Camping!

We have been camping a lot this summer, when I say a lot I mean like 5 times. So finally I buy our own tent (we've been borrowing Todd's dad's tent) and then it rains every weekend since. So even though it's supposed to rain tomorrow, I'm going camping!!! This picture was from camping in June on Lake Superior. It was a pretty remote/private spot that I'm glad we found. It was Anna's first time camping that she can remember and both kids had a blast!! (on a side note, don't you love how little kids run? All out from the first step! Click on the picture and you can see a closeup of Anna with her hair flying and arms pumping)

Quick Update.

Yes, I am still smoke free. It has been pretty easy. There's a few times when I've craved smoking, but it passes easily. I don't think it's the nicotine, just the social smoke.

My back is still messed up. It makes it really hard for me to sit. So work sucks because of it. I also don't sit at the computer at home and blog very often. I have an appointment tomorrow with a chiropractor to get x-rays. Maybe he'll see something and I can be on the road to recovery. Todd's threatening to make me get an MRI and surgery. One person that I've been seeing for help suggested a treatment center in AZ. I looked it up online and they said it's normally for people who have had back problems for 10-20 years and have had no success with conventional means! I will be severely depresseed if I have to go 10-20 yrs with pain every day.

Garage sale season has started!! I have gone to Green Bay, Denmark and Norway to sale so far. I'll probably go around here this weekend. I also need to get my back better so I can have a garage sale this summer.

That's it for now. Hopefully I can get back to normal and be able to do things again. Having back problems is very depressing and has been affecting me and my family way to long.

I'm Free!!!

Of the "nicodemon". It's been 5 days.

I think it's funny how if you tell people you quit smoking and they ask you how long it's been, and if it's been less than let's say 1 month or 1 year, they say "oh", like it's not long enough for you to have actually quit. I think if you've actually abstained from smoking for 1 whole day, you are allowed to say you've quit. It's the first day of reestablishing your rituals and breaking the old ones where you had to smoke after/before/during anything that you do. So if someone tells you that they've quit, and you ask them how long it has been and if they say anything over one day, believe them.

I've read "The Easy Way to Stop Smoking" by Allen Carr. The big points in the book that are helping me are 1. You are not giving up anything! 2. You are not giving up anything!

I still miss cigarette breaks, so I go "out" with the smokers, but don't smoke. :)

I feel sick!

This is my downfall today. 1 WHOLE box. 22.5 points on the weight watcher's points scale. But, OMG are they good. Maybe I shouldn't have ate the whole box though. Someone come and get my other boxes from me.

All by Myself!

This morning I asked Anna to pick out some clothes to wear from her dresser. She was such a big helper by taking all the clothes she could carry and throwing them down the stairs! When I came upstairs, this was what she was wearing.

She has a short sleeve pajama top on (not from bedtime last night), long sleeve shirt, jeans and a dress. Notice the bottom of the dress sticking out of one of her sleeves.

This was her first time fully picking out clothes and dressing herself. So we're proud of her.

Peanut Butter Fudge

Here is an easy recipe for Peanut Butter Fudge.

1/2 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 cup peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups confectioners' sugar


DIRECTIONS
Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar and milk. Bring to a rolling boil and boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter and vanilla. Pour over confectioners' sugar in a large mixing bowl. Beat until smooth; pour into an 8x8 inch dish. Chill until firm and cut into squares.

Anna's funny

This morning as Anna and I were getting ready to go out the door on our way to work/daycare, she was getting her baby and putting it in the carseat. When she picked up the baby and carseat she said "Oww! My back!"

I guess my back has been hurting a little too long.

Okay, maybe this'll work now.

Weird, I was trying to post about my new iced tea recipe I found and it all started translating to Hindi. So in case any of my two followers understand Hindi, I left up the post.

Okay, back to business. Here is my new AWESOME Iced Tea recipe I got from top secret recipes! It's awesome in taste, but takes a couple hours to make.

I did a double recipe for 1 gallon of tea.

Bring 16 cups of water to boil and take off heat, then add two tea bags. (I used Lipton green tea with ginseng and lemon.) Cover and let steep for 1 hour. Put 4 Tbsp honey in gallon pitcher, add 1 cup sugar. Pour tea into pitcher and add 6 Tbsp lemon juice. (You can also add 1/2 tsp ginseng extract if desired. I didn't have any, and it tasted great without it.) Chill before serving.

Yum!!!

इचेद टी रेसिपे

अप्परेंत्ल्य इ कैन ओनली राइट माय पोस्ट इन हिन्दी टुडे? लेट में लुक अरौंद फॉर थे सेत्तिंग्स सो इ कैन सेट आईटी बेक तो इंग्लिश सो थे ओने और तवो रेअदेरस इ हवे कैन उन्देर्स्तंद माय पोस्ट्स।

वेइर्द

Infomercials!

I was just talking to Amanda and she was telling me how she got sucked into an infomercial and ended up buying it. The GT Xpress 101 cooker. Buy 1, get 1 free. All for the low price of $69.96!

Which reminds me when I was going to Tech and I was up really late watching TV and an infomercial came on about the HyG Ionic toothbrush. I just had to have it... $80!!!! Which was a lot more then than it is now, plus back then there weren't many toothbrushes over $2. I still can't believe I got sucked in, well I can believe it, but still. At least I liked it. Holly still will mention my $80 toothbrush.

I frequently get sucked into infomercials and there are many things that I just have to have, but I've been able to talk myself out of it everytime.... so far.

Anna kissing Jackson

Happy Valentines Day, everyone!!

