A day to say you are loved

 

Mothers Day. . . 

 

. . . A day to say Thank You

 

and to celebrate those who have made a 

 difference in your life . . . 

 

Beautiful Flowers. . .

. . . receiving these always warms my heart!

. . . anytime of the year

In primary we helped the children make a little gift for mom

Pancakes with fresh strawberries drizzled with "Liquid From Heaven" for lunch. . . 

. . . does it get much better than this????

. . . absolutely & simply delish

the weather outside is perfection, so we ate outside

a perfect day

smiles

hugs

Mothers Day

I hope you had a wonderful day too!

.

uh-oh. . . that wasn’t good!

I have gotten dreadfully behind on posting, that isn’t so good!  I have four posts I need to do and will combine two of them here today.

I went for a ride with the Joyride group, on our WNR (Wednesday Night Ride), I enjoy riding with them because

1. first:  it’s much more fun to ride with others, they entertain with conversation
2. Second: they motivate me to push MUCH harder than I push myself when I’m not with them
3. Third: even though you are dying they provide moral support, so I keep going!
4. Fourth: When you do something stupid, they are there to care and make sure you are going to be okay. 

This is exactly what happened two weeks ago!

These are railroad tracks. . . 

. . . not very nice ones!

On a bicycle it’s important to go over railroad tracks correctly, or they will eat your bike!  And because you are on your bike you feel the full effects of such things!

the red line indicates the correct way to go over tracks. . . straight across at a 90° angle, if you go over the tracks following the road you will do what I did. . . crash   I was riding with a group on the inside edge (blue line) being too close to the edge and a cyclist right next to me (yellow squiggly line) I just didn’t have enough space to get the angle I needed.  I made it over the first rail just fine but then the second one. . .

well, not much to say here. . . 

. . . except that I ended up in a heap. 

Just for the record. . . I look forward to all the instant replays when I get to heaven. . . at least I hope there are tapes of stuff like this!  how disappointing if they don’t. . .




because of my poor angle my tire caught the sunken earth and the track ate my tire dumping me to the ground. . .

and now. . .  I feel like the club klutz

you know that feeling you have when you flag

someone down to say Hello,

and realize it’s a complete stranger. . . 

that’s how I felt today. . . 

except these guys all know who I am, 

and some of them know me when I’m NOT wearing sunglasses and spandex. . . 

there’s no escape. . . .

we were only into our ride by approximately 7-8 miles

How embarrassing . . .


 

I mean seriously, I know how to ride a bike!  

knee & leg	elbow	fancy bruise! In full color

Once I got home I was able to assess the damage a little more clearly.  This fabulous bruise is the end result AFTER two weeks!   from the shape and location I think I landed right on the track. . .

. . . It still hurts

The group was very concerned and made sure I was okay before moving on, a couple of them even offered to ride back to town with me.  While my wounds stung, and they hurt, it didn’t impede my ability to ride, so on we went

Corky (one of our group) recommended I soak in Epsom Salts. . . 

so I did. . .

This stuff is like magic miracle soothing potion stuff

My little soak in the tub with these salts was perfect, I could feel it soothing and healing as I just soaked. . . and soaked . . . and soaked. . . until the water cooled down and I looked like a grape that had been dehydrating too long

. . . mmmmm thinking about this makes me want to do it again

it was awesome

Thanks Corky!

Then on the following Tuesday I finally completed a couple of LONG overdue projects!

Remember in February how I stripped the wallpaper off of the kitchen wall and left it looking kind of ugly?

well, kind of ugly doesn’t quite do it justice. . . 

. . . it was flat out bad ugly!

So I rounded up the paint and all the paint supplies and busied myself in painting.

Looking much better if I don’t say so myself

fresh, clean, beautiful!

I also decided to tackle the front door and get it painted!  After removing the door I put it on the saw horses and painted it all pretty.

All was going exceptionally well until. . .

The neighbors cat came to visit and wanted to explore the inside of our house!

I decided that wasn’t going to work for a couple of reasons. . .

1. Oscar HATES cats
2. I don’t like cats either
3. I HATE hair and this cat was visibly shedding as it was trying to get into the house.

I shooed him away with the broom. . . he didn’t like my sweeping the front porch off.  I thought we were in the clear but then he came back.  Fortunately I had used a Latex based paint on the door so it was dry enough to replace it.  I carried it in the house and propped it up in front of the doorway to help deter the cat while I went to close the garage, because I didn’t want him in there either. 

