It's My Life

Song lyrics can be so personal, often speaking to the unspoken parts of our heart and soul. They also can be the source of some really funny moments when they are misunderstood. In fact, some of our most favorite commercials have been made over this idea.  The moment The Boy learned that the Queen's song "We Will Rock You" said... You got blood on yo' face You big disgrace Wavin' you banner all over the place                                        and not ... Wavin' your bladder all over the place is one The Husband and I will never forget.  The Boy describes this moment as his "all time low!"  At the time, all he could say was it made so much more sense. Seriously,  this moment  has provided The Husband and I with many moments of happiness over the year.  This past weekend, The Short Chic spent the night with one of her f...

Happy Easter! This was a quiet one for us. The Boy had a community service project for a leadership class at college and could not come home. It was just the three of us. Brisket was on sale at our local grocery store so our dear friend purchased a whole brisket. The Husband volunteered to smoke it for her (and one for us). He just got a new smoker and has been anxious to try it out.  I made some homemade mac and cheese, roasted asparagus, and maple garlic roasted carrots. It was the perfect Easter meal. For the past several years we have been having Easter Scavenger Hunts. We started off drawing photos because The Short Chic could not read yet. Each year we have gotten a little more challenging.   We had so much fun with the scavenger hunt this year that we decided to keep playing with it and made this video. Hope you enjoy it!

Another Oscar Season has finished. I feel a little sadness today knowing that it is over. I am also holding my eyelids open today because I am so tired!  I will never for the life of me understand why the Oscar's do not start until 6:30 Central Time. Hasn't anyone else figured out no matter how quickly you que the music to cut off the acceptance speeches the show is NEVER going to end on time.  I will say this, this was a great Oscar season. I absolutely loved 7 out of 8 nominations. I was inspired by some of the true stories behind the movies and found myself researching and learning more about the real life moments. This was our 19th year celebrating Oscar. One one hand 19 years seems so long but on the other hand, it feels like it was just a few years ago. So many things have changed in the past 19 years. We started off with little hope of seeing Documentary Shorts, or Live Action Shorts, or even Foreign Films. Then we found ourselves running down to independent t...

Last weekend, The Husband and I spent some time out on the town having a couple's date night. I can't even tell you when the last time we did something without either one of our children and with other adults.  We are more likely to go do things solo so the other is with the kids but this time we called in the grandparents and asked for a sleep over. You know what: we had the most fun imaginable and had a great time! A few months ago, back when it was still fall, my cousin called up and wanted to know if we would go to a new business here in Kansas City called Breakout KC. I had never heard of them but felt we were game for anything. Little did we know just how much game we were going to get into. Breakout KC opened here in Kansas City in the Spring of 2015 and is a live action escape room. Here is the five minute details:  there are four themed rooms to select from, you enter the room of your choice and are "locked" in. You must solve a series of clues, whi...

Winter continues here and so does my reflection of warmer times. We had an amazing 2015 camping season that took us to new places and some of our old favorites. Reflecting on past trips and planning new ones is honestly how I get through these winter months.  Unanimously, The Taylor's and The Todd's agree that  Johnson's Shut-Ins State Park  was our favorite 2015 destination. Johnson's Shut-Ins is located near Lesterville, Missouri which is just over 100 miles south of St Louis, under 200 miles east of Springfield, and 295 miles southeast of Kansas City, MO, which is where we are based. Park Details: Johnson's Shut-Ins is a state park. Senior Citizens receive a discount. Special sites are designated ADA and can't be used by the general population. There are 5 different loops with a total of 85 sites. There is designated sites for camping, hike-in camping, camper cabins, electric only, electric/water, and electric/water/sewer sites. Due to the 2005 ...

An unseasonably warm weekend has kicked my cabin fever into overdrive. Normally, I spend the winter months hibernating from the cold and snow under blankets and dreaming of camping trips to come. It was so warm this weekend, that I actually begged my husband to take me camping. A man of logic, he said no, because it was winterized.  To add to my desire to be out roaming, we went to visit our camper in storage this weekend. It was a routine check to make sure no unwanted critters had found their way inside. The Bullet and The Rockwood are stored next to each other and both were in great shape. Fourteen short weeks until their first scheduled trip of 2016. Even though we have not been able to camp, not a day goes by when we are not thinking about camping or The Bullet. During our downtime we took the RV in for routine maintenance. We have purchased new step covers as well as LED flexible lighting. I am shopping around for a new outdoor patio rug as a critter chewed a hole in...

