The other side of life......

I have had a very long hiatus from blogging and so much has changed.
So much, in fact, that I have considered changing the title of the entire blog to the title of this post!
Over the course of the past year I became an empty-nester. Then, my little birdies who had left the nest, left the state! Yes, my daughter and grandson moved to Alabama.
I grieved considerably for a while. In fact, I threw myself quite a pity party. It was borderline shameful. As the old saying goes though, this too shall pass.
I eventually began to get over myself and appreciate the growth and maturity I have seen in my beloved babies. Oh how they have blossomed out on their own in the big world!
My daughter graduated from MUW with her bachelors in nursing. My grandson started kindergarten and lost his first tooth all in less than a weeks time.

With all of this being said, I am on to "the other side of life". I don't have anyone but the cat at home to answer to now. (oh yea, I'm not married) I must admit I have discovered it is kind of liberating to either come straight home from work and have cereal for supper while watching anything I want on television or not come home until late because I just didn't feel like it. And I didn't have to tell anyone! 40-something is the new 20-something!!

I am so excited to share the adventures of this side of life as it unfolds. Oh yea, I even bought a camera to capture it in living color! Woohoo!!

Foodie Friday....Crockpot Apple Butter

Last night I tried my hand at crockpot apple butter. Can I just say.......OMG Yummy!
There is a little work involved (as a disclaimer). But the time you invest peeling coring and slicing the apples so very worth it.

Crockpot Apple Butter
6# apples cored, peeled, sliced
1 cup white sugar
1 cup lighted packed brown sugar
1 TBSP cinnamon
2 TSP nutmeg
1TSP ground cloves
1 TBSP vanilla

Mix all of your dry ingredients together well. I just tossed the vanilla on the apples before adding the dry ingredients. (No rocket science cooking for me!) Coat the apple slices well with the dry ingredient mixture.
Pour apples into crockpot. It is going to be a pot full! Cover and cook on low for about 10 hours. I cooked mine over night. I did get up once during the night and stirred the apples, but only because I randomly woke up.
At the end of cooking, I used a cup to dip out some of the excess cider from the apples, then used my immersion blender to blend until smooth. The smell of this makes me think of how heaven must smell!
The apples do cook down to about half of what you start with. I had 3 jars of apple butter plus about 3/4 of a jar of the spiced cider that I saved to use for something later.
This would make a wonder gift for the holidays or hostess happy for a holiday party.

Happy Crocking!

My crazy life update

Wow! My life has been upside down since I last blogged. Let's start with a not so lovely shingles outbreak. If this has never happened to you, I pray it never does. This was the second time it happened to me. The first being about 12 years ago. I'm not sure what brought it on. One Monday I just woke up with a painful, itchy rash on my neck. Even though I went to the doctor on Tuesday, the initial rash developed into a terrible cellulitis that was wide spread. To the local e/r I went on the following Saturday. I came within an inch of being admitted. Thank goodness the doctor I saw listened to my pleas that I didnt have time to be in the hospital and promises to follow any and all orders he gave me. I ended up loaded to the max on steriods that got me to feeling better and had me cleaning my whole house and cooking everything I could think of! Needless to say, my kids were happy! On a more positive note, I have started sewing and crafting for missions and for Christmas. I have definately found my passion. I'll post a picture of a couple of the dresses I have made for a mission trip in summer 2014. I have informed my daughter that I will be making/crafting most of Christmas this year. I'm not sure she is real excited about that! Haha! I think when all is said and done, she and my grandbaby will both be pleased. I'm just very thankful to be back to feeling like my self. I was off work for about a week and a half. It is amazing how much it can take out of you to be sick just for that short of a time.

