Sweet

My dad and step mother are so sweet. They called to ask us what colors we would like the apartment they are building us. So I went online and picked some neutral greens and blues. They are just so good and sweet to us.

The heat finally broke and I can breath again! Whew, it was getting unbearable. Today has been cloudy, cool and loverly.

Temperatures Rising

Had a good meeting this morning. And as usual we had a visiting speaker. He was really good. However, I don't remember the last local brother who gave a talk, it's been a long time.

It was quite a rush getting out of the house for meeting. And we were actually early! And even had a parking in the parking lot! Then, we got a phone call that Lela wasn't ready for meeting and we had to wait and come back and get her. She spends the night with grandma and grandma some Saturday nights. So we went and got her and of course lost our parking spot, and were a little late.

We found our Watchtowers that had disappeared. But, I had studied the printed ones from the site. And wouldn't you know, I forgot my studied one at home! Oh well. It was still a great study. I really like the illustration of Holy Spirit being like sunlight. It got me to thinking if it is like sunlight, we for sure need to be careful not to block it. I used to have a great big beautiful hot pink poppy. It's blooms were bigger then dinner plates. People would literally pull their cars over and get out to come and look at it. And didn't believe it was real. It was huge and the brightest most beautiful pink you ever saw. One spring came and I was looking for my poppy, and I seen some one had put a box on top of it! It was in a great big English style garden so I hadn't noticed the box behind the big astro lilies, and other tall flowers. My poppy had died from the lack of sunlight under the box, and never came back to life. You know, there is things we can do to block the holy spirit as well, and our spirituality could suffer and die just like my beautiful poppy. Something to really meditate on, and make sure I'm doing all I can to let the sun shine in!

In other news, I'll be glad when the building management decides we can have AC for the season. Probably won't happen till July, but I'm sweltering up in here already. The small AC we bought needs a new filter and isn't cooling the bedroom. Whew living on the 12th floor with heat rising can really be torturous. We have to see about replacing that filter ASAP!

Lela's trying to read to the cat, and the cat's not really into it to much. *sigh* Poor cat.

Prairie Girl Thoughts

Outside my window...a beautiful clear view of JFK airport.

I am thinking...I'm so glad I am studied for tomorrow.

I am thankful for...having two beautiful and healthy children.

I am remembering...wonderful days riding ponies at the park.

I am hoping...to get Belle weaned off the bottle and completely nursing, so I don't have to continue to pump.

I am creating...a bread and butter kids kitchen towel.

On my mind...how happy I am with my two children.

Noticing that...it is getting very close to our moving date.

From the kitchen...grilled chicken, and cous cous with toasted pine nuts and raisins.

One of my favorite things...embroidering, and enjoying the finished product.

Booties

Boy was it hot and humid today! I am glad a storm finally came and broke up the heat a bit. I'm still sweating my fanny off. But, it feels a little more bearable now at least.

I got a lot of the "butter" done on my kitchen towel, and started on the bread. Should be done quickly, it's really a quick project. I got to thinking and decided I would embroider a few of Belle's Bibs that she already has that are plain and were pretty inexpensive, should cuten them up a notch! I would like to add some flannel to the back of them for more absorption too, but that'll be another project another day. However, I am seriously thinking about making her some felt lamb booties. Gonna dig out my pattern and check it out a bit. I think they would be too cute for the meeting. My mom had a pattern a long time ago that only took some ribbon and lace doilies and it was all in the way you folded the doilies, there was absolutely no sewing to it! Just lacing the ribbon correctly through the folded doily. I wish I had that pattern cause it made super cute booties.

Went to Target and got more coffee, ok I think I'm really addicted! haha When it goes on sale, I'm going to try the orange flavor, as I really love chocolate and orange together and am wondering if that is what it will taste like. I really wish I could find the sugar free chia one though, as chia is a big time favorite of mine. I just love spices! So really am looking forward to giving it a try. Oh and the pumpkin spice one too! But, I bet it's only out in the fall. I'm hoping it's as good as Fireside Coffee's pumpkin spice, cause it's about half the price! And my sister Amber and I both love pumpkin spice anything!

