have found that I like.  

Wordless Wednesday

A Journey of 10 Years!

I haven't ever been a big Valentines fan. I use to refer to it as Hate Day. Art asked me out on our first date on Valentines. I refused to go on Hate Day. I did go out with him, but it wasn't on February 16. It is hard to believe this all happened 10 years ago. The past 10 years have gone by quickly in some ways and long in other ways.

October 2006

September 2007

It is amazing how much has happened to us. Our first dance song was called Never Alone by Jim Brickman. What a perfect song for the journey we were about to travel.  I found an old email last week that we had sent to each other when we were dating. I wish I would have saved a lot more emails. It talks about being in love and hoping to be even more in love 10 years later. Art asked me if I love him more now. My response was it is a much different love now. It is stronger and deeper. Back then it was more of a giddy love. We've been through so much together that a love changes and I feel ours has changed for the better.

April 2008

I wish people took marriage more seriously. I wish they put as much effort into marriage as they do the games on their phone or Xboxes. Marriage is no joke. It is A LOT of work! People have the mentality when things are broke you throw it away and get a new one. Same with spouses. Trade them in for younger, richer, or just the thrill of the chase.

We have both had to put a lot of work into making our marriage work for us. We have taken the mentality with our marriage when some thing is broken in our relationship we are going to fix it. Some things we can't fix, other things we fix and some times we have to pray for the other to realize things need to be fixed. Prayer isn't instant either. When those prayers are answered the journey was worth it.

November 2015

Our journey started 10 years ago today and it has brought us along a path neither of us imagined.

December 2015

Legging OOTD

Have you discovered Lularoe? What about their leggings? O-M-G those things feel like butter! Soooo soft and comfortable! I am struggling to understand why leggings aren't business wear. I feel people make uncomfortable clothing the items that we are "supposed" to be wearing. Why not make appropriate clothing the most comfortable! I wear leggings as many days a week as I can. lol I just love them!

Sporting my valentine leggings with slippers! My favorite work outfit when I am working at home.

Here are 4 of my 6 pairs of leggings - the others are in the wash or on the drying rack.

I'm wearing my Lularoe bow Irma top with just regular leggings in the picture above.

These leggings are Old Navy Yoga. They are sooooo comfy! I wear these probably the most during a week. Great to throw on after a day in the office.

The above leggings have arrows on them. You can't tell in the picture because of the poor lighting. These were probably my favorite. The first time I wore them I found a hole. Sadly these are no longer in my wardrobe. They have been replaced by a different design. I miss these beauties!

Wordless Wednesday

Menu Monday

It is that time again to be making a menu for the week. I make my menus on Friday before I head to the grocery store. I have been trying to make easier things. I have a limited time to cook dinner. Usually I can entertain George long enough to cook for about 20 minutes. I either have to lock him out of the kitchen with 2 gates or put him in the highchair with a snack.

I would rather not give him a snack before dinner because then he doesn't eat good. Sometimes you just have to do whatever it takes to get a task done. The other night I decided to give him a snack. I was making avocado sauce to put on pasta. He had one taste of the avocado and he ate a whole one. He was shoveling it in as fast as he could get it in his mouth.

I am still using things from my freezer. I like to buy meat when it is on sale. Here is what is on our menu this week.

Korean Beef, rice and broccoli

Chicken breasts with baked potatoes

Kielbasa sandwiches and roasted veggies

Zuppa Toscana Soup

Wordless Wednesday

Firemen to the Rescue

One evening I was on the phone with my mom while we waited for Art to come home. George and I were playing peekaboo. He would shut his bedroom door and we would open it. It was a fun game, lots of laughter and squealing until.....he locked the door.

We haven't changed the knobs on the bedrooms or bathroom since we moved it. They have these lovely key locks. We do not own the keys for these locks.

George has grown enough recently to reach the knobs and turn them. I noticed one morning he was trying to turn the lock on the door. I thought oh we should change those knobs and then quickly went about my day. Well that night he locked himself in his room.

I called my dad to ask him what I should do. There wasn't a place to unscrew the knob, I tried a credit card, asked George to open the door, knife, bobby pin....nothing was working. During this whole thing George is yelling DA DA. My dad was laughing when we were on the phone because he could hear him yelling. It was like just go get da da he will get me out of this room.

Around 20 minutes into him being locked in his room he started to whine. I put my hand under the door and told him it would be ok. He stuck his hand out to hold mine. I sung songs to him when he got upset while I was working on different things.

I ran next door to our neighbors to see if he was home. Knocked on the door numerous times, but no one came to the door. Ran back into the house and about this time George was starting to cry hard. I then took a hammer to the door knob. Knocked the thing off. I thought if I knocked it off I could stick a screw drive through it to push it off on the other side or loosen it up, so I could get George out. Oh no! The knob came off, but the rest of it wouldn't budge.

