First Love

This is the first baby I ever loved with all of my heart...

Today, he turns 17. 

He has grown into a fine young man with many talents and abilities. We can't wait to see what the Lord makes of his future.

Happy Birthday, J!

I love you!!!

Sweet Temptations

It's hard to cut back on sweets when you have these sitting around the house: 

 Pretzel M&Ms (in the living room)

Peanut M&Ms (in the man-cave)

We also have these in the kitchen cabinet...

Our gallon Ziploc of mini candy bars

and this in the freezer...

My Favorite!! 

This new resolve to eat healthier has turned these temptations into torture :)

The Next Step

Matt is loving his Satellite radio. He navigates through the options smoothly on the ride to work. I've ridden in his truck once since he's had it and I particularly enjoyed a few of his selections.

Although we have vastly different tastes in music, there are some places where our tastes overlap...U2, Coldplay and one song by Mazzy Star. :) There may be others, but that is all we've found as common ground so far.

Now that I have these: 

The next step is installation of the vehicle kit in our car. That will allow us to use the Satellite radio device and single subscription not only for Matt to listen on his commute to work, but also for us to listen on weekend outings and road trips in the car.

This Christmas gift is proving to be worthwhile...

Outage

All of a sudden one Friday night, our cable went out. We have a bundled service, so we lost Internet and home phone as well.

We had just sat down to eat dinner, so we popped in a DVD and proceeded to eat hoping it would be back up shortly. In the meantime, a huge storm came through. You probably remember hearing about it because hundreds of thousands were without power for up to a week due to that storm.

By the time we called, the storm had been brewing for about an hour or so. We were told it was a widespread outage. I challenged that because our outage occurred before the storm hit. The cable company would not schedule for a technician to come out, expecting the service to return with everyone else's once the area outage had been addressed.

The next morning, service was back up right before we left for the day. That night, we had service for about an hour before it went down again. Needless to say, we went round and round again before we were able to set up an appointment for a technician to come out.

A week and a half later, we found out the problem was due to a nearly severed line right outside our house. It wasn't caused by the storm; it was caused by poor installation of the line by the original technician, which caused the line to be squeezed until it was nearly severed.

The frustration of the experience was entirely due to an issue of bad timing and less than helpful customer service. The whole time, we reminded ourselves how blessed we were because we were one of very few who didn't experience any power outages...loss of food...inconvenience.

I must say, it was odd being disconnected from the world of Facebook, Psych, Whale Wars, Fox News, Blogger and Google. We coped by reading more and pulling out some DVDs to watch. 

 Her choices (Action, mystery drama)

His choice (Comedy), although he watched 24 with me :)

We're glad to be back to normal...

Reveal Party

Matt and I recently attended our first Reveal Party. I've seen plenty on Facebook, but this was the first time I was actually present for one. 

We each chose a hat to indicate what we thought is the child's gender. This was my hat: 

Matt chose the Cars party hat, but that was likely more influenced by his desire not to wear a shiny pink hat all night. :)

When the cake was cut, we found out they will be having....

A BOY!

It was a fun night spent with friends. We can't wait to meet that little guy when he enters this world in November.

Celebrating Independence

Our church has an annual Fourth of July picnic the Saturday before the 4th. We went this year and it was a lot of fun. Although I took my camera, it seems I didn't pull it out even once. 

I had the great fortune to be one of the judges for the dessert competition. Let me just say, these folks know how to make some sweet treats!

Some friends invited us for a mid-week celebration on their boat for the 4th. Their boat sits in the bay right on top of the site of the city fireworks display.

Here's a little glimpse of our celebration: 

Making a Little Difference

Call me crazy, but I really enjoy getting things organized. It is particularly rewarding when I'm able to help Matt get his endless volume of paperwork organized at work.

Creating a logical system of organization and setting it up for someone who would benefit from using it day-to-day; for someone who wouldn't dream of having the time, perspective or maybe even the inclination to go to the extremes I would; but for someone who certainly will appreciate it once it's set, that is fun for me.

 The latest stack of files demanding my attention.