Kitchen Towels

I finished Sally Strawberry and am on to the Bread and Butter towel. I started on the stick of butter, it should only take me a few days to finish. I found a pair of pillow cases to embroider, but to pick a pattern, decisions, decisions! Maybe, Ma and Pa? Or birds? Or women with flowers? I just don't know. I wish I had green ones though blue doesn't really match anything of mine. I may just have to go out and buy some green ones! And do the blue ones for Vince's parents, I don't know. I also want to make my sister another pair as I haven't made her any in a while. Again decisions, decisions! I need to go to Walmart and buy more towels for future projects as well. I love the cherry pie towel I did last year, but the dumb washers down stairs spit stains on it. The yucky yellow ones that gets spit on all our clothes and never comes out. I would sure like to know what it is in those washers that does that to our clothes, it's so gross! I would also like to get a bed pillow so I can prop up in bed like this bear, and stitch in bed!

I can't believe how cold it is for May. It's actually snowing in some parts of the USA! I believe in South Dakota, or something like that. I love snow, wish it was snowing here. I'm sure glad it's not hot, I hate the heat.

Made garlic and white wine chicken, with cous cous with toasted pine nuts and raisins on the side, and lots of pina colada sauce on top of it all. Was a yummy dinner. I need to start planning some meals soon though. Hmm, I'm thinking meatloaf. It's a lot harder to plan meals these days though with out the Healthy Exchanges website search engine. *sigh*

My JoAnna Lund Spice booklet arrived! So happy about that. I need to take the time to get it out and read it over. I can't wait! I've been wanting those recipes forever. A friend had copied and sent them to me, and I did look over them when she did that. But, still I like having a hard copy more so. And will re-read the hard copy.

Porpillas!

Worked on Sally Strawberry again today. Almost done! I'll be able to finish either tonight or tomorrow. This time I remembered to log the thread colors I used for it. I was just looking at my Pear I made last year and really love the color choices, wish I had wrote them down so I could do it again. And then I rearranged my sewing drawers a little bit. In my dream home, I'll have permanent drawers built into the wall for all my threads, material, and notions. I want drawers or cabinets from ceiling to floor all on one inside wall of my bedroom. I seen on a documentary once that is how they do it in Sweden, or Iceland or some where like that. It looks so much nicer and organized, and clean! I can't wait till I can make that dream come true. I'm hoping next fall I can teach my niece, Casey, how to embroider too, and maybe Lela too.

Made tacos today. I love Mayan Farms low carb tortillas, they are huge, but also thin and a little buttery. I hate thick doughy tortillas. Lela is so funny, she always calls them porpillas! lol haha She also calls cous cous, pous pous! haha Hmm, she must like p's.

Nursling Joys

I just love nursing Belle. I never could get Lela to latch and was so sad about it, even though I did pump milk for her for 2 1/2 years. So she could get the benefits of breast milk any way. Belle is a joy to nurse. And now that she is getting older and bigger, she sometimes stops, and with milk all around her mouth looks up at me with a great big toothless grin. It's too cute! Who couldn't love that?!?! That grin just melts my heart every time, and a feeling of never wanting to let her go or put her down sweeps over me. I love being a mommy!

Here Comes the Sun

The sun came out today, it was still a tad windy though.

We ended up taking Lela to the Broadway Mall to play at Ikea, and eat meatballs and roasted potatoes. I was a little disappointed they changed from Pepsi products to Coke. oh well. Lela had fun. She loves playing with their toys. This time she was having a ball playing with their puppets. And we ended up getting Belle a cute plush rattle, on sale for 1.99, a giraffe driving a strawberry. It's so cute, Lela is having a hard time not taking it over though.

Then we went to turn in her summer reading log to get a free book from Borders. But, Borders had been closed down! It is so sad, seems we get less and less book stores. And Lela just loves books, and I just love book stores. It's so sad we are getting so few of them any more. I really hated losing the small local book stores we had when I was growing up. And now we're even losing the big box ones. I guess they are becoming obsolete. What a sad time we live in.

So we ended up going over to Target to get a few groceries, including another can of that instant latte. This time I got the Caramel flavored one. Only 60 calories, I think it will save me many pounds gained, as I really love that new 500 calorie Caramel Frappacino at Mc Donald's. This taste almost exactly like that, for a fraction of the calories!

I wore Belle in my new Baby Hawk, and every one oohed and awed over her. I must admit she is a pretty cute papoose!

I went back through my OTR (Old Time Radio) CDs, and found I had The Couple Next Door already. So we took that with us to listen to in the car. Boy is that one funny series! Vince, Lela and I just laugh our heads off. I'm so glad we can still have some family friendly wholesome entertainment this day and age. Especially the kind the whole family can enjoy. I'm going to download a bunch of Blondie and Dagwood and make us a CD of that for the car next, and of course the Bickerson's! One of our favorite comedy series. I'm thinking about introducing Lela to the Lone Ranger next. She really likes OTR Superman.

