Today I am Thankful for... My House

This is an easy one. I am so thankful for my house. I have roof over my head, a place I call home. I have no delusions about the fact that not many people my age in Los Angeles own a home. The market is tough, so I am so grateful that we have been able to have this house.

I am also thankful that we are really starting to make it our own home. We have been here for 3 years now and we are slowly but surely changing things into what we want. I am thankful that we are able to do that and really put our touches on it.

This is going to be the house our children grow up in. Maybe even the house our grandkids come to visit. Sometimes all the work gets me down and I wish we had bought something a bit more finished, but I actually love getting creative and turning something "alright" into something GREAT. I can't wait to make a lifetime of memories in this house. We've already got a pretty good start.

Today I am Thankful for.... Dakota

Yep, that's my puppy! He is crazy. We are talking insane. Devil dog. Drives me up a wall. He definitely has no idea he was the runt of his litter. (He holds his own with my parents' big ol' labs!)

We got him right after we got married. He was 3 when we got him and pretty well trained. His owner got prostate cancer and was unable to take care of him. We brought him into our home and he quickly made it his own. When JJ was born, he was the ultimate protector. A great big brother.
As much as he drives us up the wall with his craziness sometimes, we love him. That much was evident last year when we almost lost him. Just before Christmas, we noticed he was not being crazy. In fact, he wasn't doing much of anything. He was having trouble going down the porch steps, he was slipping on the tiles and wood floor. He wasn't eating. Something was wrong. We took him to the vet and found out he had Pancreatitis. That was the easy fix. We also found out he was having problems with his eyes. We had to take him to a veterinary ophthalmologist (I didn't even know that exisited!) They had to do a number of tests and he was on some meds for a while, but $1000 (just before Christmas??) later, he was back to normal. I didn't know what we were going to do if he didn't get better. We honestly couldn't afford anymore tests, so I am thankful that we didn't need them, but to be faced with the choice of what to do with a beloved pet who is pretty much a member of the family, that's tough. I'm so thankful that we didn't have to make any drastic decisions. We did learn that Husky's are prone to eye problems, so that is something we can keep an eye on (no pun intended) in the future. And we met a great Veterinary Opthalmologist!

Dakota is nutso, but he reminds me of innocence and love and fun and I am so thankful he came into our lives.

Today I am Thankful for.... Daddy and JJ time

(I missed a day, so you get two today :0) )

I have the best husband, but that Thankful post will come later. He is such a great dad. He loves our son and will do anything for him. My favorite, though, is on nights like tonight, when they play together and he gets JJ going into fits of giggles.

Today I am Thankful for.... Cooking Abilities

There aren't really too many things I will admit to be very good at. I'm sure I'm good at things, I just don't like to say so because I'm afraid people will think I'm bragging. Or worse, people will ask me to do something and it won't be as good as I said it was.

I don't feel this way about cooking. I love food. Everything about food from the way it smells to the taste to the way it makes you feel. Food brings people together. Food is universal. What you eat may differ from region to region, country to country, but the idea behind food, the emotions, the familial table, that is universal.

I love cooking and baking and I'm good at it. I can create my own recipes when I want and 90% of the time, they turn out really yummy. I'm thankful I was blessed with this ability (and I'm sure my husband is too!). I love that I can create something that brings people together. I'm thankful that when I am craving Chinese food, I can rummage my cupboards and throw something together. Most of all, I'm thankful for the food and other cooking items in my cupboards. Kitchens are the new heart of the home and I definitely feel blessed to have my heart in my kitchen.

Today I am Thankful for... Waffles and Cartoons

My husband and I spent this morning having a yummy homemade waffle breakfast and watching Disney Jr. with our son. JJ loves Mickey Mouse, Handy Manny, and Jake and the Neverland Pirates, so he was a happy boy and that makes this mamma very happy too. It was a wonderful morning; one I wish we could do every morning :0)

Pumpkin Time!!

I love Fall. The colors, the chill in the air, the cinnamon-y candles, the apple cider, the hot chocolate, the soups & stews, the sweaters & scarves, Thanksgiving. Fall is my absolute most favorite time of year and we are FINALLY starting to feel it in SoCal. Someday I'll go where the leaves change bright shades of orange and red and yellow; where the air is crisp and scarves and sweaters are necessary, not just a cute fashion statement. For now, I'll have to live with the fact that I had to order fake autumn leaves to spread out at my Fall wedding a few years back and inconsistent weather fluctuating between a frigid 60 degrees and a don't-put-away-the-sweaters-just-yet 75 degrees. High class problems, I guess...

With Fall, naturally, comes pumpkins. I've always been a fan, but for some reason this year I'm really on a pumpkin kick. There's just something about the flavors that make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. There are a lot of really yummy pumpkin treats out there, and in following the example of my friend Julie at her blog with her "Things she's lovin'" (or Oprah's favorite things, either way...) Here is a list of my favorite pumpkin goodies:

1. Trader Joe's Pumpkin Cream Cheese

This one is simply AMAZING. I saw it advertised in their monthly ad and I thought, "Hm, I'll have to give it a try." I am so glad I did. While I was there I bought a bag of pretzel sticks to go with the cream cheese. I actually had it sitting in my fridge for a couple of days before I tried it, but when I took that first bite, I was sad I had waited so long. I had to force myself to put it away when I realized I'd eaten almost of the container (in all fairness, it is only an 8oz container). I did eventually finish it off and have since gone back to get more. Three more containers in fact. You could give me a spoon and a tub of this amazingness and I would be a happy girl. I also put some in the middle of those Pillsbury crescent rolls and baked them and they were very yummy! Since this is only a seasonal product, I'm going to have to figure out how to make it myself. It shouldn't be too hard; the ingredients on the side were very simple, it is just a matter of proportions, but I'm willing to do the taste testing along the way to figure it out!

