Family Matters Sunday..

FOOTBALL...
i Know nothing about it really, but I do know that many many families bond over Superbowl. Its a great time to spend time together with one another, cheering and having a good time. Don't forget all the yummy snacks that go with it!! We had a nice evening..we had some family time~
I also made some VERY Good Mini-Apple Pies tongiht, oh my goodness they were so good!! I will share some pictures with you, and just kinda run through the steps to make them. They were fairly easy but ALOT of work, and sadly...as I was removing them from the oven, I dropped the muffin tin. Oh I was devastated, the family came running to my rescue. They could tell that I was just beside myself so hubby cleaned the mess in my kitchen and I tried to save a few of them. I did manage to get a few, which we all enjoyed..but sadly I lost 8...OH what a night :(

You need about 8 cups of chopped apples


You chop the apples into 1/2 inch pieces, and you add...12 tablespoons of flour,4 heaping teaspoons of cinnamon and 1/4-1/2 tsp of nutmeg and 1 1/2cup of white sugar.
You mix it up really well making sure all the apples are coated.


I used Pilsbury Pie crust and just used a cup to punch out the round dough muffin tarts. After I had dropped my mini apple pies I have to admit I was soooo happy that i didn't make my own tart shells..all that work to have been ruined would have thrown me off completely. *Smiles

Finished product..they were so good!!
You cook at 400 degree's for 15-20 mins, plus add a small stick of butter to each tart. Just about 1/2 inch in length and 1/4 inch in width. Then you can add some of the left over crust and make some designs on top of the tarts. Brush with melted butter..


Here are a few of the ones lost, such a sad moment...thank god my family was so wonderful and caring. Of course...they teased me..ALOT!!

Well Zeta's, thats it! Hope you all had a great weekend, our's was wonderful!
Good night and god bless~

Tid bits...

I am soooo hoping that hubby is going to read this blog post, because this is where I would like to announce that I WANT TO REDO OUR FRONT BATHROOM!!!
Did you read that hubby?? Can we PLEASE do something new up there in the front?? Please?
Here is a small idea plan...there will be more to follow once you read this and approach me about it..*smiles sweetly at you*
Love this idea for a front hallway..

Isn't this next picture really cool, i would actually love to put a door like this up in my kitchen. I think it would look nice going down into Braden's "quarter's" of the house? Just a thought....hubby doesn't like it!!

Sorry friends, its a quick post tonight...weekends are harder to blog! Its just busy!
Good night, and god bless~

Fashion Fridays...

WHAT A DAY! I have nothing to say today...so tired, not a great day~
I hope all you wonderful people have a great weekend, we have dinner plans on Saturday with some friends. Looking forward to that. I will leave you with a few fashion related things.
Until tomorrow good night and god bless my Zeta's!



I have a new love, these are them! Out tomorrow to get some..i'll keep you posted!

Cr8 f8...