Around this time I text my cousin Liz. She had the wonderful suggested I call the fire department. huh? Didn't even think of that. Later I was like why in the world didn't I think to call them? Well sometimes my brain reverts back to the farm days. The fire department was only available for fires. There were no firemen at the station. They would leave their jobs or homes and rush to the fire house, grab the truck and go to the fire.

The fire department showed up within 10 minutes. A VERY long 10 minutes. I had told them this wasn't an emergency, George was safe, but we just needed to get them out. I didn't want them rushing over here with their siren on. They ended up taking a saw the entire door knob off the door. There were sparks flying as they sawed through the metal. George was SCREAMING from the noise.

When the door opened George had BIG eyes when there were 3 firemen standing there. I grabbed him and gave him a hug. Through all this I just kept laughing. I couldn't believe this was happening. When the firemen were on the way I called Art to tell him what was happening. I could just see him coming home to a fire truck outside the door with their lights on. He would be panicked. Thankfully he found the whole thing just as amusing as me. We had a good laugh.

When Art came in the house, George was babbling away to him, took him into his room and showed him the door. Hilarious!

I did a nice number on the knob huh?

After the firemen left I then thought why didn't I take pictures of them sawing the knob off! George needed those pictures for his scrapbook.

Wordless Wednesday

Menu Monday

I have been back to making a menu for each week. I just haven't been posting them on the blog. I have cut dairy out of my diet. I am trying to avoid it completely. So far so good. I don't even miss it at all. There are so many options out there that I don't feel I am missing anything. I thought I would miss sour cream, cheese, and cream. Thankfully there are coconut milk options that are fabulous!

Zucchini Chow Mein

Korean Beef, rice and broccoli

Pork Chops, quinoa, and salad

Roast, mash potatoes and peas

Sausage & veggie bowls

Wordless Wednesday

Halloween Costumes

This is a long over due post, but I wanted to post about our Halloween costumes. I started thinking about Halloween costumes before George was even born. Art dresses up as a Viking almost every year. There has only been 1 year where he dressed up as a pirate since we have been together. Kids that has almost been 10 years.

We had to be Vikings! I didn't want to do it our first year because George was too little. I knew no one would see us, so we saved it for this past year. I sewed our skirt and pants. We bought the fur from the fabric store. I used some of the fur and some leather strings to tie around our boots, so they were furry. This worked really well. The helmets came from various places - Halloween super store, Amazon, Etsy and a little gift shop.

It was in the 80's on Halloween, so the furs only stayed on for the pictures and to arrive at our party. Once we arrived we quickly shed all our furs. George was darling!

Three Years!

I read a post this morning I put on FB 3 years ago.

"I'm off to start the next chapter of my life...cancer FREE!!!!

I'm looking forward to the BIGGEST class of ice cold water after recovery. This no water thing is for the birds!!!!

My Grandma Fischer would be proud. Woke up, did my hair and make up. Even when she went to work in the field on the farm she looked presentable because you never know who could stop by. lol

Happy Friday!!!!"

This started off my day feeling weird. It's been 3 years since I went in for surgery to get rid of cancer. Only to find out 2 weeks later I won't ever get rid of this cancer. I normally celebrate today. I couldn't really celebrate today.  I think it has been a weird feeling because my numbers aren't as low as I would like them to be. It has been a roller coaster year with ups and downs when it comes to my cancer numbers. Right now they are holding stead. I would rather have them holding steady then climbing. Still it's scary at times.

Three years ago I was sitting in a hospital bed thinking I wouldn't ever be able to move my shoulders again. The pain was horrific. Somehow I forgot the pain of child birth. I can't forget the pain after my cancer surgery.

As I sat on the couch tonight I looked at my house covered in toys. George was dragging his tent around the house as toys were being scattered.  Right now life is good. I was able to spend it with the important people in my life. I didn't celebrate my cancerversy, but I did soak in the sweet moments of just an ordinary life.

Red Lips!

I decided to try my red lipstick again. I haven't worn it in awhile. I used Vaseline lip gloss before I put it on and it was a game changer! It went on more evenly and stayed on a lot longer.  I pulled out my brownish tones for make up over the past week. I get in a rut where I will wear the same eye shadow every single day for months. Then I will try something new and get stuck again. I grabbed my brown eye shadow and coral blush. I really like the more natural tones during this time of year. 

Maybe it is the rainy weather that is making me want more natural tones. It doesn't feel like pink and purple tones right now. We need the rain sooooo bad. It is nice to see the hills green again. 

Wordless Wednesday

We don't follow all the rules!

Some days you just have to break the rules and ride backwards while you are seat belted in. Judge away! There are times you just need to get that darn shopping completed! 

Wordless Wednesday!