Can I Get A Woot Woot For Friday?

Do you follow your horoscope or believe in that stuff?  I’m not a follower but once in awhile I read my horoscope – I’m a Pisces.  I found this on Pinterest and could not believe how perfectly it described me.

It doesn’t paint the prettiest picture, but every single one of those is ME.  Damn, and I thought being born in February was awesome!  Do you think what moon or sign you’re born under can affect who you are, how you feel and how you perceive yourself? 

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On a different note, we are going to start working on our closet project again this weekend.  It came to a stand still after we received our bad news, but now that we are moving along it is time to get going on that again.  I’m hoping we can make a big dent in things this weekend, in between all of our running around we are doing.  Seriously, we have a jam packed weekend and I don’t think we’re going to have any time to relax at all.

I missed out on doing my first solo link up for Valentine’s Day, but I think because it is all about Love Stories and not Valentine’s Day I will still host it. So next Thursday please link up for my first solo link up!  And tell all your blogging friends so they can come on over and join in too!  I love a good love story.  It doesn’t have to be about another person, it could be your love story with your pet!  It could be your love story with your kids.  Grandparents.  Anyone, any thing!  Please please PLEASE join in!  Yes, I’m reducing myself to begging. Womp womp.

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Since I whined about it a little bit yesterday I’d better let you know how we fared in the big mega storm.  The boys’ school let out at 2:00 yesterday afternoon, 2 1/2 hours before the first flake fell.  Oh well, better to be safe than sorry I guess.  But once it hit, it hit.  The snow accumulated pretty quickly and it wasn’t long before our brown lawn was white.  So in the end I think we ended up with about 6” of the white stuff.  It’s pretty fluffy so was easy to shovel this morning.  The boys and I went out about 9:00, they scooped while I ran the snow blower.  I actually got hot working out there!  The sun has ‘sneaked a peak’ a few times and it helped melt the snow remnants off the drive.  We decided to venture out to have lunch with Andy and the highways are dry!  You wouldn’t even know we had snow on them last night.  So the Mega Snow Storm was a big fat TURD and not the big deal they made it out to be.  At least not here in my neck of the woods.  But the media wouldn’t be doing their job if they didn’t create mass hysteria over a ‘storm’.  How did you fare?

Happy weekend, friends!

Erin

Odds and Ends Thursday

Good Thursday to you!  I’m sure you have heard of the snow storm hitting the Midwest yesterday, today and tomorrow.  If you haven’t you live under a rock. Ha! I tease.  But seriously, it’s all they are talking about and I am so tired of hearing it!!!  Yes it’s going to be a lot of snow.  Yes it’s going to cause travel headaches.  Yes it’s a bitch.  Move on!  This is the Midwest, we get snow here!  Now if this was hitting, say, Jamaica, now THAT would be news worthy!

Speaking of news, what do you think of this whole Oscar Pistorious deal?  I must be too soft hearted, I feel bad for the poor guy!  Am I an awful person or what? He shot his (gorgeous) girlfriend to death!  But do you think it was pre-meditated?  Or do you believe his story?  I don’t know what I honestly think, I just know he looks so nice and sweet and HOT that it’s hard for me to hate him and think he’s a monster.  Does anyone else suffer from this?  I do this all the time with big bad stories like this one. 

This weekend we are joining in on the JDRF Walk For A Cure diabetes walk.  Aiden’s best buddy, Evan, was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes this past fall and his parent’s put together a team called ‘Evan’s Eliminators’ for the walk.  Evan is in the other 1st grade class this year and his entire class was given shirts to wear tomorrow in support of Evan and the walk.  Welp, with the mega-storm bearing down they changed it up to today so the boys wore their shirts today also to show Evan they support him, too.  Aren’t they cute??  And don’t you think they look nothing alike?  I don’t see any resemblance. 

Do you balance your checkbook every month when your statement comes? I know, from working in a bank, that this practice is dying along with the rest of the depression era rituals.  But I still balance my check book every month!  But I got behind.  By, like, 3 months!  Nothing like digging yourself out a hole!  Luckily when I finally got around to doing it this morning every single month balanced on the first try!!!  Woot woot!  What a pain in the butt, though.  Oh, and my public service announcement for the day – BALANCE YOUR CHECKBOOK EVERY MONTH!!!  Your bank teller thanks you.

Hope you stay safe and warm during the snow storm!  And if you’re reading from somewhere outside of the 18 states being affected by this storm – you suck! Ha ha!  Love you anyway!

Erin

Undies, Chicken Parmesan & Crescent Cinn Rolls

Hey there!  Does anyone else have a hard time throwing away your kids’ old underwear and socks?  I mean, it’s not like they wear them out and get holes in them, they grow out of them too quickly, so right there I feel like I’m being wasteful.  And their first pairs of undies? Forget it, they are way too cute to just toss out, right?  But there is no way I’m saving Aiden’s old grown-out-of undies for when Brennan could fit in them, ew!  We just went underwear and sock shopping this weekend so I am tossing all of their old undies and socks and I feel so bad doing it!  I don’t really have an emotional attachment to Aiden’s, they’re bigger and ugly with Lego Star Wars characters on them, but Brennan’s are still small and cute with Toy Story characters on the buns.  I guess I’d better just close my eyes and toss them, how weird would that be in 20 years when I’m cleaning out the basement and run across their old, used undies?

