I did it....I made the change....

Change is something I've gotten used to in my life, I mean, how could I not being a military wife? With all the deployments and change of station around us, I would be in serious trouble if I turned my nose up at it.

But still when I think about breaking the norm and trying something new, the first feeling I get is this sick one in the pit of my stomach and then the what if's flood my mind and drive me insane. What if it doesn't work? What if you think it's good but in the end it's horrible?

After reading all your comments on Google Reader I decided to just go for it. It was either that or remain with Bloglines which seems to have something against me (and many others out there, I've noticed). I prayed that it would go well and sure enough it did and I'll even say this, I love it, I think it's WAY better than bloglines, in every sense. So I'm now a Google Reader *snicker*

If you're thinking of making the switch but are worried, don't be. It even gives you the option of transferring all your links from Bloglines, something I found out AFTER I manually did them, all 200 of them. LOL I'm surprised I have my little fingers intact with all the mouse clicking and the typing of url's.

I've got all my blogs organized into folders with my Daily Reads, Craft Blogs, Food blogs etc. And I even noticed that I have 170 subscribers to Diary of a SAHM and another 290 to my Food blog. WHOA, where are all you people? Please don't be shy, stop in and say hello, I promise I don't bite.

Alright now that that's out of the way, I had the Parent/Teacher Conferences this afternoon and I walked out of there on cloud nine. Not just one, but both of my children are absolutely brilliant in school....Jasmine is a straight A student and so is Nicholas, though at this point they're not being graded by A's and B's. The highest they can get is an E for Excelling and he had straight E's. Both teachers couldn't tell me enough what hard working, extremely smart and well behaved children I have and how they love having them in their classrooms.

That's something that all parents love hearing isn't it? It makes you stop and realize that you're doing something right, somehow, somewhere, something is clicking and something is being instilled in these little human beings. It makes me feel a lot better about their future, knowing that I'm teaching them to be hard working, respectful human beings. Thank you Lord for blessing me with such amazing children.

As soon as the weather gets a little cooler, I start pulling out my knitting. Funny thing though, I hardly ever finish the projects I start LOL That has to be the one area in my life where I have yet to master, but I'm determined to finish this scarf for Jasmine because I really want to start knitting the little preemie hats for the Knit One, Save One Campaign. For the scarf I decided to challenge myself a bit and am working on a pattern called "My so called scarf". I LOVE it.

And while I was grabbing my camera to snap that photo, I walked by the couch and something caught my eye. The silly Lola was taking a nap on her favorite spot, the corner of the couch pillow but it's not so much that she was napping, it's the WAY she was laying that just cracked me up.

What mom? What do you need, can't you see I'm trying to sleep?

Oh to be a dog in this house, or a child, OR a husband, anything but a plant, those I don't think anyone would want to be. Poor things, that's why I have plastic ones and even those are looking mighty weak lately.

Well I'm off to figure out what to make for dinner, yes I have a menu and no, I don't feel like anything I've written on there. It's one of those days where everything looks good but yet you don't feel like having any of it that moment? It's a toss up right now, I could do Spaghetti w/ Bacon, Portuguese Bean Soup, Barbecue Chicken Pizza or Portuguese Chicken and Rice. Why can't we just have them all? Would that be bad? I mean would like the Food Patrol Police people thingies whatever, come out and arrest us and possibly put us on a diet. On second thought, I better pick one fast, the minute my body hears the word diet it goes beserk and I'll find myself raiding the refrigerator at 1am.

Yeah better decide soon....well I'll go and do that, hope you're all having a wonderful day.

Slow Cooking Thursday!

All my slow cooking recipes are now online and starting today, I will add all the recipes shared weekly to my online del.icio.us site too. So if you're wanting to find ALL the slow cooked recipes that have been shared since the first SLOW COOKING THURSDAY, here is the link for you.

Don't forget to add your name to Mr Linky and a link back to your SCT post so others can come by and see your recipe too.

As always, share your slow cooking recipes but if you REALLY REALLY don't have one and still want to participate, then you can share any kind of recipe.

Ok, had this one last week and it was so good, so good, so good, it's back on my menu for next week. YUM!

Beef Stew with Potato Dumplings
(click above for recipe, it's on my food blog)

Tag You're It!

I was tagged by the wonderful Tamy and thought this was such a fun one. You'll have to go over and see what my name came up with, I had to laugh because even Tamy knows that it suits me perfectly LOL

If I mention and link to you, you're tagged, and I hope you'll play along!


Mari needs a big shot of ice cream. Well now I think this is perfect considering Mari is happy today, go over and read her post to see why.

