A Week in the Life - Day 2

The second day of my little project is drawing to a close and I think it went just as well as yesterday. I took a ton of pictures and got a lot done around the house. Once again I worked out, I gave Hooper a bath, which is a workout in itself and I cleaned the tub. I also managed to get some laundry don so it was pretty productive.

Today was new recipe Tuesday! I'm so excited that I'm getting back into the swing of things and really taking time to focus on projects I enjoy. I want to make sure that I make the most of this time because I won't be jobless or childless forever. So tonight I made Penne with Ricotta and Bacon. You can find the recipe here of course I added my own little twist and added some frozen peas in when I was sauteing the onions. I figured with all the bacon and cheese the peas would make it healthy! Well I don't know about healthy but it certainly was delicious. I will definitely be adding it to the rotation. I have two more recipes on tap that might be made this week so I will feel like I've caught up a little bit on the new recipe front.

Tomorrow should be another busy day, I want to kick off October by decorating for Halloween and I have to see how I'm going to put all these Week in the Life pictures together - I'm not sure what size album I'm going to use but I'm going to pop on over to Michael's and see what I can come up with. If anyone has any ideas please let me know. Also tomorrow I'll be spending some time with my mother-in-law so that should generate even more pictures!

I'll be posting again tomorrow night so be sure to check back!

A Week In The Life - Day 1

Today I started my Week in the Life photo and journaling journey. I got the idea from Ali Edwards Blog. (see link in previous post) Above are just a few of the pictures I took today. I am really enjoying this project so far it is amazing how much attention I paid to the little details that I would usually just ignore or not even notice at all. I also got Mikey involved in helping me take some of the pictures so it is a fun little thing for us to do together.

Today I also started on my healthier lifestyle. I did 20 minutes of Pilate's this morning before even taking Mikey to work, then I came home and took Hooper for an hour walk - it felt so good just being outside and walking again. Then tonight after dinner I dragged Mikey to the gym where I spent 40 minutes sweating my butt off but it felt good. What didn't feel good was banging my leg into the stationary bike and now I have a large throbbing bruise on my upper outer thigh - that's what I get for being clumsy. Hmm I might even have to photograph the bruise it is after all part of this week in my life :)

I really need to cook something fabulous for dinner tomorrow and would like to try a new recipe so I'm going to spend some time tomorrow morning looking through my cookbooks, if anyone has any ideas please share them! Thanks Gabby for the pasta salad recipe I filed it away and will hopefully make that soon!!

Thanks for reading everyone! I am planning on posting everyday so be sure to check back!!

Food & Fun

Back again for a little lighter of a post then my last one. The Tuesday before I left for Ohio was Mikey's birthday. I had given him his presents over the weekend and on Monday but I did make him a birthday cake. It was my new recipe for that week. I made a yellow cake with peanut butter chips in it and iced it with homemade chocolate peanut butter icing which was rich and absolutely delicious! Mikey loved it and even though he ate most of the cake by himself he has already asked that I make the icing again!!!

Mikey's Cake

While in Ohio I didn't have a chance to try any new recipes I just made my grandmother's meals to her specifications though she did say I made one hell of a toasted turkey sandwich! My sister however cooked for the family twice and she made some awesome awesome meals! One night we had vodka sauce with this super delicious salad with caramelized apples and Gorgonzola cheese it was out of this world and then the next night she made wild mushroom risotto with these fabulous cheese toasts and another great salad with spinach, walnuts, bacon, potatoes it was out of this world. I'm definitely going to have to make some of these recipes for Mikey. I was thinking about making them today but I'm pretty certain that's not going to happen maybe tomorrow!

Left to Right: Vodka Sauce and Risotto

While in Ohio me and my mom did manage to sneak to a couple of scrapbooking stores so I am stocked up on supplies for new projects and starting tomorrow I am joining in on a Week in the Life project. Details for the project can be found here and I will be posting thoughts and finished pages as I go. Wish me luck because every time I try one of these projects I always end up giving up on it but this time I'm determined to complete it.

Also starting tomorrow I am going to start working out and walking on a more regular basis and I am hoping that my readers will hold me to that. I definitely need to get better at taking care of myself. So my plan is to do a workout before I even take Mike to work and then when I come back from dropping him off I want to take Hooper out for a nice long walk. So I will let you know how that goes.

Other fun stuff - while in Ohio I got to spend time with our good friend Lisa. She just rocks and I'm so happy that my mom has someone like her living nearby and I look forward to spending time with her and her family again at Christmas. Thanks for a great night out Lisa and thanks Mark for introducing me to Ramsey! Also while in Ohio me, Lisa and my mom made a guest appearance on my dad's podcasts. You can find my dad's podcasts at http://www.winwithsal.com/ take a listen we are dying to know what you think!!

