this blessed life

It's a pink blossoms, sunny days, yellow daffodils kind of March.  The hummingbird feeders have been freshly filled and a sweet little Rufous hummingbird has been visiting every day.  The chickens are helping me keep the garden tilled and weed free until planting time.  It's coming!  Spring is just 2 weeks away.

Over the weekend we were able to go to dinner with some pretty great people.  The food was truly amazing.  I had chicken and waffles - gourmet restaurant style.  We had fondue.  We had dessert.  We talked to the chef.  We had good conversation.  Our server was someone who I've worked alongside for the past three years.  It all just worked together to create a memorable evening.

We started Saturday with cups of coffee and the weekend edition of the news.  Later we went to the mall and Value Village and had lunch with our Blake.  The afternoon was full of much needed yard work.  Then my boys and I went on a spontaneous bike ride, returning at dusk.  That time with my boys...golden.

Today's spontaneity led Aaron and I to stop in at Whidbey Coffee then head down to the beach for a little walking and talking.  That's pretty great and reminds me that I really love this guy I'm married to.  And he lets me stop and take as many pictures as I need to.  Or pick up pretty rocks.  That's love.   And after working all day, serving people, sometimes the best thing is to walk in the sand, just a few feet from the surf, hand in hand with the one you love, and thank God for this blessed life.

For dinner tonight we are having:

Impossibly Easy Cheeseburger Pie

• Brown 1 pound lean ground beef with some chopped onion.
• Spread into a greased pie plate.
• Sprinkle with 1 c. of shredded cheese.
• In a small bowl whisk together 2 eggs, 1 cup milk, and 1/2 c. Bisquick mix.
• Pour mixture into pie plate.
• Bake at 400 for about 25 minutes.

This was the beach today:

 

Here's what it sounded like....

about me and current events

My favorite color..... gray..I know, it's not a color.  Nevertheless.

My favorite cartoon character.....  Pluto (Mickey's dog) and Garfield

My favorite sport.....  I have always liked watching figure skating.  I used to watch boxing with my dad, and Nascar (Daryl Waltrip was my driver).  Currently I love watching my son wrestle and my other son shoot.

My favorite flavor of cake.....  chocolate cake with chocolate frosting.

If I had to eat only one food for the rest of my life.....  spaghetti with homemade meat sauce

The thing I'm really good at..... worrying.  For reals.  I'm so good at this that I just do it all the time.

I love to.....  come home, put on my pajamas and be with my family.

The best song to dance to is.....  Stevie Wonder's Superstition.  This one gets me every time.

This summer I want to..... take lots of time off work and hang out with my kids

The best super power to have.....  flying.  Or being in two places at once.  Or invisibility.  Or being able to carry a conversation through the awkward small talk phase and into the deeper connecting phase without wanting to sink into the floor.

I want to learn.....  when I have the opportunity, I'd like to take a creative writing course and an art class at our community college.

I wish.....  that the current storm of racial division in our country was a non-issue and everyone could just love each other as members of the human race, not in an attempt to diminish the rich history of any given race but to acknowledge the equality of our very souls.

.........................................................................

Last weekend Blake got to spend a few days at the Washington State Wrestling Tournament.  He went as an alternate and, while he didn't have the opportunity to compete, he did get to practice in the Tacoma Dome and stay in a hotel and hang out with his coaches and teammates and observe the high level of competition.  Now that the high school wrestling season is over he is participating in the youth wrestling club and helping out with the middle school wrestling team.

Austin was able to go to our state capitol and participate in the presentation of the colors before the daily legislative session.  They toured the capitol building and met some officials.  All in all, a pretty cool day.

Tomorrow will be the last JROTC competition of the year.  Austin gets to be the commander of our school's color guard!  It'll be the last time I watch him shoot a competition until April when we go to Colorado!  Great news about our trip to the Junior Olympic Shooting Championships: the plane tickets were gifted to us by a some very sweet individuals!!!!!!!  Thank YOU!!  And so many others have donated money for the trip, even one lady that we don't even know!  This has already been a great experience and we haven't left home yet.  Folks should always try to support and encourage each other because it is an awesome feeling to be supported and encouraged.

Here we are at the Regional Wrestling Tournament a couple weeks ago....

 

 

That's all for now!

yesterday's beach and others

We have had a couple of really beautiful days here and it serves to remind me that Spring is coming!!  For real.  And I couldn't be happier.  I spent some time working in the yard yesterday then took my Charlie dog to the beach.  It was a really awesome day.  Today has been pretty dark with rain.  And I worked and their was no beach.  Meh.