Then Vince dropped us girls off at home, while he went into after care for a rash he has. They just gave him some medication but didn't tell him what he had or anything. hmmm. I think it may be eczema, but I don't know, grandpa has shingles. So who knows.

Some how we lost our Watchtowers, and didn't realize it till yesterday at the meeting when going to get them out of the bag. So I ended up printing us new copies from the site. Boy did my printer print them weird, 4 pages per a page, and then when you turn over the page, it printed the next upside down on the other side. Hmm. Odd, but hey didn't take much paper to do it that way! So, we're studied up for next week now, as long as these copies don't mysteriously disappear too.

Gonna have to practice, practice, practice the songs this week. Yesterday was caught off guard by a hard one!

House Party

We went to Vince's cousin, Karen's, house warming party yesterday. She has moved to New Jersey. It was a really nice party. A lot of people showed up and we had fun talking and eating, and just getting to see family for a while. It was the first time most of them got to see Belle, so of course every one was excited about that. She was really appreciative of all the gifts she received, and every one seemed to of brought gifts.

On the way home we stopped by our favorite Pathmark on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn to get a few groceries and there was some man yelling and screaming at the front threatening the staff. The manager and the police had to take care of it. I tried to stay at the back of the store till that was over! Thankfully it ended with no one hurt.

Had meeting this morning and as usual it was a good one! We've been having a lot of visiting speakers for Sunday though. In fact, I can't remember when the last time we had a brother from our congregation give the talk. Boy was the opening song to the Watchtower this morning a hard one! Will have to practice that one a whole lot more! Thankfully the closing song was a old favorite and much easier.

Boy had it gotten cold, last Sunday at the meeting I was sweltering, and both Belle and I was sweating to death. And Vince's soda exploded from the heat in the car. This week it's frigid! And windy, whoa boy it's been windy!

We had Popeye's for lunch. Then we took Belle to see Vince's grandparents. They just loved seeing her. Lela goes over there every weekend, but this was Belle's first visit to Brooklyn. Had a nice time visiting with grandma and grandpa. But, poor Grandpa has the Shingles. On the other hand, grandma is doing really well getting around since her leg was amputated. She's such a trooper. She was telling me she is excited about going in to learn how to use a prosthetic leg. I hope they can fit her well and she will have the strength to do that. Cause she's sick of the wheel chair and the walker. I'll be praying that the prosthetic will work out for her. As strong as I am, I don't know if I would be taking all this in stride as well as she has. And I sure don't know how willing I would be to learn to walk again with a prosthetic at her age! She's pretty inspiring, and I admire her greatly for that.

I think I'll end my day with some more of that Vanilla Bean Latte, it's soooo good!

On Target

I finished my egg-one down, two to go towel! And started Sally Strawberry. The egg design came out cute, and Sally is really shaping up.

We are about out of food at home, so we went to Panera Bread. They have a limited time new sandwich, and I splurged. It was a lobster salad sandwich, which was pretty expensive, but I got it on the pick two. I had it with a large bowl of their new soup that came out a few months ago and quickly became my favorite, Vegetable Pesto. It was a really yummy splurge dinner. The lobster was huge, and not a lot of mayo. Very good. I did have it on the asiago bread though by request instead of the bread it was supposed to come on.

Then we went to Target and purchased Vincent's cousin, Karen, her house warming gift from her registry. I had never bought from a registry before. Surprisingly nice Target had it set up pretty well. Glad I doubled checked the registry when I got there though. As we were going to buy the waffle iron, but when we doubled checked, it had been bought by some one else, the registry said. So we bought our third choice gift, as our second choice, a toaster oven, was only available online. However, the registry had a isle listed that didn't even exist as to where the item was located. Thankfully, with a little searching, and determination Vince found it, and we were able to buy it for her. I'm quite sure it will be a useful gift, or at least I hope so. It was at a decent price as well.

Target had instant latte on sale, even the sugar free version. Which I had bought a long time ago. And then they had discontinued the sugar free line for a while, but I guess they brought it back. Last fall I had bought the pumpkin pie spice coffee flavoring from Dunkin Donuts. So when I got home I mixed the pumpkin pie spice syrup with the Vanilla Bean instant Latte mix from Target. And mmmmm, it was delicious! That will save me some money on latte's from Dunkin Donuts for a while! I think I'll go in the kitchen and make another!