I've worked a couple of Saturdays with Matt so far and think it will take 3 days or so more to finish the filing project. Knowing how much it will help in his day-to-day working life, I can't wait to get it done.

Our latest joint project has been organizing old blueprints. One trash can full down and one to go...

 Blueprints before they've been organized

Thoughtfulness

One of the things that warms my heart more than anything is when Matt thinks of me and my interests. Not long ago, I had a long hard week of work around the house and when Friday came, Matt emailed me from work offering to order pizza for dinner so I wouldn't have to cook. 

He often gives me a break from cooking on the weekends. We go on a date night or a day trip on Saturday; we go out with friends for lunch after church. It's always nice. On weekdays, I cook. 

When I got that email from Matt it made me feel so good. He was thinking about me while at work. He was appreciating the hard work I'd been doing around the house. He was offering to ease the burden by taking something off my plate. He is a thoughtful man and I'm blessed to have him as my husband. 

Thank you, Sweetheart. 

Sentimental Side

A little while ago I told you about some art I like and plan to replicate. My thought when seeing those paper doll art pieces was to buy one for each of the little girls we are hopeful to have with the continuing hope that they will love them as they grow, keeping them through adulthood as an heirloom.

When I was a child, one of my favorite aunts dabbled a bit with painting and painted this for me:

It was a featured item in my bedroom for years. My sister, Tracey, had a red one that had different characters, although I don't remember it well enough to describe it.

For me, this has always held a special place in my heart because it was a personal gift, made by my aunt for me. To my childhood heart, it was a symbol of her love. An aunt I loved (and love) so much.

This currently hangs over a shelf in our closet. :)

So, maybe through this you can see my sentimental side...the part of me that hopes our children will see our love in a few special things we give them. That those little treasures will remind them of us and they'll want to pass them on to their own children one day.

Brookstone

Matt bought me this the other day at Staples:

 A lap desk

With a lot of padding

He got a different kind for himself to use with his laptop a couple weeks before and thought I might like one for mine too. 

I love it! Thank you, Sweetheart.

Light and Fresh

Although I am not fond of Greek olives (only black olives and green olives, on occasion), you'll often find me standing at the olive bar at the grocery store checking out their selections. If I make a purchase, it is almost always one of two items. 

I LOVE the fresh mozzarella, grape tomato and balsamic vinegar mix and the mushrooms marinated with Italian seasonings. I think one reason I like these sides is that they are so light and fresh. 

Recently, I decided to try my hand at making the mozz and tomato mix myself. It turned out well and proved to be a great accompaniment to a deli sandwich and a few chips. 

 I'm sure I'll be making this one again.

Breakfast Woes

Believe it or not, the most challenging meal of the day as of late has been breakfast. Matt prefers to eat breakfast on the go. He takes something with him to eat in the car on the long commute to work.

I admit. In his shoes, I would (and did) do the same. 

The challenge is finding a variety of things that are easy to eat in the car, so he doesn't get tired of them. We started out alternating between these options:

Now, he can't handle eating either of them anymore.

This was not something I had anticipated. You see, as sad as it may be, I could probably eat a blueberry Pop-tart every weekday for breakfast for the rest of my life and be fine.

In an effort to offer Matt another option, I made a batch of these: 

I must say, although this was not my first attempt over the years, it was my first success at making a delicious blueberry muffin.Yum!!

Handcrafted

A few days ago, Matt and I received a package in the mail from our nephew. This is what we found inside:

He made this for us! It is now proudly displayed in our home. 

Isn't he a thoughtful young man?

Comfort Food

Matt and I are definitely into comfort food, but I must admit my sister was always more interested in chicken and dumplings than I. One day a while back, quite a while back, Matt mentioned an interest in chicken pot pie and chicken and dumplings.
 
I made a mental note, later searched for recipes and set aside ones that looked like winners. Not long ago, I decided it was time to try my hand at it. Here was our meal: 

 Chicken and Dumplings

BLT Salad

I must say, both were a raging success; however, in retrospect, Chicken and Dumplings would probably work better as a wintertime meal :)

Over the Long Haul

While at lunch with a friend a few weeks ago, we talked a lot about cooking and food. We both enjoy preparing flavorful dishes for our loved ones to enjoy. That discussion led into talking about healthy eating and exercise. 