Little Dresses of Love

This past Saturday I gathered with a group of women at Highland Baptist Church in Meridian to sew dresses for little girls in other countries. These dresses will be sent with a mission group in 2014.
I have a friend, Beth Follin, who has been sewing these dresses for years and I was thrilled to be able to join in this year. I don't do a lot of sewing and would have been very slow on my own but Beth and I teamed up. She cut and pinned the dresses and I sewed.
Not everyone who came even sews. There were women who came to help with pressing and even just to bring snacks and make sure no one ever was in need of a cold drink or coffee!
I really hope to be able to go on one of the mission trips in the future. We also watched a slide show from the 2013 trip and it was wonderful.
I feel so blessed to be able to help bring smiles to the faces of those darling little girls.


My Friday 5

Wow, what a week!

Monday - My daughter had to have a root canal at Watermark Endodonics. Let me tell you about my daughter and dental work, they do not go well together. Bless her heart, she gets so anxious that the numbing medication wears off within minutes. Dr. Moore pre-medicated her with valium to help ease her nerves. Thankfully, the procedure went very well. And, I cannot brag enough about Dr. Moore and his staff. They get two thumbs up in my book!

Tuesday - My grandson, Lane, got tubes put in both ears. We were worried about the issue of not being able to eat or drink after midnight the night before. Lane normally gets up in the morning asking for something to drink. I think it threw him off that we got up so early (to be at Rush at 6). Anyway, Lane did great! He was really funny after the nurse gave him Lortab elixir to calm him because it had the opposite effect. He was literally bouncing off of me. And for some reason, in his Lortab high, he decided it was also a neat thing to lick me. (kinda gross) He would lick my face, my shirt, didn't matter to him.

Wednesday - Back to work I went. It was not a great day at work. I can't even pinpoint why, but it seemed as though everyone I work directly with was in a not so great mood and we all butted heads all day.
After work life got better. I picked up Lane as usual. He attends Highland Baptist CDC and we also go to church at Highland. So, he and I stayed for Wednesday night supper and church. Lane really likes church! I decided to join the choir and Wednesday was my first choir rehearsal at Highland. I sang in the choir in times past, but it has been a while. I was just like going home!

Thursday - I don't think there was much of anything news worthy yesterday. I went to work then I went home. It was nice efter a hectic start to the week and not a lot of sleep to have an early night.

Friday - Ahhh....Friday! It is a very lovely day. Not much going on at work so I have had time to do some much needed cleaning in my office. Pretty sure house keeping is not going to love all of the bags of garbage I have come up with. (Sorry!!)
I think this evening I will try to finish up a quilt I started for Lane a long time ago. I started it by hand but obviously if I want to finish it before he is grown, I need to machine sew the rest.

Hope everyone has a marvelous weekend!

Time is flying!

This year has really flown by! I knew it in the back of my head but last night we got a rehearsal list for the singing Christmas Tree at Highland Baptist. That makes it real! Life is about to get even more crazy and busy than it already is. In fact, I sat here first thing this morning and put every rehearsal and family event on my desk calendar then typed and printed out all of the same info on a calendar to put on the fridge at home. With that said, I am SO excited! I love fall and all of the excitement of the holiday season. I am ready to decorate my house and cook/bake lots of comfort foods. I am starting to “window” Christmas shop. I actually started on my holiday gifts for co-workers this past weekend. I think I am going to give as many home crafted gifts as possible this year. Yay! The more I think about it, the more giddy I am! What is your favorite holiday tradition?

Grandparents Day

Today was Grandparents day at Lane’s daycare. I have to admit I was apprehensive about going to the program because I wasn’t sure if it would upset him too much for me to be there mid-morning, but I am so glad I did. In fact, when I got there he started crying happy tears because he was worried I wasn’t coming. That just almost broke my heart!

The teachers went threw the kids normal routine for us. The kids sang a few songs. It was all very sweet. Then the children gave all of the grandparents “happies” they had made for us.

The school had a plan for those of us who had to make a slick get away to go back to work or whatever. The kids where given snacks and distracted so we could leave with out a melt down.

Thank you Highland Baptist CDC for thoroughly making my morning!