While I was working on closing said garage I heard a big crash it was one of those sounds that reverberates disaster!

and thought uh-oh. . .

. . . that wasn’t good!

. . . I was absolutely correct on that thought!  

I had a gallon of primer sitting on this little table with newspaper under it.  A breeze must have caught the door and caused it to slam down on to said table knocking off the photo album and paint can creating a delightfully HUGE mess!

At least it was only 1 album, count your blessings where you can!

The big dilemma was where to begin with the clean up?

I initially decided to begin with pictures

Taking them to the kitchen, looking more closely, I realized that the plastic covers had absorbed 95% of the damage, and that the pictures were for the large part in good shape . . .

I decided they could wait until after I got the wall and floor cleaned up 

before the primer began to dry. . . 

So I tackled the spill next . . .

After over 2 1/2 hours of clean up efforts, it’s difficult to tell that 3/4 gallon of primer had been spilled here in this exact spot!

Now I have two nice scars on the interior of my door. . .

The memory will live on forever. . .

Dumb Cat!

In the end I have decided that the exterior door is tooooo yellow so I will need to re-do it. . .

okay, "need" might be a little strong

but I most certainly WANT to re-do it. . . 

I don't much care for the color, I mean . . . it's simply too yellow!

but that will be a project for another day.

I’m glad you stopped in to share in my journey today . . .

I'm always glad you stopped in!

.

shhhh. . . Baby Sleeping

Let me introduce you to our Little Oreo!

If you have ever wondered what I might look like at 3 AM, well, here you have it!

Our little Oreo arrived at 9:47 PM, Sunday, April 1

weighing in at 7 lbs. 8 oz.

we received the call at 11 PM that evening that he had arrived and of course we went to say hello!

Hello, little one. . . we are so excited you are finally here

The daughter didn’t do too well and kept fainting/passing out so they transported her to the hospital.  We all met at the hospital and arrived at the same time as the businessman, which was actually pretty cool.

Because they opted to deliver at a Birthing Center when they transported the daughter, they sent baby Oreo with dad and when we all arrived, including the businessman's family we took care of baby for the three hours that they were stabilizing mom.

we simply took turns holding our little bundle and 

enjoyed every nano second of the experience.  

The Other Grandma and Aunt

Uncle Genius

Uncle Musician

We even let dad have a turn. . . we were so nice!

It takes a few days for babies to get their color,

that first day he was just as pink as any baby. . .

Baby Oreo 4 days old

7 days old

just a tiny resemblance. . .

precious moments napping

Family Forever!

 I went to help the new adjusting parents for a few days.  I left the following Sunday, but missed Church, so I decided to stop at Temple Square on my way home that afternoon, to take a moment to ponder and reflect on the events of the past week

words just can't describe the feelings.

 beautiful, peaceful, amazing

I couldn’t help but enjoy the beautiful day and took a couple snapshots of the scenery as a feeble attempt to capture all that was in my heart.

I finally had to leave.  I was VERY tired and wanted/needed bed

Someone asked me how it feels to be a grandma. . .

I don’t feel like a grandma

I don’t look like a grandma

I certainly don’t act like a grandma

but. . . 

being a grandma is an awesome place to be!

although, I have forgotten how much these little tykes DON'T sleep!

What a wonderful time

.

Sometimes life is beautiful

Especially when a friend tells you that you are special

There hasn’t been much going on this week, so I decided to keep life simple.

The weather has been wonderful and so finally I’ve been able to ride outside again

then this weekend was General Conference. . .

oh, how I LOVE listening to conference, it gives such a boost to life.

We are expecting a baby any day. . .

. . . Now that is exciting

work has been busy

The week before last, I was in Salt Lake for an entire week for training, 

which kept me VERY busy and occupied. . .

. . . I thoroughly enjoyed every moment

The City Creek Shopping Center opened while we were there and we went to take a peek,

Visiting was worth the trip, what an amazing place, it was fun!

here’s a very small sampling of what we found there:

For those who remember the ZCMI Center and Crossroads Mall, 

well, they have now been joined to create City Creek

What an amazing place!

I’m not much of the shopper type

but I enjoyed my time watching people have a good time!

The dancing fountain. . . looks like fun

The girl in the dress was having the time of her life!

and just browsing around 

a live mannequin. . . if you touch her she moves. . . for real!