Its not about what you've been through in life that necessarily changes who we are. Every circumstance that we encounter in our lives certainly will effect our everyday living and our emotions.
Its how we deal and cope with these life changing moments that will change everything about who we are. DOesn't even really matter what the trauma is that you face in your life, everyone has something that they have to over come and conquer. We all feel the same way during these times, whether we are scared, angry, grieving or uncertain we all have the same emotions, we will all hurt the same way. Our hearts ache, and our feelings of certainty can be threatened or even shattered.
You never really know when its going to happen, life changes in a instant, in a blink and even in the middle of a breath. There could be an accident, a death, a scare or even words spoken will alter the course of your life forever. Unfortunately there are those of us that live in those moments, those of us who let this tradgedy define who we are. We may refuse to push forward, or take the necessary steps needed to regain all that feels lost or broken. Those are the ones who suffer the most. It is these people who I feel sorry for. I have known close friends who have lost a child, nothing more tradgic really in life than that. This very close friend of mine continued on with life, she realized quickly that her life was still important and more importantly her other two children in her life deserved to have a happy, healthy functioning mom. Not only did this mom grieve the loss of her beautiful son...she then went on to use her story in hopes to inspire others who are living through similar circumstances. She also shares her story with university classes to teach those new young minds who are coming up in the field of psychology and may someday work with a grieving parent. This mom...I ADMIRE!
Recently I had a very close friend of mine find out some news which threatened her whole world. The news she recieved were simply words spoken by her daughter, during a normal, casual drive home...despairing sounds, words that ripped through her life and changed everything she simply knew.
This mom...had a choice. Either she would crumble, run and hide from her reality OR she would face this war, find her strength, power and will. It is a choice to come through this on the other side triumphantly. NO one said this would be easy, and actually she had no idea how hard it would actually be. She chose to battle, and she chose to win.
These are the mom's who I admire and today..these are the mom's who get it, THEY get me!
I think what I admire most about these women is their ability to NOT let the "trauma" change who they are...but they have learned through healing that they have become different people because of the way they have healed. It is our choices after the events in our life that challenge us that actually shape who we become. Recently my friend recognized this, and she made some most amazing changes in her life. I am so PROUD!!
Back when she first found out the news in her life she was devastated and handled the news as anyone else. She was numb, withdrawn and seemed lost. The shock had subsided in time, and my friend took immediate action. She put herself and her family into intense therapy, she reached out and asked for help. She encouraged communication with her children and she seeked knowledge on the best possible way to talk with her children regarding this incident. I could see fairly quickly the healthy, positive outlook she was gaining just through getting into counselling and learning how to cope. Once the initial treatment was in place, my friend realized she needed to keep a positive frame of mind and through the help of her councellor she started to take care of herself. Thats the number one thing when there is a trauma in your life, its SOOOO important to take care of yourself. One thing my friend did was join the gym, i cannot tell you enough how important it is during times of trubulation to stay active and fit. It is so nice to hear her speak of how much her activities are keeping her mind healthy and in a good place. I can totally agree with this one. It wasn't until during some very difficult times that I joined the gym and that experience alone provided me with so much more self esteem. It made me realize in life what really is important and what just isn't.
I LOVE talking with this friend, she gets it! She has been through such hard times in life, and finally she is the one who fully, truly can relate and appreciate how hard it is to over come obstacles while trying to remain positive. Its a hard thing to do and it doesn't come easy, its something that you have to work at every day and it is a choice.
She has chosen to eliminate negative people from her support system and only fills her life with people who inspire her and encourage her to remain strong. She does not let anyone bring her down and that even includes close family members. Once again, another thing that we can understand about eachother.
There have been many times where i've felt lonely, OR at least felt like I had a limited group of people who could really relate to my life. I would never want anyone to feel the pain that I have felt in life and I am so sorry that my dear friend has suffered. I am happy that I can be here for her when she needs me, and I am even happier that we can confide in one another and say pretty much anything and feel like there is no judgement. I guess the point of this blog was let my friend know how proud I am of her. We do talk frequently enough and i express to her all the time what a great job she is doing moving past this experience. But I don't think i've ever told told her how much I appreciate her honesty, her undivided attention and her knowledge of life. I know it sucks that her knowledge of life has come at such a great cost...but those of us who "get it" and who have worked through tragedy seem to have a special bond. We (being survivor's) work so hard every single day to stay happy, that we truely do find the little things in life and make them into BIG things~ We never take anything for granted because we (survivor's) know, that in any moment when life seems to be at it's best..it can be taken away in a heartbeat, and we (survivor's) know EXACTLY how we will survive~
I love ya girl~

Do It Yourself Wednesday's....Printed Candles

Unfortunately today was busy and I didn't get the chance to make these the way that I would have liked too. I couldn't take the time to do them right, I had to rush through them. I think my pictures give a pretty good idea of how to make these printed candle sticks.
I just used plain white candles from the dollar store, i had a black ink pad and i bought a stamp.
It is easier to just roll the candles over the stamp and then let them dry. I think they would make a cute gift for a teacher or a coach.
I of course got this idea from pInterest. I also would have liked to have tried a thicker candle, that would have looked cool too. Anyways, easy to do..i'm sure you can come up with a bunch of variations of this and have some fun with it!





Good night Zeta's...i'm outta here!!

Let's give'em something to talk about...

On the weekend Paul and I went to see the movie "Extremely Loud & Incrediabley Close". It's the one with Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock. Its about how a young boy struggles with the loss of his father after 9/11. The young boys character is traumatically effected when his father is killed when the twin towers fall. The boy was very close to his dad, spent alot of time with him and his dad understood his "kinda odd" personality. Not only did his dad understand him, he encouraged him to succeed and always push himself through his fears and anxieties.
It was an ok movie, I enjoyed it more than Paul...but then again any movie that involves catastrophic events and "incrediably loud" pain hits home to me. There is one scene in this movie where the young boy looses himself. He has a moment where he physically destroys everything in his path, ripping apart all his hard work of trying to find the lock to a key he believes his father had left for him. He believes this key is a journey that will unlock a secret his father had left for him to find. He hopes this key will bring him closer to his father..even after his death. This young boy has such a deep yearning inside his soul to feel his father again, to hear his voice on last time, to feel connected again to him..that once he realizes its never going to happen the pain and grieve that he experiences is so overwhelming that he cannot control his emotions and he screams out with a force that overpowers him. This young actor did an amazing job, he was so young yet so convincing of the pain he was feeling. I felt it, I felt his pain...it brought back a few very powerful memories to me. I can't even begin to explain the feeling that comes from deep within...have you ever had a moment in life where the pain in your heart is so strong that you loose all control? Has it ever hurt so bad that you scream so loud your throat hurts, and feels like its closing over? I mean there aren't even tears at this stage, your screaming, head is pounding, throat is tight and you literally feel like there is nothing else going on around you. You literally black out. It is one of the most scariest, lonliest feelings in the world. There is absolutely nothing no one can do, the hurt is so painful your body aches and screaming is the only way of feeling a slight bit of relief. Everything in your head is heavy, and you almost feel like its going to burst. There is NO control and destroying things around you is what releases the pain and pressure built up inside you.