2. Trader Joe's Pumpkin Ice Cream

Here is another yummy container of deliciousness from our friends at Trader Joe's. My friend Valerie kept talking about Pumpkin ice cream, and I've seen it in the regular grocery stores around this time of year. The problem with the Dryer's version was that it costs almost $7 and you get 1/2 gallon. What if I didn't like it? That would be a waste, but I thought for $2.50 at Trader Joe's, why not give it a shot? As soon as I opened the lid, it smelled like Thanksgiving. The rich, creamy ice cream was the perfect texture. The cinnamon was just kicky enough. The nutmeg was a bit heavy at first, but I quickly got used to it. It was like someone froze Thanksgiving and stuck it in my freezer. I will be sad when this is no longer offered at Trader Joe's, but will welcome it back with open arms and spoon in hand whenever Fall rolls around.

3. Eggo's Pumpkin Waffles

I saw these at Target one day and I had to try them. They are pretty good, actually. The smell of nutmeg and cinnamon and pumpkin fill the kitchen while they are toasting. It is heavenly. The taste, however, is not quite as strong as the smell. They are still very tasty though and a nice change of pace for breakfast at the office.

4. Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte

This is the latte people wait all year for. It has pumpkin, it has spice and best of all, it has caffeine!! I worked at Starbucks years ago and that was my first taste of this wonderful latte, and I never looked back. This year they added a Salted Caramel Mocha to their fall drinks and I have to say I was seriously disappointed. It isn't even caramel. It is a Toffee Mocha and I've been making them for years, even before I worked at Starbucks. That's not to say it wasn't good, it just wasn't what they said it was. So I'll stick with my pumpkin spice and savor the way it warms me up from the inside and makes me feel like fall is really and truly arrived.

5. Paula Deen's Pumpkin bars

My mom made these a few years back and now we both make them at least once during the fall season. These cake bars are so wonderfully moist and full of flavor. And the cream cheese frosting on top is to. die. for. I make it for everything I need to frost. I'm not a huge frosting fan usually because, usually, it either tastes like pure sugar or crisco. But cream cheese frosting, takes the cake, so to speak. You must make these bars, but I recommend making two pans because they will go fast.



My sister in law told me that there are pumpkin Pop Tarts out there, but I have yet to see them in the store. I'd love to try those though!!


What's your favorite pumpkin thing?

Home to You

Three years ago today my husband and I got married. At that point, we didn't have a song that was "Our Song." So when it came to picking the music for our first dance, there wasn't an obvious choice.

Together we sat down, I opened up our iTunes and started playing some songs for him to choose from. My husband is not a country fan at all, so I didn't even play any country songs at first. I played a lot of Frank Sinatra. I played Chantal Kreviazuk. We listened to a lot of music. He wasn't feeling any of it. So then I pulled out my favorite: The Country music. Those cowboys really know how to tell a story to music and express real feelings like love. I could go on and on about love for this genre, but that's a whole 'nuther blog post.

Anyway, I played John Michael Montgomery "Home to You" and Gary looked at me and said "That's it. That's the one." I was shocked--very happy--but shocked that he agreed to a song that could be played on "twin fiddles and a steel guitar" (as George Strait would say). It isn't even a new song. It came in 1999 almost 10 years before we got married. (In all fairness, it was probably new to the hubby!)

The lyrics, though, were perfect, and still are (probably even more so). "I get up and battle the day / Things don't always go my way / It might rain but that's okay / I get to come home to you / Sometimes life may get me down / And I get tired of getting kicked around / I feel lost in this maddening crowd / But I get to come home to you." No matter what happens during the day, we come home to each other at night. No matter what storms come our way, we face them together, and that's what marriage is all about.

The company I work for puts out press releases for other companies. Recently was monitoring a release for a company called Gleeden.com. The company described itself as "the world's premiere extramarital dating website" and "an adult playground where people can openly enter new relationships without sacrificing their current partners." I was dismayed by this. What the...? was all I could think of. I told Gary about it when I got home and we went on the website. They claim to have more than 1 million members. Then we went to another site called Ashley Madison.com (or something like that) and they are also proudly advertising themselves as a place for married men and women to go and find people to cheat with. They even use the phrase "openly cheat." They claim a few million members on their site.

This made me sad. Why get married if you want to date other people? My mind doesn't understand this concept at all. Companies like this cheapen the idea of marriage, shrinking it down to nothing but a business arrangement between two people.

More so, it made me so extremely thankful that I have the husband I have, that I met an amazing man who loves me the way a man should love his wife. I found a true partner in this life and I feel God has really blessed me with someone I love coming home to everyday.