Brain Declutter: Because it has been awhile...

...and I have no motivation to do anything to day.

*I wait to long to get my hair cut and buy new bras.  I did both this week and it is great.  My hair is down and my boobs are up.  Sorry but it is true.

*This is my last day being a 37 years old.

*I had the best salad EVER yesterday at Panera Bread.  I ate every last bit and could have licked the bowl.  It was Romaine lettuce with thin strips of grilled chicken, blueberries, mandarin oranges, strawberries, walnuts, and poppy seed dressing.  I am typing this here now so if I ever forget how amazingly delicious it was I will see this and make it immediately and be happy.

*I am sick of unpacking.  We have enough stuff.  Why is there more to unpack?  Besides our books that don't fit on the shelf-I still want to unpack those when I have more book shelves.

*This time of year is slightly depressing.  I know graduating is a milestone and a great thing it is just sad to see another school year end.  Did we accomplish all I had hoped?  No.  Have we accomplished a ton? Yes.  But that is not the part that is sad.  It is the part where I only have 5 more years of school with Jake...{tear}.

*We need to go to the library and sign up for the summer reading program today.  Then I can say I accomplished something.

*I am loving Navy blue lately.  I love other colors off and on but I always love Navy blue.  I think it is because Aaron and Jake both look so great in it.

*Why did the garbage man not pick up our trash yesterday?

*I am still sticking to my not watching HGTV boycott and I don't really miss it.  And they probably don't miss me either.

*When I am picking out my outfit for the day I  always picture myself in it skinny.  It looks so much better that way.  One day I will be skinny again.

*I need some fruit pizza ASAP.

*I need to make some strawberry freezer jam ASAP.

*I need to do the dishes ASAP.

*I need to take a nap. :)

*I have emerald green nail polish on in honor of my birthstone.  I need to repaint it so it will look great for my birthday tomorrow....because that is really important...?...not really!

*Some day I think I want an emerald ring.

*I am done.

Now my brain is empty because that was really pretty much all that was in it.  :)

The poached egg project: Part dos

Crack the egg in the bowl...

Whirlpool the water that is not quit boiling...just little tiny bubbles on the bottom and a few coming up.  This is what the internet told me...

This may work!

Maybe!!!!  That is how it looked online!

But it didn't look like this...

After 3 minutes this is what made it out...

...and what didn't...

Fail.

Again.

I am going to have to do a little more research...Why is this so hard?  I can cook I promise!  I will take the weekend off from poaching and regroup on Monday...

Bye, bye, bye!

My long hair is gone. I grew it out as long as I could. I endured. I.Put.It.Up.99%.Of.The.Time.

I found a picture that I had my hair down in!...

 And later that same day....It's up.

 Here's another one where my hair is down!...

 ...And then later that day inside...it's up again...

 Sometimes I add another hair accessory...

...But it is still UP!

I have been wanting to cut it for a while but Aaron and Jake kept saying, "no don't cut it. It looks pretty!"  Really it looked stringy and sad.  So I cut it.  And all is right in the universe again.

 I can still rock the head band if it tickles my fancy...

 But right now I am just happy that my neck can breath again...

One more thing...Selfies aren't as fun with out my selfie buddies.  Jake is at Nee and Papa's and Aaron is at a meeting.  And what am I doing?  Wasting time Documenting life's little moments of joy. :)

The poached egg project: Part 1

I haven't had a poached egg since I was little.  About 3 or 4 years ago I bought these things so I could poach some eggs.

Today was the day I decided to use them.  I was so excited!  I looked online to see how long I had to cook them (3 to 4 minutes) and I was ready.

 While I waited for it to cook I started making a green smoothie to go with it.

(I kept checking the eggs...but they weren't done...) Only my green smoothies are never green and here is the reason why....Berries.  Curse you delicious berries.  I only use frozen berries in my smoothies.  Fresh ones are to be eaten immediately.

 But as you can see I do squeeze the green stuff in there too.  I love my Ninja.

 But back to the poached eggs that took way longer than 3-4 minutes....

 And turned out to be an epic fail...

 It was pretty much hard boiled.  It was tasty, but not poached.  I am going to go for it and drop it in the water tomorrow and see how it goes.  I am fully expecting a childhood flashback of flavor tomorrow morning...Fingers crossed.

Is it summer yet?

 Here's how we can tell in our house.  We just look at this face-yep this boy who is rolling his eyes.  We grab his face and just look reallllllyyy closely at it...

We check to see if there are any freckles popping up on the edge of his ears.

But his nose is a dead give away.  If there are a plethora of wonderful freckles than it is summer!  Woo-whooo!  I see lots of adorable freckles.  Summer is officially here in SC!  I don't care what the calendar says this nose knows.