When this young boy was having his fit of rage, Paul leaned over asked me..."What is he doing?" Paul didn't understand what this young boy was feeling, why was he so irrational? What are these emotions the boy is feeling?
I became very quiet, in my head...i was totally relating to this young boy. I was in a moment, feeling everything he was feeling. Initially ifelt lonely, i was disappointed with Paul..i felt how could he NOT have had moments like this in life? Seriously, after EVERYTHING we have been through with my accident...but also in our marriage? I will not discuss certain events on my blog related to my marriage, I will save that for my book. Its just some things are too personal and putting it on here doesn't feel right. Please know that everything that we have been through has only made us stronger and we are very proud of who we have become...
So as I quietly sat there on our car ride home i turned to Paul and asked him "You mean to tell me...you have NEVER had a moment like that in life?" You have never lost complete control of yourself due to feeling so much pain? I could NOT understand how he could not have...I mean, we have been through more shit than most couples who have been married for 50 years, thankfully though...we are still together!
He admitted "NO", he has never had a moment like that! I was shocked and I was sad...i had wondered how he couldn't feel so sad when there were times of loss, suffering and pain! He explained he HAS been overwhelmed with sadness but just didn't react like that...I admitted to him right there and then..."maybe i don't really know you as well as I thought?"
Paul and I have ALWAYS had amazing communication skills, we have always managed to discuss things when needed. But, on Saturday night as we were driving home we both realized we have never really had the chance to sit down and go over our life events. We've never discussed how each of us seperatly felt through certain events or how we handled things seperatly or at times alone. When I look back at times when Braden had been hospitalized and on life support...our duty was to get him well. I did day shift at the hospital and Paul did night shift...we never really had the chance to discuss with eachother how WE were feeling or how we were coping, privately and seperately. Then by the time we would be released from the hospital, niether of us would want to talk about anything...we'd want to forget it, not talk about it. I guess all those years of surviving, passing in the night and bonding together physically...we didn't really talk about things. We didn't express our coping, we just looked at eachother and as long as we were both standing up right, we just kept going forward~
After some deep discussion, Paul and I had decided that we need to go back. We need to go back to the beginning, no holds bar and open up and share our feelings. There is so much that we have missed between eachother. Paul had NO idea that I even had moments like this young boy did in the movie. Then there were times in our marriage when neither of us had any idea what the other was thinking...so we are going back to pick eachothers minds, and get to know one another in an area of life that we feel may have been neglected.
Once we finished our discussion on "Fits of rage"..and coping skills, we both looked at eachother and realized WOW we have come soooo far!! We have beat the odds, and in all these years of marriage we are just realizing now how successful we really are. It hit me when I was spending time with a highshcool friend who I hadn't seen since highschool. She didn't know that I had an 18 year old son, she asked "So, is your husband your son's father?". I was dumbfounded!! I was shocked and initally slightly insulted. But, when you think about it..in her defence how many 18 year olds manage to stay with the same man for all those years, especially after surviving such a blow in life with having my car accident. It has NOT been an easy road for us, we have jumped,crashed,hurdled and tumbled through so many obstacels and for some reason...we always manage to come out of them together. Part of this sitting down and reliving our life together we hope to find the reason for this. I'm fasinated to know what it is about me that makes him want to be married to me...what is it that he loves so much to keep working on this? We want to find what makes us work, i like to believe its "true love", or that maybe we are "soul mates"? The romantic in me believes this...through everything, we always find eachother and always end up right beside one another. We are blessed, we really are..I have to say our love is strong, and we will continue to build, strengthen and nurture this love...
I am looking forward to going back in time, its actually going to help me with my book as there is so much I don't remember and hubby does. Its time to talk...its time to understand!
I will keep you posted Zeta"s..have a good night and god bless~

Monday's Menu...Chicken Crock pot dinner tonight

I've decided to incorporate some crock pot meals into my Monday Menu's..and for this being my first one!! It was fantastic...definately something we will redo again, everyone in my family loved it!!


4 - 6 chicken breasts
2 cans of cream of chicken
1/4 c water
a box of chicken stove top stuffing
1/2 a stick of butter
1 pack of provolone cheese

lay half of your breasts in bottom, mix water with both cans of cream of chicken, pour half over chicken and then repeate with the rest of chicken and cream/water mixture. Pour the stuffing in and pour melted butter over it. Let it cook for 6 hours and put the cheese on about 20 minutes before eating.
IT'S SO GOOD!




This is something you can throw quickly together in the morning before work,let it cook the whole day and enjoy at dinner time. I made mashed potatoes, but noodles or rice would work wonderfully too.
Have a great night Zeta's, untill tomorrow,
Good night and god bless~