Embracing Life

13 (lucky 13!) years ago,  I met a boy with an orange mohawk and tattoos.  (My parents were thrilled.) I didn't like him.  He was kinda annoying and talked a lot. When I ran into him at a party, he poked me. And annoyed me some more. Then one night I met a friend at the drive-in movies. The boy with the mohawk was there. We sat in the back of his truck and watched Shrek. On our first year (dating) anniversary,  he gave me a sunflower just like Shrek gave Princess Fiona. On our second year anniversary,  we rode a carriage through the French Quarter  and went on spooky ghost tours. I told him I was going to get married  on Halloween 2004. Would he be there? If so, he should get to proposing. Nine years ago today, we had our spooktacular wedding: See my skeleton bride and groom over on the left? I love those guys! Seven years ago, we added a little pumpkin to our family: A...

In honor of the paperback release of 'Twas the Night After Christmas by Sabrina Jeffries (available for pre-order here ), I was lucky enough to snag an AUTOGRAPHED copy of the hardcover version of this book! And I'm giving it away to one of my readers! All you have to do is follow the prompts on the rafflecopter widget below. a Rafflecopter giveaway

I was sick yesterday and didn't get a chance to hook up with Mama Kat's Writing Workshop. One of her prompts was "a pumpkin-inspired craft or recipe". Two weekends ago, I attempted Better Home and Garden's Pumpkin Mac and Cheese .  I gave Keith the list of ingredients, and he ended up not getting sage and walnuts, so that topping was basically just Parmesan cheese.   And that's okay because it still tasted delicious! Here is the recipe that I used: 2 cups  dried elbow macaroni  2  tablespoons  butter 2  tablespoons  all-purpose flour ...

We had a busy weekend: Legoland on Friday and the firehouse open house on Saturday. Keith was gone a lot, and I didn't feel good. My plans for Sunday included the mountain of laundry and a week's worth of house duties that I didn't have time to complete during the busy week. I also thought I'd stop by the library, let the kids get a couple of DVDs and books to keep them busy, pick up lunch, then hurry back to the chaos I currently call "home". Get books, get lunch, get home was my mantra for the day. Once at the library, the kids were finding books and playing (the boys like to have a contest to see who can build the most blocks with these connector-things they have.)  I got my three books (Nora Robert's Blood Brothers trilogy for some spooky October reading). We got our DVDs, books, and a couple of CDs.  We were good to go. Until the librarian asked if we were staying for the craft/story activity at 1 p.m.  I sighed as I looked at the clock....

With the kids in school, we've talked a lot lately about being kind to others. And listening when our teachers (and parents) talk to us.  The kids are pretty good with being kind, but it's the listening piece we've struggled with.  Lately I find myself yelling at them because they are generally misbehaving more.  They seem to be keeping it together at school; it's only at home that we've had a lot of struggles with following directions, picking up toys, not fighting with our siblings, and general meltdowns over random things (mainly due to being over-tired I've surmised).  I've prayed for patience and to not have to yell at them.  I thought that God would answer my prayers by having the children behave better and listen more.  Yeah, it didn't quite happen that way. Last Monday, I started having a stabbing pain every time I coughed. (And I was coughing a lot thanks to being sick.)  Turns out I have an inflammation of my cartilage under my ...