"A face without freckles is like the sky with out the stars.  Why waste a second not loving who you are? Those little imperfections make you beautiful, loveable, valuable.  They show your personality inside your heart, reflecting who you are." (I don't know if she wrote it but Natasha Bedingfield sure can sing it)

In Heaven...

...it will be May year round and the only thing we will eat will be berries. 

 And the nicer you were on earth, the bigger your blackberries will be.

I am pretty sure I read that some where....or maybe I just made it up. Sounds like Heaven to me!

LDSHE Confernce Part 2...and blubbering...

 It is amazing to think just over two weeks ago I didn't even know there was such thing as a Mormon homeschool conference (in on the east coast at least-I am sure they have them in Utah) and now I am back from it!  It was so great, and inspirational, and re-invigorating, and now I am back to reality....and I am ready for reality!

 I still can't believe that our child is a few short months from being a teenager...It was so strange for me to watch Jake go to his seminars while I went the other way to mine.  When did he get old enough to do that?

   I was just going through old photos to find a few to frame.  I could wallpaper my house with all the pictures I have taken.  I have quite a few of these three before there were three others to follow.  When did these guys become "the big kids"?!

 In one of the seminars they had us chart out the milestones (becoming an Eagle Scout, getting driver's license, etc) that would be coming up in our children's lives.  As I looked at it I realized that Jake would only be a full time resident of our home for 5 more years....That was the point of charting it out-to see how little time we have with our children.  It is slightly depressing to me....

 Where has this time gone?  What do these words have to do with these pictures?  Nothing!...But everything really.  I am still in a season of my life where my whole world revolves around Jake.  The most important part of my identity is  described in my favorite title: Jake's Mom.  I would wear a badge to declare it if it was socially acceptable.  I have other titles: Aaron's wife, Daughter of God, Primary President, Conservative Republican, etc.  I will always be Jake's mom.  But I am not exactly looking forward to that not being my full time job.

 This is Jericho Road by the way...But back to my blubbering.  I know I will look forward to seeing him as an adult but I am just not ready for it.  Which is okay since he is 12.  Basically I have been reminded and learned (again) that I have a lot I want to teach him before he leaves me.  :)

But back to the conference...




 They gave us a great schedule/program that let us know all the seminars we could attend and handouts that the speakers had prepared, and there was room for us to take notes.  I old schooled it (while everyone was using their smart phones) and took pictures of the extra quotes with my camera.  I have pages of notes and so much great information that I am ready to get back to reality.  All the sudden I can't type the words next to the picture...Why does that happen?...

And now it is back to letting me type beside the picture again...

 Jake was excited that he quickly solved this little puzzle that Tina had while we were eating dinner one evening in the hotel.  He actually wanted me to take a picture and I never turn down the chance to document a memory!

And while I was at it I took two.

   Here is the cool shirt for the youth from the conference.  We Are Warriors of Light-I love it!  The theme for the youth conference was Come Unto Christ.

This is the conferences 10th year.  I wish I knew about it 3 years ago when we started homeschooling!  Wow...we have been homeschooling for 3.whole.years.  Time flies...

 Jake showed Saku some of the mad skills he learned about making your shirt into a flotation device.  Jake earned his swimming merit badge last Saturday and thought the hotel's pool was a great place to practice his new found skills.

We actually skipped the Family Dance to get in a little beach and pool time. 

There was a storm rolling in and the sky was gorgeous....

 The conference keynote speaker was John Bytheway, who is an LDS author/motivational speaker.  He was great!  We headed out right after it was over-but not before we could get a picture of the the three "big kids" in their conference shirts.
I have to admit, this conference was not as relaxing as the on in Greenville-or at least the circumstances around it were not.  I got to drive home and sleep in my own bed each night (a big deal for a germ-a-phob) and I was there by myself and didn't have to coordinate with anyone else...But in some ways it was better.  Perspective, great resources, memories, new ideas....all things I am taking with me after the LDSHE conference...It was great.



One more thing...We stopped at Cracker Barrel on the way home and Jake found these awesome glasses.  I am so glad he isn't grown up yet. :)

First time's and favorite things

First time grilling at the new house.  (Don't be fooled by the kiddie playground in the picture-there is no one small enough at our house to play on it.  The former homeowner's left it under the house and we pulled it out to play when Jaxson was visiting the other day.)

 One of my favorite things to eat in the whole, wide, world is grilled chicken.  And I marinated it in one of my very favorite marinades: Yoshida sauce. 

 First time making fruit pizza!  I can't wait to eat it.  We are having a Memorial Day celebration at Ranee's house and we are bringing the fruit pizza and more marinated chicken to grill. 

 I LOVE, Love, love berries.  I have never met a berry I didn't like.  I picked patriotic colored berries for this fruit pizza.

 Check out this bad boy!  How huge is that blackberry?!?  And it was delicious...

More on the Memorial Day celebration later...