Ouch!

I hate my back. I somehow hurt it pretty bad, probably snowmobiling, (yet another reason not to like it). I have been to the chiropractor's office 3 times so far and I have to go at least one more time. The pain is affecting my left leg also. I have to actually concentrate on lifting my leg to walk otherwise it'll just drag. It's all I can think about this past week, so I haven't been posting about anything.

Pizza Hut

We just saw the commercial for the Pizza Hut Lasagna last night. Todd loves lasagna, so today we order that for lunch. Yuck! The commercial "fooled" the italians into thinking it was real italian restaurant lasagna. As if. I find it fairly disgusting.

Things you might not have known about my mom.

* When she was single and didn't feel like doing her hair before work, she'd put on a wig. And no one would notice.

* She loved watching the rodeo on TV. I remember her telling me to wait until dad went to sleep then I could get up and we'd watch the rodeo on CMT.

* Everytime I went into her room after she had gone to sleep she would jump up and say "WHAT?" and I'd chuckle and say "It's just me, mom."

* (From Holly) When Becky lived in AZ and she came home for a visit, she went into my mom's room to tell her she's back. My mom woke up and groggily pushed her away and then woke up and said "Becky you're home!!" And then started bawling.

*She would cry over everything. One of the ones we would all laugh about was the Folger's commercial where the son who has been away comes home and his mom smells the coffee and comes into the kitchen and says "John, you're home!" We would tell her "Mom, you're crying over a commercial" and she'd laugh and cry.

Copper Harbor Snowmobiling Trip!

Todd and I took a snowmobile trip on Saturday to Copper Harbor. Talk about COLD!!! I think it was 7 without the windchill. It was already planned so I couldn't back out of it because of the weather. We had a room reserved at the Fanny Hoe Motel. I rode on the back of Todd's snowmobile. He wants me to get into snowmobiling so badly. I feel bad for him. Here's the scenario of why snowmobiling is not fun for me:

Clothing: Long johns (top and bottoms), 2 pair of socks, jeans, sweater, mid layer jacket, outer (heavy) jacket, snowpants, boots, gloves, balaclava, helmet. How many pounds is that?

First I drove, that wasn't so bad, except he was getting mad at me because I was going 20 mph, then at one point I thought I was flying and I look down and I'm going 40! So after about 15 minutes I have a line of snowmobiles behind me (not from our group) and my thumb/hand is aching from trying to keep the throttle pressed. I pull over and get on the back while he drives.

So we are FLYING, I saw 60 mph (at one point he said we were going 90!) I'm holding on for dear life and praying out loud thinking "Why is this fun?" My face feels like it's going to freeze off, he tells me I have to "lean" on the corners, but since I have 50lbs of clothes on and my boots are slipping on the running boards so I have no traction or balance, so I can't do a good job of "leaning". Also, in order to lean I have to be able to see the corner up ahead, but his helmet is in my way, so I'm trying to look around him, but my right glasses lens is iced over and my helmet shield is fogging up, so it was a little hard to see anything.

Then I get hit in the head by a Branch with a capital B. He says "you were supposed to duck!" So I have an instant headache/neckache to go along with the coldness and the hanging on for dear life and trying not to worry about more snowmobilers coming at us around the blind corners on a "narrow trail" (there is actually signs that say this, and I don't think anyone pays attention either). We were almost clipped by oncoming twice!!!!

Finally I see a sign that says "Salvation" or "Copper Harbor 5 miles". YES!!! Needless to say for the ride home I called and begged Holly to come and pick me up with my van. What a relief that she said yes.

Amidst all the terror there was a bright spot. Here's the scenario of why I like snowmobiling:

Todd took us "off trail" at one point. So we are cruising along in the powder snow, everything is untouched and beautiful and it feels like we are riding on clouds. Very awesome and undescribable.

It'll probably take me another year to forget the terror and I'll agree to go on another ride with him. Pray for my safe return! Oh, and don't tell anyone where I work.

It's been TOO long!

I've been so lax with blogging lately. :( But I figured it was okay since Josh wasn't blogging either. (don't ask me why) Now that he has posted recently I have no excuse.

Anyway, since my last blog:

December:

11th: My birthday. I usually don't get excited about birthdays, but this year, my sister Amanda went all out and bought me a Nintendo DS Lite. I was shocked! And I love it. My favorites so far are the Personal Cooking, where it has recipes and it tells you how to cook them. I want to try California Rolls and Yakitori.

Other "games" I want to try are the browser, where you can be anywhere that has wireless internet and use it as an internet browser. Also there is "100 classic books" All fit one one little cartridge and you can turn the ds sideways and read it like a book.

24: Jake, Holly, Amanda, Sam came over to spend the night so they wouldn't have to get up and travel on Christmas day. So it was just like old times, we all stayed up LATE trying to wrap all the presents.

25: Christmas with the family. I like having it at our house, so we can kinda "relax". Tessa got a DS lite from us and was so excited. Probably her best present so far. Anna got a kitchen setup. I'm happy to say she loves it and plays with it every day still.

January:
1: Josh, Holly and Kylie came to visit for Susie's wedding.

Holly's bday was on the 19th. Jayda had a party for her.

Tessa's birthday is on Wednesday the 28th. We bought her the guitar hero game and two guitars. Hopefully she'll be happy, since after I ordered them, Todd told me that he asked Tessa a question about GH and she said "I don't really like playing with the guitars, they are too hard." ugh. Now what.

Anway, We took a trip to Copper Harbor on the snowmobiles. It was nice to get a way from everything for a day. I'll post about the trip next.