Linds needs her coffee break. So do I Linds, so do I. LOL

Nancy needs to learn what the moon is. I had no clue that Nancy didn't know, but guess she'll have to fix that huh?

Gail needs to ask for her drinks the same time that she is asking when the bar is open. Well now, LOL, ok Gail, you'll have to tell us all about this and hopefully you had the camera along, it will make great bloggy material *snicker*

Bonnie needs a Wii - LOL

*********************************************

If I've tagged you, all you need to do is Google the name of the 5 bloggers you are tagging with the word "needs" attached and see what comes up.

First it was Blogger, now it's Bloglines....UGH

I'm beginning to think that any word starting with BLOG in it is just cursed or something. I am having the worst time trying to keep up with my favorite blogs in Bloglines. It's just not updating at not and there's so many red exclamation points that it's making me dizzy.

What's worse for me is going a whole week thinking that someone hasn't updated and then suddenly 10 new posts pop up and I realize I've missed out on all the fun. Really Bloglines, why do you do torture me so?

I'm thinking of switching to Google Reader to keep a list of my favorites, any Google Reader experts out there want to tell me the pros and cons? Is it worth it? Is it better than bloglines or just as annoying?

Anyway, I promise if I haven't been by your blogs it's not because I stopped enjoying them, but because I have no idea you're even blogging.

I'm sure you've noticed my template is different and this time it wasn't so much that I wanted to change it, but more like I was FORCED to change it. While trying to install something into my sidebar I ended up completely messing up the template, it was just awful, there were lines where they shouldn't be, there were links popping all over the posts and I lost a couple of things. I'm not sure if this is a look that I like, but it will do until I have the patience to redo it or find one already made.

I have a lot to babble on about so you'll have to bear with me or just leave, no...wait, don't leave, just bear with me? I'll try not to confuse you too much with my constant change of subject, but I like to write as I talk and as I think and I guess maybe this will scare you a bit wondering how I can go all day with such a random train of thought swimming around in my little head. LOL

I'm almost finished with the book "The Invitation" and I'm finding myself stunned and shocked and in awe of what I'm learning. The story is fiction but the way that Nancy Moser has written them and explained things and brought the Lord's word into it, makes you stop and think, and I like that, I like to be challenged. So I find myself relating to these people and learning along with them.

For example, there is a part in the book where one of the chosen, Walter (who is a reporter) is sitting in his hotel room after having a conversation with his mentor, Gabe, about how TV nowadays does not have family values in mind. The mentor wants him to watch some sitcoms and tell him what he thinks. So Walter is sitting there in his room and the TV just goes beserk, it starts switching channels on it's own even after he unplugs it, it keeps going.....here's a quote:

The television flipped through the channels of it's own accord.

"A disgruntled man murdered___"
"...embezzled 2 million___"
"Condom distribution___"
"A bus blew up today in___"
"Angry protesters???"

"Enough!"Walter said. He pointed the remote at the TV, pressing all the buttons. It was out of control.

"There was a bombing raid today, killing__"
"Tomorrow, watch men who love women who love women."
"___brought a gun to school and started___"

I read this in silence, at first I tried to deny it, I thought, not really, it can't be that bad, I mean I love television and I watch it all the time, it's not THAT bad, is it?

And then I decided to see for myself, I took the remote control and changed the channels one by one and wrote down the first thing I heard, here it is:

"at the heart of our service is the long time credit rating system__"
"could be winning thousands of dollars__"
"there are thousands of americans sleep deprived__"
"she got a new boyfriend and started smoking marijuana__"
"yes ma'm I cut myself last week__"
"leading cause of teen death__"
"news woman attack random__"

I don't think I can even go on, I'm actually sick to my stomach right now. I will be honest and admit that I usually don't pay attention, the TV will be on in the background while I'm doing housework or cooking and I'm not really listening....if I did I doubt I would be as enthusiastic about it as I've been.
I'm not saying I'll stop watching TV altogether, but I think it's opened my eyes to maybe taking a little bit more time when I'm choosing programs to watch and especially the kids viewing, it's not the first time that I've switched a cartoon on them because I found it to be disgusting and quite violent.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

***************************************************

And now I need to get some things done around here, so here's my to do list:

• Pull out the ground turkey for tonight's dinner...Sloppy Joe Squares (recipe will be up later)
• Do two loads of laundry, dry, iron and put away
• Organize paperwork on counter
• Transfer photos from camera to Photos Folder
• Sweep

I truly hope you're having a wonderful Wednesday, God Bless.

Fun in the sun!

Take your kids to the park, throw in a daddy that loves playing and then step back and snap some photos.