Oh my friends, what a crazy past two days it's been.

Let me start by telling you about yesterday and my physical therapy appointment.  I went in there not knowing what to expect or what was going to happen.  My doctor was extremely nice, attentive and really went out of his way to figure out what is wrong with my shoulder and the best course of action.

The diagnosis is Rotator Cuff Tendonities, also have Impingement with my Scapula muscle and a pinched radial nerve....all on the right side, so right shoulder, right chest/breast area and right arm.

He did a Dry Needle treatment on two of the muscles, and it did feel really good afterward but I'm a bit swollen today and quite sore.  I've kept it iced like he told me too, but it's still quite painful.

Good morning everyone, come on in and sit with me a bit.

Can you believe that we are right at the end of January?  This is our last Happy Homemaker Monday for this month, so crazy.

I had a pretty good weekend, we went out to lunch on Saturday with my brother, sister in law and nephew, and then headed to the mall for a bit of a walk around.  Found a new store called Citi Trends with super cheap clothes, accessories, shoes etc.  Of course the men were not interested in shopping around so the girls got rushed.  We've decided we will have to go back just us girls for a good walk around.

Yesterday we didn't really do anything, just relaxed, watched Blue Planet and a couple other shows on Amazon Prime, and I got my laundry done.

And just like that, we're back on Monday, so let's get right on to our Happy Homemaker Monday and see what is up ahead for this week.  

If I were to pick a favorite time of day, I would have to pick sunrise or sunset, merely for the magical hue it places on everything in sight.

A few days ago, the sunrise was especially beautiful, a deep orange and red splayed out across the clouds in the sky and turning all the branches on the trees, a beautiful burnt orange color.  Just gorgeous :)

Good morning friends, hope you've all had a good weekend.

I had a quiet, uneventful and even at times, slightly boring weekend.  I don't often get the chance to feel bored, so when I do it's quite a weird feeling and I don't really know what to do with myself hahaha

It's a good thing though, I think we all need a chance to just sit, be bored and do absolutely nothing, helps replenish the soul :)

I have to start by thanking every single one of you, who left a comment, offered words of advice, let me know I wasn't going through this alone, and gave me hope that there IS an end in sight.  Actually a very easy end in sight, if only my anxiety and brain would cooperate.

But I'm trying very and I mean VERY hard to beat this negative way of thinking and to get back to the happy, go lucky, go with the flow and whatever happens happens, Sandra.

So again, thank you, you all made me feel so much better.

I do think, and actually have suspected for a while that I may be in Perimenopause.  Many of the symptoms are things I'm dealing with, I just didn't know that anxiety, and this crazy paranoia was one of them.  Good grief.

Anyway, I thought I would share with you a little of my day before going to sleep.  I need to do it quite quickly as I'm drinking some hot milk with whiskey to knock out whatever is lingering around my son and I.  He has a sore throat and sore body/weakness, I don't have a sore throat but around 10am it hit me out of nowhere and my body is really achy.  I started meds right away and felt great for 5 hours but it came back again, so I've taken more cold meds and now I'm doing my grandpa's trusty hot milk and whiskey.  I'll be sweating like a pig here in a few but it will be worth it......only thing is, I've been having night sweats for about a month, so yeah didn't need more LOL

I've finished a few devotionals on my Bible app and picked up a few more.  It has been amazing to start feeling that shift in my way of thinking and the closeness to God.  There's something beautiful about the moment you start letting go.  I'm nowhere near where I want to be, but definitely moving in the right direction.  Every day is a struggle with my mind.

 

About You Don’t Look Adopted

Paperback: 164 pages
Publisher: Running Water Press (February 5, 2017)
When you take away the habits of your life, you get to the question of Who am I? And if you sit with that, you get to the question of How far am I willing to go to find the answers? If you are Anne Heffron, someone who had no idea where she was the first ten weeks of her life, you’ll give away almost everything you own, pack what’s left, and head for the city of your birth on a voyage you call Write or Die with the pledge you won’t go home until you find what’s real about yourself.

I've been debating sharing this post with you all.  Let's just say that I've thought about it, started to type it, deleted it and forgot about it.  Then thought about it again and talked myself out of it.

There's this thing with being human, and that is that we feel we have to portray ourselves as something stronger than we are, we are afraid to be vulnerable, to show emotion, to show weakness or to ask for help.

We don't want anyone looking at us with pity or thinking any less.  Problem is, all those thoughts are usually what we tell ourselves to stay in that bubble.

Over the last 12 years of sharing on my blog, I like to think that I've always been pretty open about who I truly am, and I've shared quite a lot of my life, my struggles and thoughts and have tried to always be as truthful and honest as I can. But there's a little part of me that has held back, and that is the part that I am going to lay out today.

Good morning everyone, how was your weekend?  Can you believe that we're about halfway through January already? 

Goodness.

I've just sat down with a cup of coffee and my rice and lavender heating pad. I desperately need a good pillow because the ones I have are not working and just making me more sore. If you have any suggestions of a good neck and shoulder pillow, please do let me know, I'm getting desperate to find the right one so I stop getting neck/shoulder/back aches.

Right, now let's get on with our Happy Homemaker Monday.

Good evening friends, won't you come in and sit with me a little.

It's been a pretty good weekend so far, and even though tomorrow is a public holiday and there is no school, and no work, I still decided to treat it as a normal blogging day and just go ahead and do my weekend review today.


Friday::::

I received a few more cookbooks in the mail, and there are a few recipes from these that I've added to my menu plan and will be trying out in the next two weeks.  I still have two other cookbooks I will be reviewing as well this coming week.

