Come visit me…….

I have started a new blog…It is a hodpodge of this or that but, mostly about my counseling with the hubby and getting out life and marriage back on track… So, come on over…… I am sure you’ll at the least be totally amused. LOL for some reason the link is not posting…. let’s keep trying this http://beingme4me.wordpress.com/

Going out on her own a recipe project…

Ashley is going to be going out on her own here in a few years and I have thought what can I give her when she does leave to go live and work and play out in the big old world that isn’t my home? And I have thought and thought and well….you get the picture. It hit me this morning….She loves to cook and try different things. So, I have decided to put together a cookbook just for her. I am going to write it out. I’m not going to take the easy way out. I want her to feel the love coming from it and have something to remember her time in our home. I want to include pictures, little memories, things of that sort. I think I want to do this for all the girls. Which is why I am glad that I have this blog, to chronicle what is going on in our home and lives. I am going to put some of her favorites in it. Some of the recipes that she has mastered and would eat again. Also, I am going to put in there cooking terms, like dredging and dutch oven and some of the things I think she would want to know.

This is going to take a while. I want to get it just right. I have a little over a year until she graduates and goes off to college. That is her plan not mine. She already has a paid scholarship to Sinclair through her American Sign Language class. She wants to be an interpreter. And while she is doing that she wants to also go to school to be a veterinarian. She figures the interpreter part, which she loves by the way will pay the bills while she goes for the veterinarian part. She has a plan and I am oh so thankful. Did I tell you she took her exams and she got straight A’s on all of them??? Yeah and 4 of them were A+’s. She was struggling a while back and she is back on track now. She has a goal and she is shooting for it. I am so proud of her.

So, if anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear them. Whether it be recipes, or suggested terms that I should put in there. Comment away. Cooking is not my forte. And I want to get this right. So, what do you think? Let me know.

The Ice….

It came, it shut down the city. It is now finally going away. It was pretty, but, caused so much damage…..

School’s out again….Let the crazy begin…

School is out for the third straight day. Woo hoo. Sorry, I like it when there is no school. A lot of people don’t share my enthusiasm. But, that is ok, to each their own. Today, we are going to be sewing patches on Mikayla’s holey jeans. She seems to have taken a liking to the holey ones and well, I think some funky patches will make her happy and me too. She can still have her holes, and I can be happy knowing her knees aren’t falling out. Me and Little Stacey are going to be in the kitchen later, and we are going to have a tutorial on how to make brownies. Try as the child does, she always messes them up. We are going to use her brownie pan. The one that cuts them and everything. Woo hoo can’t wait for that either. Hopefully, we don’t mess them up together. LOL. I think we are going to do a mini cleaning roulette mission. With all the chillaxin we have been doing the house is starting to look a might bit unkempt. But, it’s nothing that between all of us that can’t be cleaned up with in half an hour. Just a bunch of hot spot pick ups and we are done. I am thinking of trying a new recipe. I think the kids will enjoy it. With a baked potato and green beans. Then those brownies for desert. Hubby is staying with his mom nights and we miss him, especially Mikayla. See asked me at least 30 times why he couldn’t come home or why she couldn’t go with him. Which reminds me Mikayla had TV withdrawal yesterday. I took it away from her because Tuesday, I never saw her. She was in bedroom the whole day watching TV. That is why too much. I am only going to give her 1/2 an hour a day from now on. There are so many more things we can be doing than watching tv. I have dusted off the board games. Watch out kids. Momma is on a mission. LOL I have been thinking the past few days that we spend so much time in this house but, never together. Ashley is always in her room listening to music or sleeping. My goodness teenagers can do some sleeping. Stacey is always flitting here and there, I never have a clue what she is doing unless she is whining or crying about having to do her chores. Mikayla is always glued to the tv, The man is always in the computer and me and Tori, well, we are always either playing, cleaning, or well, watching tv. I feel lonely in my own home. I need to get that togetherness going again. Now, off to make a grocery list. And walk on that treadmill. Where I am walking to tomorrow. I have a goal destination in mind. Wonder if I will make it. LOL Have a great day all.

Here is the recipe it isn’t linking right. I so totally am out of practice with this thing. Honey Lemon Pork Chops

How I met my best friend…..

