Humble Pie

It's a rather somber day here in Minnesota... well maybe for me it is. I watched the news for most of the night last night, after hearing about the collapse of the I-35W bridge. The situation merited text messages and phone calls and e-mails from many different loved ones. Me checking on them, them checking on me. My heart is heavy for so many reasons. First of all I feel the sadness of the those who have lost their lives, the families, the after-shock that comes with such tragedies. I think of all the kind people who helped each other out, Good Samaritans, if you will. I pray for the people that have still not been found. It is a sad time. My heart is also heavy because just that day I was having a mini-meltdown about the seemingly trivial crap in my life. Though I am not one to discredit individual pain, I do however, think in this situation, I can be such a baby sometimes! Crying out to God for relief of my own pain and hurts, yet all around me there are pains and losses and tragedies that are far bigger than my own. I don't know, if anything it is humbling.

On a lighter note, I made a Banana Creme Pie last night... I wasn't sure what to name it.
And on a not so light note I am reading a book called, "The Other Victims, first person stories of Non-Jews persecuted by the Nazis." by Ina R. Friedman.
I will talk more about it later, but lets just say it's not a light summer read.

Peace and blessings. Jehovah-Shammah.

Little Blessings

There is an article today in the Mpls Star Tribune, about Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep, a volunteer photographer group that takes pictures of babies that have short lives. The article features my friends Chris & Heather Lee and their beautiful daughter Lainey Rose. You can read more about Lainey at the link "LRL" under my VIP's links. If you have a chance read the article from the Strib and please remember to keep the Lee family in your prayers!

http://www.startribune.com/332/story/1332895.html

She's Back!

Here I am. Back at work. It wasn't so bad going back. Although it was hard going to bed so early and getting up at 6:00am! I've been spoiled with being able to go to bed at 1:30am and getting up around 9:30am... but I am a highly adaptable species. There are piles and piles of magazines that need to be bar coded, and once that is done, I can read them! I am trying to be optimistic and thankful for all that I have. Because when I look at my life, I am blessed. So even though this isn't one of my most favorite jobs, I am blessed with work...
Oh and the pie I made yesterday, turned out lovely and tasted wonderful. I brought over a few pieces to Kyle & Kelly's for one last hurrah with the cool kids. Kelly gave me a really nice cookbook, filled with recipes that I used to make when I worked in the Kitchen in NH! I'm so excited!
Tonight I am going to make a banana cream pie... and then I am going to watch Rescue Me. For all my faithful readers, you know where i live, drop by for pie, you are always welcome in my home.

"Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get."

Pie!

I'm kind of a nerd, because when i am stressed or anxious, I find that baking\cooking is really relaxing. I had these lovely mixed berries in my fridge just waiting to be made into something delightful. So I made a pie. If you have seen the movie "Waitress" with Kerri Russell, she makes pies and gives them really funny names. I am calling this pie:

"Mixed Feelings About Going Back to Work, Mixed Berry Pie"

Back to work=puke!

This is my last day of freedom. I have to go back to work tomorrow. Someone please say a prayer for me! Help! Well my July was great! Fun, friends, food, fires! Loved it all! Not so happy about going back to work. I think I am destined to make food for a living, I can't escape this intense desire to work in a kitchen. Maybe? Maybe!

Crazy Cousin Cabin weekend

This was the weekend for memories... Kelly, Kyle, Erin and I headed up to Hickory Lake early Saturday morning. Kelly's dad has a cabin there, along with his wife's family. As soon as we got to the lake we quickly unloaded our stuff and headed out to the lake. We all swam for awhile and us girls wore our trucker hats. Kyle referred to us as "trailer trash mermaids". Later, both Kyle and Kelly tried water skiing for the first time! Kyle even made it around the lake a few times! After skiing, the cousins took the boat out for a little tubing excursion. The tubing part was fun, but the best part was trying to get into the tube. We all had our various methods of getting in, which mostly entailed all of us at one point falling off the tube before we even started moving! The second best part was trying to get back into the boat. This was no easy task and we all on various parts of our body got pretty beat up! It was painful but very humorous, kinda like life is in general. Needless to say, we still had a blast! Sunday we got up early for some fishin'... Kelly's dad really cleaned up, and Kyle didn't do so bad either bringing in the slabs, but Kelly, Erin and I didn't fare so well. But it was a beautiful morning to be out on the boat! It's been awhile since I've been fishing for sunfish, and it brought back lots of memories of fishing from the dock as little girls at our grandparent's home on Granite Lake! Later that night we made this awesome fish dinner with our freshly caught sunnies. I threw together some tomatoes, shallots and parsley with some olive oil and baked the fish over lemons. It was soooo good! There was not a bite left!

We also decided to stay another night, and enjoy the peacefulness of the lake. Monday morning we packed up and headed out... What a great family memory weekend! I'm so lucky to have such fun, wonderful and crazy cousins!

Magic Bullet Party '07

The Magic Bullet party was a hit! Jaime, Shannon and Cindy came over, along with Cindy's friends Mike & Brian. We had a great time chillin' outside enjoy the beautiful weather. I found a bunch of old pictures from high school and we had some great laughs because of them. I even dug up a picture of Jaime and I at my 2nd grade birthday party! I looked like Dorthy Hamel on pixie stick crack, Jaime of course, looked as cute as she always does! Eventually we brought the party inside and made some delicious snacks with the Magic Bullet. And although we didn't completely re-inact the MB commercial, we did have a lots of fun making the food! Besides the MB snacks, as promised I made yummy Peanut Butter Brownies and Thai Chicken Pizza that everyone enjoyed! Fun times! We will now have to make this an annual event!