My California boy has infected me with love for his team. We’ve been wearing our SF shirts since we rolled out of bed this morning — Go 49ers!
Behind every good woman is a good man!
30 Jan 2013 21 Comments
in Graphics that Grab Me, My Thoughts, Photos Tags: happiness, love, marriage
I’ve been blogging on WordPress for a week now and haven’t really said much about my husband, so today is his day. I have to be careful when I talk about him because I can easily take it right over the top. We found each other late, we’ve only been married eight years, we’re so compatible it’s ridiculous, and we’re annoyingly goofy. I think he’s hilarious … and smokin’ hot. I haven’t really found anything he can’t do. And he loves me.
I met Kim at church when a friend recruited him to play bass guitar in our band. Since I play keyboards we instantly had something in common, but nine months went by before we had an actual conversation. I’d recently lost my husband, my father-in-law, and my dad in a hellish eight-month stretch and I wasn’t speaking to men at the time.
Anyway … I sort of got over my unspoken vow not to talk to anyone of the male persuasion ever again, and we finally had a chat. Until 4:30 in the morning. He came to a program I was in two nights later … and followed me home two days after that and cooked Easter dinner for me … and we decided we were getting married … and three months later, we did. If you’ve read my “About” page, you may have noticed the word “fairytale” … it’s an understatement.
So now we’re into the Happily Ever After part of the story. I get to live with a man who treats me like the proverbial queen, not only does all the cooking but the shopping and clean-up as well, brings me coffee in bed, makes me laugh like a demented person, plays heart-melting guitar, writes music, reads voraciously, knows how to build things and fix things, how to clean a house like the former Navy man that he is, and loves my son like his own. And he kisses even better than he cooks.
The really wonderful thing is how he lets me be me in every way. He encourages my interests and talents, isn’t jealous of the time I spend on the things I love, and nurtures me on the days when pain wins for a while. He listens to me babble when I get excited about cool things that happen … and knows how to make me think he’s actually hearing everything I say.
My husband isn’t perfect. Neither am I, not even close. But we’ve both lived other lives and we’ve had time and opportunity to learn that not everything in life matters equally. Some things are better left unsaid. Most negatives, when balanced against the incredible positives, are not even worth thinking about. As he often says, “You have to know when to be satisfied. You have to give yourself permission to be happy.”
I’ve made my share of mistakes in life, but I can’t help thinking that Kim is payback for something I managed to get right.
The halfway point …
30 Jan 2013 Leave a comment
in Graphics that Grab Me, My Thoughts, Recipes Tags: baking, breakfast & brunch, cooking, food, inspiration, weather
Good morning again! For those in the workforce, it’s Wonderful Wednesday — I hope your day will live up to its name. We have a light blanket of snow over everything and the cars out on the street are in creep mode. Seems like a good morning for staying inside and stirring something up with my blogging friends! These look good …
Ingredients:
8 large eggs
1/2 cup half and half
1/4 teaspoon salt
fresh ground pepper to taste
Assorted Mix-ins, chopped small, such as:
Cheese – cheddar, parmesan, pepper-jack or any other favorite
Meat – ham, sausage, bacon
Veggies – peppers, mushrooms, shredded spinach, green onions
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray. Whisk together the eggs, half-and-half, salt, and black pepper. Pour the egg mixture into the muffin cups. Add Mix-ins to each cup {add lots}. Bake the frittatas until they are puffy and the edges are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Loosen with knife and serve warm.
Makes 12 frittatas
Note: To freeze frittatas, allow to cool completely and store in ziplock bag. Reheat for 1 1/2 – 2 minutes in the microwave.
Brought to you via Pinterest, courtesy of http://www.caramelpotatoes.com
If you make these, come back and let me know how you liked them — I haven’t tried them yet!
My Life in Books
29 Jan 2013 8 Comments
in Graphics that Grab Me, My Thoughts Tags: books, literature, living, reading
Not everyone can say this, but I still live in the same town where I was born. I was temporarily away, as I was raised twelve miles outside town, but in western Kansas that meant I could practically see the hospital from the farm. I spent a summer in New Jersey in the 60s, a boyfriend thing. I lived on yet another farm two counties away for almost 35 years, a marriage thing. Even during those first-marriage years, though, I wasn’t more than a half-hour from my birthplace. And now I’m back.
You might be tempted to think that my life has been deadly boring, but you’d be wrong, even though the potential was certainly there. On the contrary, thanks to the wonderful world of books, I’ve traveled just about everywhere and gotten to know people I’ll never forget. My mom, a woman blessedly ahead of her time, started reading to me from approximately the second I popped my head out in the delivery room, and she did the same for my sisters and brother. Books were always a hot topic of conversation in our house and pretty much nothing was off-limits if we thought we were big enough to handle it (other than the fascinating volumes I discovered in my parents’ closet, but that’s a story that shall never be told).
Our mom fully understood that reading holds the power to ward off prejudice, ignorance, and dullness of spirit. We all shared the isolation of the farm, but she had no intention of letting that shape us for life. We even got by with ducking work sometimes, as long as it was for the sake of a book, the unspoken agreement being that we had to make sure no sibling saw it happening.
If you locked me in a room with only a bodice-ripping romance novel for company, I’d scan it for erotic parts, strictly in the interest of Continuing Adult Education, but I wouldn’t read it. I really don’t think I could. I’d rather count fly-specks on the walls or stains on the carpet. If that makes me sound like a snob, I apolo … um, no, I don’t, it’s the truth. But that’s just me … I’m not judging.
Give me a great biography or autobiography, a historical novel, a sophisticated mystery, a realistic crime novel or true account, an entertaining travel journal, stellar fiction … then walk away and I’m not likely to even notice. A question I’ve never been able to answer … “What’s the best book you’ve ever read?” Impossible! Usually it’s the one I just finished. I crawl inside every good book I read and live there until it’s done. And then I take time to mourn just a bit before I pick up the next read …
Plans?
29 Jan 2013 1 Comment
Good morning, blogger and non-blogger friends! What does your day hold? We may get snow here by mid-morning (remember, it was over 75° the past two days), and I’m working on words to post for our reading enjoyment. Meanwhile …
Finding beauty everywhere …
28 Jan 2013 2 Comments
The calendar says it’s winter, the temperature not so much. It reached at least 70° yesterday and is forecast to do the same today before cooling back down into the 40s. Two balmy days in a row call for flowers! Beauty heals the soul, so I encourage you to look for it everywhere today and I’m wishing everyone an amazing week, beginning with this morning — a Monday!
What Am I Doing Here?
24 Jan 2013 2 Comments
in Graphics that Grab Me, My Thoughts Tags: do good
My take on being retired is that it’s weird. It’s beyond crazy that I’m this age instead of the 45 I feel in my head. But I got here somehow, and I do love the play-time. Writing is a have-to-do thing for me, and I have folders jammed with great graphics that I love to share. So I’m inviting you to hang out with me here … and if you talk to me it’ll be even more fun. I’m a Facebook addict, but this is my spot to run my way — eat your heart out, Markie Zuckerberg!
Playing for Time 
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