L to R: Me and Lisa making our podcast debut and Me and Dad

Playing Catch Up

It is amazing how much can happen in such a short time. I feel like it was ages ago that I was leaving for Ohio and now here I am back at home completely wiped out and worried that I came home too soon. The week with my family in Ohio was an emotional one filled with ups and downs but I'm happy to report that my grandmother is home and though she still has a long road ahead of her she is doing much better.

I learned valuable lessons while away both about myself and about others and I also learned everything I could about Ileostomies. I learned my parents' house has way too many stairs which I ran up and down about 100 times a day. I learned that changing planes, at least in Charlotte, was not as bad or as scary as I thought it would be. I learned that when the chips are down some people will be there for you and some people won't and it's never the people you expect. It's a lesson I learn over and over and yet I always end up surprised.

I am happy to be home to be with my husband and the fur babies to get settled back into normal everyday life but I feel guilty too that I shouldn't get to have the normal everyday life while my grandmother is still struggling. I wonder if another week would have been a bigger help or a crutch for my grandmother and I guess I will never know. I could just have easily stayed an extra week and still felt this way when I came home. I have to remind myself that I did all I could, that me, my parents, my sister and my super amazing "brother" Andrew banded together and got stuff done and it was a lot more then other people did or would have been capable of doing and I think we should all be proud of ourselves. Were there bad times? Yes. Were there tears? Just about everyday. Were there arguments? Yes. But through all that we love each other and we were there for each other and will continue to be for the long haul! I want to thank everyone who sent their well wishes to my family during this time I appreciate it more then you know and for those who I have not heard from I thank you too for teaching me a lesson and for helping me decide to no longer be duped by you.

This weekend has been mostly spent getting caught up on emails, blogs, shopping and sleep and hopefully by tomorrow I will be fully recovered and will be able to get back to my new recipe a week project and I will hopefully be able to get back into the craft room and work on projects in there too. I've been reminded that anything can happen at any time and living each and every moment is important. My plan is to live and to capture these important moments and stories in my scrapbooks and in my writing. I feel inspired and eager to share.

Today will be a day of multiple blog posts so that this one post didn't get super long. In the next post I will be focusing on food and some of the fun things that have happened recently I hope you will join me and I look forward to hearing all of your thoughts!

Long Time No Blog

Things have been pretty busy here in Taylor Town so I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a while. My cousin Doreen came to visit with her husband Orlando and my super adorable godson Corey. It was a fun but crazy week. It was great being with Corey for a week and it was so fun seeing his reaction to Disney and meeting the characters in person. It was hit or miss whether he liked the characters or not but overall I think he had a really good time. I of course took a ton of pictures, now I'll have to work on scrapbooking them! There was some craziness while my cousins were here all five of us got sick one day it was awful and I don't think any of us were ever 100% and poor Mikey is still fighting with this bug. Then our little girl cat Alyssa had to be rushed to the vet. She was acting so strange but we thought it was having a baby around the house and then she peed on me and I noticed she had a horrible smell to her. It turns out she had a really bad infection under her collar. We have no idea how she got it but we have to give her antibiotics and put this powder on her neck. Thankfully she seems to be bouncing back.

Also this week my grandmother had to have emergency surgery. My parents were in Vegas but thankfully Andrew was still home and able to get my grandmother to the hospital and naturally my parents cut their trip short. Grandma seems to be doing ok but she has a lot of adjustments to make. I will be heading to Ohio on Friday to help out for a week. Hopefully that's enough time to help out but then we'll be back out there at Christmas so it will have to do for now. I have been stressing out making the flight arrangements and now with the airlines so messed up there are no non-stop flights to Columbus anymore so I was trying to pick out the best stop over. Last night I drank half a bottle of wine and I'm pretty sure the other half will get polished off tonight!!

With everything going on this week I didn't get a chance to make as many new recipes as I wanted to but this morning I did make chocolate filled crescents for breakfast! The recipe is SUPER simple you just take Pillsbury crescents and you fill them with chocolate chips! I don't know why I never thought about doing it before but I found the idea in Real Simple magazine and since I won't be home next weekend we are celebrating Mikey's birthday this weekend so I gave him his present yesterday and I am trying to spoil him a bit this weekend. I will try to make at least one more new recipe this week before I head out and then maybe I'll try something new for my family in Ohio - we'll see how things go.

I imagine this will be another busy week getting ready for my trip, catching up from last week but I want to try to get some creating done this week, some writing maybe, some scrapbooking and I will do my best to blog again soon. I will have email access at my parents so feel free to write since you know I'll be checking in!!

More Soon...