Here are two quick and easy recipes for you.

Chicken Parmesan

2-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (my meat counter gives the full, complete chunky breast so I cut mine in half through the thickness to make 2 thinner breasts out of 1 thick one, you want to end up with 4 either way)

1 jar spaghetti or marinara sauce

1 c. mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 pkg Italian Shake-N-Bake (and I helped!) (this can be left off to save those calories and carbs)

Bake the boobies at 400 degrees for 20 minutes after coating them in the Shake-N-Bake.  Then pour the sauce over and sprinkle on the cheese, bake another 10-15 minutes, until cooked through.  Done!  You can serve over pasta if you like.  And of course I forgot an ‘after’ picture – sorry!

 

Crescent Cinnamon Rolls

I made these up one morning for breakfast.  They are probably a recipe somewhere but I just winged it and made it up as I went.

1 pkg. crescent rolls

butter

cinnamon and sugar mix

Okay, open the rolls and unroll them, but leave them together as a rectangle.  Spread butter over the dough, then sprinkle a good layer of cinn/sugar over them.  This is where you carefully separate the rolls into the triangles and roll them up into the crescents.  Bake as directed but add 5 minutes to the baking time.  Easy peasy!  And super yummy!  And quick!

 

Give these a try sometime, they are quick and easy! 

They are calling for 8” of snow in these parts tomorrow night.  And a lot of wind which will blow that stuff around and make a heck of a mess.  Great.  Why can’t we have an early spring again like last year?  I’m needing it!

Have a great Wednesday!

Erin

Back to ‘Normal’

Today everyone is back to their normal routine.  The boys are in school, Andy went back to work and I am watching Baby Aspen.  I’ve worked on cleaning the house, doing laundry, washed up dishes.  Its weird how after such a tragedy you can pick up the pieces and get back to ‘normal’, whatever that is. 

I wish I had something amazing to talk about today but I’m out of ideas.  So I guess I’ll talk about the weather – boring!  Yesterday when we ran to town for groceries it was 50 degrees.  We stopped at the park and let Brennie run for a while.  When we left town it was still 50 degrees.  20 minutes later when we got home it was 42 degrees!  It had dropped 8 degrees in 18 miles!  Today it is 14 degrees, sunny (a bonus) and super duper windy.  So the wind chill is at or below zero – brrrrrr!  Thursday they are calling for a huge winter storm to hit Iowa and the Midwest, although they are still not showing snow total estimates.  I’m hoping for less than 3” and no school closures!

I guess I should tell that, now that I’m not pregnant, I am climbing aboard the weight loss train again.  Ugh.  It doesn’t sound like any fun at all right now!  I am wearing my regular clothes, putting on maternity jeans with a big ol’ front panel sounds awful to me right now so I’m so glad my jeans would zip and button.  Problem is there’s an awful muffin top hanging over now.  I understand why, 20 weeks being pregnant still takes a toll on a body’s shape, hopefully it won’t take me too long to get myself whipped into shape and starting to lose some L B’s. 

I combed through my pins on my ‘Health’ board on Pinterest and pulled off some strength training work outs to get started.  I’m waiting a couple of weeks to hit up the cardio (jumping jacks scare me right now, my insides feel empty and don’t want to bounce that stuff around).  I’m also going to follow the Mad Abs March calendar starting next week.

And finally, found this on Pinterest.  Disgusting but such a great reminder!

Real quick I just want to say Thank You one more time for all of your support and prayers.  You have all been so awesome and amazing, thank you!

Erin

Quick Update

First of all I want to say THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart for all of the well wishes, prayers and virtual hugs you have sent during this most difficult time in my life!  You have helped me through this more than you will ever know!  I had my phone attached to my left hand for three days just waiting for another comment, another prayer, another friend reaching out to me.  No one knows what to say in times like these but please know what you did say was just what I needed to hear and anything at all was so much better than nothing.  So again, THANK YOU!  I wish I had the appropriate words to say just how appreciative I am!

Now for the update.  We met with our OB yesterday just to get some questions answered.  We learned some new things about Anencephaly, such as 75% of the babies do not make it full term because their hearts stop beating.  We have our L2 ultrasound tomorrow morning first thing, then will meet with a specialist to go over the US and discuss all of our options in more depth.

Just because I want to get a few things off my chest I’m going to write about them now but please feel free to stop reading this now if you don’t want to be saddened by what I say.  I’m needing an outlet and unfortunately for you this is it.

First, I feel like a fraud when I take my pre-natal vitamin and when I get dressed in maternity clothes.  Something in me says “why are you doing this?  Does it really matter anymore?”  Thank goodness my yoga pants still fit/stretch enough to wear and my old t-shirts and sweatshirts are big enough to cover so when I have nowhere to go I wear those.

Next, I don’t blame God.  Some people going through difficult times blame God and ask why He would do this to them.  I don’t.  He wouldn’t!  This is nature taking its course and God has not ‘done’ this to us.  He is here to give us strength and help us through this, not put us through this.

I guess for now that is it.  Wasn’t that bad after all.  I somehow feel mostly at peace with this, maybe because I know there is no changing it and I have to heal and be strong for my family. 

One more time I will say THANK YOU for all of the support, prayers and hugs!  You are all so amazing to me!  There have been many times I’ve wondered why I am writing this blog, now I know it was because I would need your support during this most difficult time.  Love to you all!

Erin