A dress display, made entirely out of packaging ribbon

the kind you would use to make a bow for a birthday package. . .

. . . amazingly cool!

a cool window display

Tiffany’s. . . this display is for one little ring

across the way was the Rolex store, a single watch was listed for $8550.00!

I’m not sure why I didn’t snap a picture of that. . . .

We just found this entertaining!  

our group determined that this was a reporter or something like that and she was trying to see if her hair was doing what she wanted it to do. . . 

she would take a picture of herself show it to the camera dude and then try again, we watched this little action for 4 different attempts. . . kind of funny

.

Chicken Salad

Whenever I make this salad for a party, picnic, BBQ, or other event, I am almost always asked for the recipe.  It’s kind of light for a chicken salad, and doesn’t have grapes!  

If you like grapes, then add them, but I think grapes are weird in chicken salad.  I have added halved cherry/grape tomatoes before but I prefer the tiny crunch of a sweet red bell pepper

Red bell peppers are one of my favorite foods, I slice them up and eat them like candy

yuuummmm!

someone could offer me a snickers bar or a few red bell pepper slices, I’ll take the pepper hands down.  Of course Ice cream would always come out on top of a pepper, but ice-cream is in it’s own elevated class of goodness.

but I digress, on with salad. . .

This salad is super simple and easy: to make life easy I first purchase a roasted chicken. 

My preference is the lemon pepper, but you can use whichever one tastes best to you.

You can roast/cook your own, by this method you could choose to just use chicken breast if you like.  Which ever method you select.You will need to end up with approx 3-4 cups shredded chicken, 

Now, debone your chicken, and cut/shred it into bite size pieces, that are best suited to what you are serving the salad on. this is too chunky, I didn’t get a picture of the final product, just make it work for you. 

(sorry, if you want or need a picture, leave a comment and I will redo the picture)

I love using croissants, but you can use whatever bread you like!  This salad is perfect for crackers, kind of like a dip, just cut your chicken finer/smaller, it also is nice for baguettes or artisan style bread.  

Note: this is most easily done while your chicken is still warm.  It just doesn’t quite come off the bones the same, or shred as easily when it’s cold.  So even if you are planning to do your salad two days later, shred your chicken as soon as you bring it home, then place it in the fridge until you assemble your salad. 

clean up your workspace.  I try to get all my meat stuff done and cleaned up before moving onto the next phase, that way I don’t need to worry about contaminating my fresh veggies or workspace later.

If you talk to anyone who has gotten sick from salmonella poisoning, they all say they would rather have died, apparently it’s pretty horrible!  I never want to risk giving that to someone so I always just clean and sterilize after working with meat.

so now that we have that covered, chop up your vegetables:

okay, I realize that lemon isn’t considered a vegetable, but you don’t chop it up either, you will zest it and squeeze it.



remove the stem, wash out the seeds and then . . .

. . . dice it up

you only need 1/2 pepper, so just eat the other half, that’s what I do!

Next up:  onions

This is the step I was on when I chopped off my thumb last Saturday, I’ve cut onions like this multiple times, more than I can count, and have been fine, just don’t be thinking about a hundred things and being distracted and not focusing on where your knife is in relation to your digits.

anyway, back to chicken salad and cutting up green onions. . .

slice them lengthwise, kind of like you would a carrot or stick of celery.  Slice each onion 2-3 times depending on the thickness of the onion.




then on a sharp diagonal, slice them.

then without rearranging your cutting art, take your knife and turn it, 

 slicing through them at a 90° angle.

and you have shredded onion that gives off wonderful flavor that is evenly distributed throughout your salad, without getting an oversized chunk of onion.  

This method means you don’t need as many onions for the same flavorful results.

now cut up the celery, just normal little chunks here, nothing tricky or special.

put all your vegetables in a mixing bowl,




add the sour cream,

mayo,

mustard,

dill,

parsley,

lemon zest,

lemon juice. . . .

I didn’t measure the mustard, just squirt some in. . .

Stir it all together, cover and refrigerate, If you have given yourself enough time to let it rest for a bit, the flavors blend and are so yummy, but it is pretty tasty right after you mix it up too.

Spoon the salad on the roll of your choice,

Garnish with a slice of tomato and avocado with some fresh baby spinach.  Let your imagination run, and enjoy your chicken salad sandwich or appetizers.

click here for the recipe

As always, thanks for stopping in and sharing a portion of your day with me

. . . oh, and have a great week

.