My friend is engaged to be married soon and made the comment, "It didn't occur to me until recently that I will be solely responsible for the nutrition of my family." That comment struck me deeply...I'd never thought of it that way before. That thought...that responsibility has stuck with me ever since. 

When I went to the doctor recently for a regular check up, I decided to take the advice I see regularly while reading online. "Ask your doctor what she recommends for your diet and exercise." 

What she offered was basic, well-known information, but it helped me focus my efforts and think more simply about the changes I need to make. Remembering what the FlyLady says about adding one habit at a time and not getting too far ahead of yourself by doing too much too soon, I've mapped out my own plan for making a series of adjustments over time.

As for now, my grocery purchases include a variety of lean meats and these things more than anything else: 

Hopefully, I'll do well to take one small step toward a healthier lifestyle each week. As a friend spoke about on her blog recently, this time in life requires the slow, careful plodding of a marathon.

Fantastic Find

While touring Havre de Grace, we stopped into a small gallery and saw what I describe as paper doll art. I saw two that I particularly liked and then we looked at the pricing. For an 8 x 10 piece, we would have had to pay $200 - 250. 

Uh. No.

It was disappointing. If they were priced even as much as $50 each, Matt would have been up for us buying 1 and I may have been able to persuade him to get 2. As it was, I took these pictures and decided I'd try my hand at making some myself:

 One of my favorites

One of my Favorites

I hope to have one to show you soon...

Missteps

Lately I've been wondering if it's Newton's Law that Kim will never successful select a paint color on her first try (or second). It seems that each time I select a paint color from a swatch, it turns out much brighter on the wall. This dynamic is puzzling to me because it seems the variation from paper to wall wouldn't be that extreme.

Although both our master bedroom and master bathroom paint turned out brighter than I intended, with a little time to get used to it not being what I envisioned, I decided I liked it. Matt liked it immediately.

When I ventured to complete my third painting project, the paint job itself turned out well, but I was disappointed by my choice of colors. At first, I thought to paint the half bath a deep red. Then, I second guessed myself and went with dark blue instead. When finished, it just didn't look quite right. Matt agreed. When I told him I wasn't sure what other color to go with, he immediately said "red." That's when I knew I'd redo the room in red.

At the time, all the energy I had for painting was sapped due to the failed project of painting that bath in a color that worked. It took a while, but now that we're renting here for another year, it seemed a good time to repaint. Finally inspired, I bought the red paint.

On the swatch, it looked like a deep, cinnamon red. When I popped open the can and brushed it on the wall...no kidding, it looked hot pink. I was astonished.

That was one of those panicky moments that I decided by force of will not to freak out about it. You see, I had already taken everything out of the room, wiped down the walls and taped all the edges. It was frustrating work; I was much more impatient this time because that tiny little room felt like a sauna while I worked. Fortunately, it dried red...whew!

When Matt saw it upon his return home (I had just finished painting the second coat), he said immediately, "I like it." Just like it was with our room and bath, I'm giving it time to settle in on me, so I can be sure whether or not I like it. The red looks better; it's just so bright...definitely not the deep red I'd envisioned.

This is before:

This didn't look quite right near the different color blue in the kitchen.

This is after:

The red I was shooting for is the color of the rug. Oh well.

Picture Perfect, Part 2

Since Matt and I have many of the same people to pray for and often feel there is not enough time to pray for everything, it occurred to me it may be helpful to expand upon the prayer picture book idea. I thought this may serve as a good reminder to pray continually: 

After discussing it with Matt, I put together this Prayer Wall so we can be reminded to pray for our friends as we go. This is located on the wall of our lower level stairs (the place we pass by the most). The idea is that every time we walk past, we choose someone from the wall to pray for and pray as we go. 

As we continue on through life, we hope to spend more and more time in prayer. There is so much to ask the Lord on behalf of the ones we love.