 

Recently this happened:

 

Blake's wrestling team received an award from the area officials (referees) for their sportsmanship and general awesomeness (actually, I forgot what all the accolades were).  This award coincided with Senior night and their last home match of the season.  We are in the post season now and Blake is headed to Regionals this weekend.  He's doing great!!

 

 

 

 

 

I took this pretty picture of a visiting squirrel and 4 of my chickens in the background: 

I'm rereading The Book Thief.  Oh. My. Stars.  I love this book.  This is the kind of book that makes me stop reading just to soak in what I just read and sometimes, I'll just reread a line or a paragraph because it was so beautifully written that once through is not enough.

Like this:

Oh how the clouds stumbled in and assembled in the sky.
Great obese clouds.
Dark and plump.
Bumping into each other.  Apologizing.  Moving on and finding room.

 

 

Sometimes I wear my dog like a fur scarf around my neck.  And he sleeps because he knows I love it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, the beach yesterday....

 

...it was every bit of beautiful that a beach could ever be on a sunny day in early February. I took so many pictures that I really had to rake through and pick just the best to share here.  These are all unedited because Whidbey Island is really that beautiful.

 

I love the contradictions in this picture...

 

The following pictures are highly edited and really capture my dog and I in our sincerest model form.  Who doesn't go to the beach and take selfies with their dog?  Not this girl!

Happy birthday to my brother Mike today!

Until next time,

E

the roast, a true story

I drizzled a roast with olive oil, surrounded it with baby red potatoes, carrots, and onions.  Sprinkled seasonings all over and covered the pan with foil.  I baked it at 325 for about 2 hours.  It smelled divine. 

The roast came out of the oven to rest while I cooked up some frozen mixed vegetables in a pan on the stovetop.  And I went and watched some Jeopardy. 

When I came back to the kitchen to check the vegetables I realized I had turned on the wrong burner, the front burner glowed red hot, with a corner of the glass pan that held the roast resting on the burner.  I turned off the burner and carefully slid the pan off the glowing red element. 

I began carving the roast on a cutting board just to the right of the stove.  It was juicy.  I could tell it would be flavorful but I didn't nibble.  I wanted to save that first bite till when everything was ready and I could savor it.

With a crack the glass pan exploded into bits, I screamed, my arm stung from the glass bits, a piece of the roast now sat on the floor amid shards of glass.  The stovetop was covered in hot pan drippings and broken glass. 

Amazingly, I didn't get cut or burned.  But the roast was ruined.  The vegetables were ruined.  I wanted to cry over my stupidity the waste of all that food.  So my husband did what only the greatest husband would do.  He went to Dairy Queen and got us Blizzards for dinner.

The end.

the day before the day before

It is the day before, the day before a brand new year starts.  The sun is shining and it is really a beautiful day.  The ground is frozen in places and the air is cold and crisp.  There was an earthquake here last night, measuring 4.3-4.8 depending on the source.  So, that's exciting.  I was very much asleep at the time and didn't wake up at all.

I broke open the pumpkins I had grown over the summer, the ones I displayed on the front step all through the fall and all of December.  I broke them open with a big rock and left them in the garden for the chickens.  They were not interested.

Blake and I had a date today after wrestling practice.  We had lunch at our favorite Mexican place, Esteban's.  He told me that the guys were trying to talk with him after practice and he kept telling them he had to go because he had a date.  They laughed when he told them the date was with his mom.  I thought it was pretty cool.

Austin is off with his girlfriend's family for the day.  They headed to the mountain to go sledding.  The other day he went with friends and tried snowboarding for the first time.  He was sore but he said it was really fun.

Aaron is crabbing today.  I don't think I've mentioned it before but he has been crabbing commercially as the commercial season permits.  The captain that he works with is the owner of the restaurant that I work at.  I don't know if it's "normal" to love a job such as crabbing, but Aaron does.  He loves being out on the boat.  He loves the wildlife that he gets to see.

Here we are on Christmas Day (even wearing our matching Wildcat Wrestling hoodies)....

 

 

 

In honor of the approaching new year I have begun my 2016 reading list.  I even stopped in at the library today and requested a few to begin with.  I plan on re-reading The Book Thief this year.  Last year Aaron got me my very own copy from a library in Ireland!!  This excites me to the core.  I also plan to read and actually finish George Orwell's 1984.  I'm fascinated by the concept but for various reasons haven't read it through yet.  Ah, a new year and new reading goals!