About 6 years ago, I started a program called FAST Families. Many of you that follow me probably have heard me talk about it before. I joined it because I thought we don’t have anything to do, let’s go check it out. FAST means families and schools together. The purpose of the program for me I would say would be to build strong relationship with the school for the betterment of your child and their school career. They like for you to be involved in every aspect. It also helps to strengthen your family. Here is a typical evening at FAST Familes. You come in and you sit at a table with your family. You play little games until it is time for FAST hellos. Which are a riot. The parent introduces the families. Then everyone goes hello Poling/Lockwood Family (that is us by the way). And then we go hello Fast Families, as loud as we can. I love that part. I used to detest that part. I am not a speaker in front of people kinda person. Well, at least I wasn’t back then. I have lost a lot of my shyness. Then, check this out, this is the cool part, because you know us parents always get our food last and we are up running around waiting on our kids and come back to our food and it is stone cold, well, the child serves the parents. Woo hoo love that part too. At first I didn’t because well, I think the children should be served first but, they are served right along with us so, they don’t have to wait. After we eat, then it is time to either sing, which we absolutely love. The fast family rap is tooo cool. Or we do scribbles, or feeling charades. And this is done only with your family. Family time is key here. After that we break up. We go to Parent Group and the kids go to Kids Time. Parent group has evolved over the years and I can say I really enjoy myself in there. We talk about a wide range of topics. And we then get paired up with a parent buddy. We each have about 7 minutes to talk about whatever we want to and the other person has to listen. And vice versa. Then comes the good part. Our special play child comes in and it is the same child for 8 weeks. We get to play with them for 15 minutes and it is child led play. We have to do what they say. Surrender the control. I sneak in ways to talk to Mikayla about her day at school and what she has learned. We act like animals, eat fake food and it is just wonderful. After special play time, it is closing circle, and rain which during this time, a winning family is chosen. You get a board game and a gift card. We love Operation we got it last time we went through it.

So, I told you all about that to say. I met Stacy in FAST. We would talk and stuff while we were in FAST but, we weren’t close. Not until JT was born. The school had a function at Chuck E Cheese and I went with the girls. I seen Stacy sitting there and asked her if she wanted to see pics of him. She said sure, and after that, I can’t get rid of her. LOL Not like I try to. She is stuck to me like glue and I like it like that. We talk several times a day, whether by phone, im, or Facebook. We talk about everything. When we are having a problem with one of the kids. We are the first person the other calls. When we are having a hard day, we call each other. If we heard something funny, well… you get the picture. She helped me make a lot of hard decisions concerning JT and she most importantly showered him with love. I love her to death and am so happy I finally have a friendship where I can count on her just as much as she can count on me. We don’t judge each other, and we agree to disagree a lot. We are brutally honest with each other and still come out the other side friends till the end. God knew to put her in my life when he did and he knew I would need her for a life time. That is why she is still here. I have never had a friend where I can just be me and not be afraid of what they are thinking about me, or if they will still be my friend tomorrow. I kinda like this grown up friendship. It rocks!

To do’s for Today ( Monday)

I guess the way to get back in to the saddle of blogging is to go with the trusty to do list. I really don’t need to be reminded of this but, it is nice to see what I do and the progress that I make along the way. So, here goes…..

5:30 up and at em.
Get dressed, swish and swipe the bathroom
Prayer
worship
Read bible
spend 15 minutes in kitchen
Do my facebook stuff. Can’t leave that out, it would be a travesty. he he
20 minutes on treadmill
quick shower
Throw in load of laundry
Get Mikayla and Stacey up for school
Get them moving along and out the door when Mike gets here at 8.

Do 3 more loads of laundry and pick up living room

Counseling at 11.

Somewhere in there I do get Tori up and feed and dress her. LOL

After counseling the rest of the day is mine. Woo hoo

Wait for that big old storm that is supposed to blow in. From what I have heard we are going to get hit hard starting Monday night and it isn’t going to stop until sometime Wednesday. We’ll see though. I’m sure Tony has already bought his beer and chips for the storm. Ain’t that right Tony???

The rest of the week is pretty busy in the evenings. We started FAST again so, that is Tuesday evening. Wednesday is Bible Study and AWANA, Mikayla loves her Awana so I hope for her sake the storm blows over and amounts to nothing. Thursday is Ballet for Stacey and Friday I do believe that we don’t have to do much of anything. At least I hope so. Oh goodness I just remembered that Stacey is going to be in another PSA so that is Tues-Thursday this week. Yeah, packed full be our week. I hope everyone has a great week. I know I planned to. Ta Ta peoplettes.

Cleaning Roulette….

I am posting our cleaning roulette rules here. Just to have them. And to see if when I make a post it links with Facebook.

Cleaning Roulette

Starts at 10 am on Saturday morning….

Everyone pics a piece of paper out of the bowl. What you get is what you get. Go to assigned area and when the timer is started, clean as much as you can for 15 minutes. If you finish early then you can help another person with what they have. When the timer beeps. Come back to the bowl and we are at it again. We will do this for 45 minutes then take a 15 minute break. After break we are at it for another 45 minutes. We are allowed to act silly and we are allowed to be crazy. Have fun and let’s get this house deep cleaned.

Now, to sit and wait to see if it links.

Tootle loo peoples.

Cooking us some pumpkin rolls….

Me and Stacey just thought we would have us some fun and think we are giving a tutorial. But, well, you’ll see…….

Here is the budding young pastry chef

This is the cast of characters for the cake part. Yummy o. Don’t ya just love the display???? LOL

This is what happens when mommy takes too long setting up a picture of flour and sugar and such. The budding young pastry chef falls asleep… No matter on with the show I say! See that lovely lady in the picture that is Granny, she is always keeping an eye on things. LOL

I almost forgot the most important thing!!!! You must always have a nice cold glass of Pepsi! It helps you work so much better. Keeps you right on task.

You throw all the ingredients in Granny’s kitchenaid. Can I tell you a little secret??? I secretly covet that thing. I really would love one. Hint hint….