I am an addict. My addiction is not illegal, which on some level means it is not a big deal. But it is. Or I should say it was. My addiction is to a certain diet soda, Diet Coke. I have been addicted to Diet Coke for the past thirty years. My love affair with Diet Coke, started way back in high school or maybe even late junior high school. My next door neighbor, best friend, running buddy, Page, was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes when she was 12 years old. After she spent what seemed like an eternity in a children's hospital getting stabilized and learning how to manage her new life style, she returned home and introduced me to Diet Coke. Before she went into the hospital, we both drank Pepsi Cola. All we knew of diet soda was Tab and we both agreed it was awful. Just plain awful. What we did not know what that NutraSweet had replaced Saccharine as the artificial sweetener and when Page assured me it tasted really good, I jumped on her band wagon. Through out the yea...

Oatmeal is one of my favorite things. I love it in the winter on a cold day. I love it cold from the fridge on a hot day. Thankfully 3/4 family members agree with me. Although The Husband is a fair weathered supporter, he would select eggs, hash brown potatoes, sausage, and toast every day if he could. I am trying to eat more steel cut oats instead of the old fashioned variety. Why? Steel cut oats have been processed way less than old fashioned  oatmeal (even more true for instant oatmeal). Less processing means more nutritional value. More nutritional value means better for you. Additional bonus, discount grocery store, Aldi, now carries steel cut oatmeal. The only down side, steel cut oatmeal takes longer to cook. Which means I can't just make a bowl and run off to work, unless I do some advance preparation. One of the little known facts about myself, the person everyone thinks about being a great planner, is that I actually do very little advanced planning when it com...

This is a very personal post for me. I have been trying to put words to feelings for a few weeks now. Every day I log into this blog I see this post, unfinished just sitting in collection. Some of these things are hard to state much less open myself up to judgement of others. Growth does not always come easy or without bumps and bruises, right. So, here I go. Being as authentic as I can be. I have found that my personal life often effects my professional life and vise versa. This is one of those times. Understanding trauma and it's effect on people has become a major trend in my line of work. {Probably a long overdue need but that is a whole other rant.} The Adverse Childhood Experience study was a large piece of research that was conducted some years ago. It linked childhood trauma to adverse medical conditions in adults; from obesity to diabetes; from substance abuse to heart disease. I recently took the ACE Study Questionnaire , ten questions each worth one point. My ACE scor...

Some time ago, I told you all that at the beginning of the school year, The Boy decided to pledge a fraternity.    The pledging process has been both a struggle and a blessing this semester. As a mom I have worried for hours concerned about his living situation, grades, partying, hazing, money and a rather large host of other things. From his perspective he has made some good friends and had a lot of support during this transition to college. After a month home for Christmas break, The Boy returned back to college a week or so early so he could participate in Hell Week with his faternity. Never having been involved in Greek Life when I went to school, I am not sure exactly what Hell Week entails.  As a Mom, it does not sound like a thing you want your children participating in. Before he left I gave him my best Mom speech:  "Son, you know I was a GDI (Gosh Darn Independent) in college and it worked well for me."  "Son, you know you do not have to do a...

I grew up in  a family with really good cooks; my momma, both of my grandmothers, my aunts, even my daddy. Their food may not have been the healthiest but it was always yummy!   Growing up my Momma made homemade bread every single week. I can still recall her large ceramic crock barely containing the white sticky dough expanding as it rose. I half expected it to explode all over the house like a balloon would do if pushed passed its capacity.  Momma would always cover the dough with a dishtowel and often the bread rose so far that there was a gap between the towel and the top of the crock. Occasionally as Momma prepared the dough for the oven, she would pinch off small pieces and fry it for us. It was my favorite!  When she called us into the house to present the fried bread, my brother and I knew we were in for a treat! She fried those small pieces of dough in butter and served it with jam or honey. Every single bite  was a mouthful of buttery soft bre...

Christmas has come and gone. It is now one for the memory books. The question remains, was it a good Christmas or something else?  It strikes me as how some Christmases have just the right chemistry and naturally come together and linger in our memories as great Christmases. Other Christmases fall short of that threshold. They were not necessarily bad but they were not great either. This later category is the Christmas we had this year. It is hard to put your finger on exactly why we categorize it in this matter. I can say  this Christmas had two themes: first, the moment your children grow up and lose their innocence can almost be marked on a calendar; and second: no matter how old your children get, sharing custody is one of the hardest things a parent can do. The holidays only intensifies this. The Boy arrived home from college on a Friday, one week before Christmas. He left five days later to spend Christmas with his dad. Historically, when he has spent Christmas wi...