 

First up:  The Big Tiny: A Built-It-Myself Memoir

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome 2016!!  Please be kind.

 

Happy new year everyone!

 

 

 



of December

The year is winding down in a flurry of Christmas songs and gift exchanges.

I'll be glad to see it go.  I've not lived a harder year.

The final days can come and bring with them the joy of the season, celebrating the ONE who died for me (and you!).

Then, the new year will dawn and I will embrace it like a long lost friend.

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We don't have plans for Christmas.  We'll just lay low at home, exchange gifts and probably stay in our pajamas all day.  We'll eat homemade cinnamon rolls and drink coffee.  We'll have a ham dinner in the afternoon.

Earlier this month Aaron and I went downtown to the tree lighting.  It was bitterly cold but there's something about the festivity and the small town that makes braving the cold worth it.  We walked around a bit, into Popsies (the best old-fashioned candy store EVER!) and into the Holiday Market where they're selling handmade things from local artists and we snagged a cup of hot cider (and spotted a Christmas present for our younger son).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also this month we were honored to attend a Naval Change-of-Command ceremony, in which one of our friends was being promoted to Commanding Officer.  The ceremony was held in this old theatre which is still used as a movie theatre on the Navy base.  I played with the photo a bit to make it look like how I imagined (if only that modern red pickup weren't in the picture).  Austin and 5 other ROTC members were the Color Guard for the ceremony and represented the high school very well.  Aaron and I thoroughly enjoyed the ceremony and the traditions that are honored and upheld.

 

Our Christmas tree is so beautiful this year.  We bought it at the Lions' Club tree lot which was a first for us as we usually cut our own tree up in the mountains or from a tree farm.  As we decorated the tree, Blake commented that he really likes our decorations because they are so diverse and eclectic.  They really are!  There are decorations we hang every year that I've had since I was a kid.  Some of the decorations are the ones the boys made when they were little.  Some are the original decorations from our first tree of our married life.  Not much matches but it is colorful and sparkly and full of memories, just like I like it.

 

 

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Our boys are both very vested in their individual sports.  Blake is wrestling on the varsity team and doing really, really well.  As a freshman on varsity, most of his matches are against seniors but he holds his own.  I love watching his skill and his control and the lessons he learns through defeat.  This weekend he wrestled in a tournament with 16 schools.  He earned 3rd place for his weight class and his team earned 2nd place overall.

 

Austin recently shot in a ROTC competition.  We got to be there and watch him shoot his three positions.  It's difficult to see the actual shots in the targets without a scope but it's amazing to watch him shoot nonetheless.  He has amazing control and focus.  In the picture below you can see the targets, what you can't see is the tiny white circle in the center of each black circle that they are actually aiming at.  Also in the picture you can see Austin in most of his precision gear (minus the jacket).  And you can see his girlfriend, Elena.  We like her.

 

 

The offhand position.

The kneeling position.  This is Austin's best.

 

 

 

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My employers threw a generous Christmas party.  We were spoiled with great food.  I'm thankful (as I've said before) for Christian employers.  These people are genuinely kind and loving and I really can't even begin to tell you all the ways they've been a blessing to Aaron and I.  I'm thankful for my co-workers too.  We are a colorful bunch and, like a family, we might not always get along, but we always help each other out.

 

This is me and my Elyse, enjoying the hot chocolate bar!

 

 

 

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currently

reading... 84 by George Orwell

watching...  Bones season 10 on Netflix

trying...  to write a little something everyday: poetry, paragraphs, or just a line

cooking...  Hamburger stew in the crockpot, homemade bread

doing...  headed to the playoff football game at the high school here in just a bit (yay, for small town football games!)

going...  on a Costco run tomorrow before my shift at work

loving...  the way God works in lives, in amazing and miraculous ways, and when we least expect it

discovering...  the swiftness in which chickens can "work" a garden.  I cleaned it out and handed it over to the hens for the season.  They've already accomplished so much.

enjoying...  doing puzzles with my husband.  We just finished another, our 5th in two months.

thinking...  does doing puzzles instead of going out mean we're boring?

feeling...  I feel very boring.

listening...  the wind is cold and really blowing tonight.  It's going to be a cold football game!!

celebrating...  youngest son's football season is officially over, and the first quarter of school is ending next week, and good things are happening at church, and I really feel like God is going to do some pretty awesome stuff in the next little bit.

smelling...  fresh baked bread (Heaven!)