Yummy look at that there it goes onto the cookie sheet. I use foil because well, I’m a little on the lazy side and well, there is less clean up.

Stick that bad boy in the oven and wallah….

You get this! Isn’t that just the prettiest thing you ever did saw???

You slap that onto some parchment paper and roll it up.

Like so….then you put that bad boy into the fridge to cool. And now to stop the regularly scheduled program….we have been so blessed these past few days. Our fridge went out and all of our food went kaput. Well, we now have a fridge, and the church delivered two really big boxes of food to us. This was a surprise to us. Then we got the prettiest fruit basket I have ever seen. Granny said I must have blessed someone and God seen it and wanted to bless me back! I think I love that lady. Sometimes she just knows how to make me cry.

Ok, now, back to the program….

this is the ingredients for the filling. Not alot there is NO way that these little ingredients could cause any kind of trouble. Oh, no! Well… think again!

This is when the budding pastry chef decided to wake up and want to pour the powder sugar into the mixer, while it was going. Not a good idea! Not at all!

You see all that powder fly off? Yeah, I had to wash all of that, and because of that, there is no picture of the finished product. I even had wash the fake plant on the back of the sink. Ya wanna see it??? I thought you did! he he

Tune in tomorrow and I’ll give you the recipe. It came from a good friend. She is awesomtatious! And so is her recipe for pumpkin rolls! Tootles peoples!

Well, hello there….

Hey everyone, how’s it been? I know I know, I promised to start blogging again, and well, I haven’t. I just don’t have much to write about. Well, I probably do, by, I think I have writer’s won’t thaw out, need a jack hammer block. I can hardly put two sentences together when it comes to this thing. I’m not sure why. I think some of it has to do with, this was a blog for working through my grief and remembering JT. Then it turned to Tori-Beth. So, I really don’t know what direction I would like for this to go. I am still figuring that one out. I want this blog to be upbeat, quirky, witty, and maybe a little sassy. Kinda like me. LOL You may or may not have noticed that JT’s tab is gone. Someone stole his picture to enter a contest. I was not very happy about that. It made me a little sick actually. Now, if they would have asked me, I am sure that I would have had no problem with it. I don’t know who the person was and one of my friends came across it. Otherwise, I would have never known. But, the thought of someone just taking his picture well, that was way out of line. But, this is the internet, and I guess I was going to have to deal with that sooner or later. The company was very kind and took the picture down immediately and apologized profusely. I am very endeared to them now. They had compassion I didn’t think a big company would have. For that I am grateful.

The kids are doing great. Most of them are doing good in school and Mikayla just got TERRIFIC kids award. For being respectful. And her Teacher wrote some awesome comments on her interim. She said she was a joy to work with and she catches on easily and has a gift for learning. She also said she told her she should be proud of herself and just look at her and smiled that big pretty smile of hers. Yep, that’s my girl. LOL Ashley finally gets it and is doing great in school. All A’s and B’s. Took a lot of work to get her back to that point but, she is doing really well, and I am proud of her. Stacey well, she’s trying. She thinks it’s a socialization club at school. She had some terrible grades, but, she is bringing them up and is excited about it. Well, every test that she does good on she shoves in my face. LOL As a side note, I don’t care what the grade is, as long as they try their hardest and put the work into it. That is the key. You have to try. And she wasn’t. But, she is now. I am proud of her for that.

Ashley is in a big girl relationship, and I still don’t know how I feel about that. They have been going out well, sitting in my house when they are allowed to see each other, although they have been on two “dates” for 6 months now. Her boyfriend is very respectful and follows my rules, and that doesn’t make him run away. Oh well, I tried. Nah, just kidding. I really like him. We have known him for a long time. And well, this is crazy, long before me, Mike (my husband) used to date his mom. Now, how crazy is that??? But, he is a nice boy, so, I guess he can stay.

Tori-Beth, she is just a joy. She does crazy, goofy stuff everyday to make me smile. She doesn’t talk much, because Ashley taught her sign language, and she likes to use that. Although she will let you know what she wants or needs and she doesn’t need to use words. She is good like that. She loves to dance. When ever any kind of music comes on you can see her just a rockin and a rolling to it. Commercials are her thing. She loves them.

Oh yeah, Mikayla started AWANA last week and loves it and can’t wait to go back. I also started Bible Study last week and can’t wait to go back. LOL I have been looking for a Bible study for a long time. And am so happy that I have found one. We are starting from the beginning. I like that too. Mikayla’s first verse to learn. John 3:16 of course. Although she says Jack 3:16 but, I am hoping she gets it soon. I know she will.

Hubby man, is laid off. Not really happy about that, but, that’s ok, the Lord provides and everything is paid up, so, we have all of our needs met. Our van broke down and we are back to using the Jimmy again. The scary Jimmy. It scares me badly, but, we do have transportation, so, that is a blessing. If you all could see that thing you would know what I mean by scary.

Well, I guess that is it. You all have a great day, week, and month, because, who knows when I will pop up again. LOL

It’s Sunday…

I thought I would give you all some listening pleasure. Just a little God lift today. And remember everyday is the Lord’s day, not just Sunday!