I have to admit that the one that really caught my eye was the Retro recipes from the 50's and 60's and I can tell you that after paging through it, I wasn't disappointed at all.

I didn't do much on Friday, aside from the usual housework.

My daughter had gone in to work with her daddy, to shadow him and see if it was something she would enjoy.  She's trying to figure out which way to go with her education and is not sure, so it was a good way for her to see another option.

Oh Texas, when are you going to pick a season and stick with it?

I don't even know what to think anymore, we have gone from a high of 71 yesterday to super windy this morning and 30 degrees.  That's a 40 degree difference from one day to the next, like what??


I've been spending a lot of time indoors.  Some people love being out and about but I've always been a homebody, much happier in my house, surrounded by my things and my family and puttering around.  I don't get bored, I don't get frustrated, I just enjoy being where I am.

Good morning everyone.

You're probably seeing this post and thinking "What???  A cooking Thursday post, what on earth?" hahah

I know, it's been a very long time since I've done one, but I thought I would share one today.  I'm not sure if I'll do it every single week, but we will see how it goes.

The recipe I'm sharing today is a great snack, and even a good gift to give if you're wanting to make something homemade. 



2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup boiling water
3 cups pecan halves
1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

Stir together the sugar, cinnamon, cream of tartar, and boiling water in a small saucepan.
Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil.
Continue to cook at a slow boil over medium heat for about 8 minutes or so, stirring constantly.
Remove saucepan from heat, and stir in pecans.
Let cool for a few minutes, and then add vanilla, and continue to stir until pecans are evenly coated.
Pour pecans onto a sheet of parchment paper.
Separate nuts that have clumped together with a fork.
Let cool.
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 weeks.

I have always liked having plants in my home.  I wasn't always able to have them because they would either die on me, or I found them to be pretty expensive to buy.

But I've always wanted to have my house filled with plants, just greenery everywhere, I think it adds such a beautiful charm to a home.

Since moving to Texas, I got rid of the one big artificial tree I had, I just couldn't bring it with me, and so the past almost 3 years, I've been meaning to get more plants but just haven't gotten around to it.

Good morning everyone and Happy Monday!!!

I was actually looking forward to today, not sure why, but sometimes I look forward to a new week, the routine, school and work and all that.  Call me crazy, but it's true.

We had a good weekend with an outing on Saturday which I talked about here on the blog, so if you missed it be sure to read up on that post, and then yesterday was a homemaking/movie watching kind of day.  I also spent a few hours last night, working on my Blog to Book for 2013, and ended up having to split the book in two because there was so much content.

I'm really enjoying going back in time though and seeing how far we've come and everything we've gone through.  It's been a wonderful walk down memory lane.

Right, enough jabbering, it's time for our Happy Homemaker Monday.

I was puttering around the house today and when I came to dusting my bookshelves, I realized that I need to give it a quick organizing.

I get tons of books for review, and my shelves are slowly filling up again with books and more books that need to be read and review in the next 2 months.

After a bit of shifting here and there, moving the read ones to the back and the ones that have yet to be read to the front, I decided to show you what is on my shelf at the moment.

When we lived in Arizona, we used to go out and do family things, all the time.

We weren't spending a lot of money, but we lived right in the middle of Glendale and so close to shopping, restaurants, and all sorts of fun activity things, that we always had somewhere to go.

After Curt retired and we moved to Idaho, life became tough, in many ways.  The change alone of going from military active duty family to civilian family, is overwhelming.  When you throw in finances, trying to adjust, finding a new home and jobs and all that stuff, going out and doing fun things, suddenly takes a backseat.

Then we moved to Texas, and it was another adjustment, another financial burden, add in a lot of stress, family deaths, my daughter's fight with depression and anxiety, and it really just became all about surviving and getting from one week to the next, sometimes from day to day.

I was standing at the kitchen sink, a few days ago, and I started to pray.

I'm about to be completely open and honest with you all.  I've always had major issues praying, not because I don't feel comfortable about it or don't like, but because I get myself in such a state thinking that there is a right way to go about it.

The past few days have been a mish mash of things, but not in a bad way, in a good, joyful, homemaking and truly content kind of way, even with my crochet which has been making me a little bonkers.


I love crochet, I love crochet, I truly truly deeply love crochet.

I think I've muttered this to myself, repeatedly, after every single row I complete on my new blanket.  Why you may ask?

Because this pattern is driving me up the wall.  It is so curly and pulls in and buckles and just refuses to stay put.  I've never in my life had to block a project as much as this one, matter of fact, I'm usually the crocheter that tries to get away with no blocking at all.  To say that I've come close to ripping it apart and giving up, would be an understatement, but it is absolutely gorgeous and so I push on.

 

About Just Sit

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harper Wave (December 26, 2017)

From the cofounders of The Well Daily, a playfully-illustrated, informative, and easy-to-use meditation guidebook—including an eight-week plan for busy novices—that helps even the busiest would-be meditator incorporate this practice into their lifestyle and enjoy its many physical and emotional benefits.

We’ve all heard the reports about meditation: that it helps us relieve stress and anxiety, improve our moods, lose weight, and sleep better. We know that it can make us healthier, nicer, a kinder parent, a better coworker, a more thoughtful spouse. But there’s a catch—you actually have to do it.

Hello everyone :)

Happy New Year!!!

I can hardly believe that it is the first day of 2018, but I'm quite happy to see it come around, truth be told.

2017 was not a good year for us, in many ways and I'm hoping that this new year will finally be our year.  Praying it is!!!

Anyway, I'm back this morning with our Happy Homemaker Monday, so let's get right on with it shall we?