I've Got Your Back

                                      I'VE GOT YOUR BACK

I'm sure we've all heard that phrase. Perhaps someone has said it to you or you have even said it to someone. But what does it mean?

    The Urban Dictionary defines it this way: 
                  1) An expression assuring someone that you are watching out for them. Comes         from making sure you are safe by watching what's behind you when you're busy looking       ahead.  


That's a comforting thought isn't it?  Someone making sure that you are safe. You don't have to worry about what's coming at you from behind you can look out for the dangers ahead.  Makes it a little bit easier to take that step into the unknown or uncomfortable.

Who's going to have your back? Does your mind go to family or friends?

Of course it does! Family should always have your back!  That's what families are for.

My grandson and I call each other Best Buds. We know we have each other's backs.  If Grampa starts a tickle fest with him who is my Bud calling? Me of course!  And do I assist?  Well, of course I do! I'm his Best Bud.  That's my job.  He does the same for me.

Friends? They aren't much of a friend if they won't cover your back. If you don't think you can depend on them when needed, you better rethink your friendship.  

How comforting would it be to know there is someone who always has your back? You don't have to ask them and you don't need them to tell you.

YOU JUST KNOW THAT YOUR BACK IS COVERED

You do have this assurance. God is there for you. He has your back. 

Isn't it comforting to know that in the unsettling times, scary times He is there for you?

You have to do something that is out of your comfort zone but you know you need to do it? Don't worry - God has your back.

Standing up for what you believe in to others who don't believe? Don't worry - God has your back.

Going out into the unknown to spread the Gospel? Don't worry - God has your back.

No matter what situation you find yourself in He is always there for you. You may not realize it and you may forget it from time to time, but He NEVER forgets.

Yes, having friends and family to turn to is comforting; but sometimes they are not right beside you to protect your back so it's good to know that God is there watching out for you.  Every situation you face becomes a little bit easier to deal with knowing that someone is there with you.

   

Do you have this assurance?

Pizza Pizza

I love Italian. This is my birthday week. I had Italian three nights in a row.  YUMM

Even New Food Night this week was Italian. We had pizza. We had lots of different pizzas.

Lily set the table. Didn't she do a good job?

See how she made the napkins look like a little bow tie?

Now for the food!

Gary made the Pioneer Woman's Baked Potato Pizzas.

He baked some potatoes the night before. Pizza night he scooped some of the potato out and then added pizza sauce, toppings; pepperoni, hamburger, Italian sausage and topped with cheese.

Good stuff right there.

Mr. Rick brought over a never before ordered Pizza Hut pizza.  This pizza had chicken, mushrooms, spinach. Very good

Miss Annette made a Taco Pizza.  The sauce was a combination of sour cream and taco sauce. Add all the basic ingredients of a taco - what is not to like about this? Everyone loves tacos.

I made Spaghetti Pizza.  I cooked up some spaghetti and drained it.  To this I added an egg, some milk and Parmesan cheese. I split this up between two pies and baked it for about 15 minutes. Then I added pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese and shredded Parmesan cheese. One pie had pepperoni and hamburger and the other pie had hamburger and Italian sausage. Bake again and enjoy.

K.C. made a dessert pizza. Salted Caramel Apple Pizza. 

She used pizza crust and then sliced apples very thin. This was topped with some caramel sauce to which she had added some salt. Top it all with a cinnamon, butter crumb  mixture and let it bake while we eat all the other pizzas.

Oh my gosh! I cannot begin to describe how good this tasted. 

So if you love pizza but want to be a little bit adventuresome, try one of these. Be sure to let me know how it turns out for you. 

Burger Night

I have a few New Food Nights to catch up on, so let's get started.

I checked my notebook and photo folders on my computer and WOW! it has been a while since I posted our food nights. Well, don't worry, we didn't go hungry.  We ate every week. 

Let's go back to July. Yes, two months ago.  I'm sorry 

I love cheeseburgers. A greasy dripping juicy cheeseburger.  It is always my go to at most restaurants. We decided to do a burger night. Gary put a twist on it. 

We started our meal with a simple salad brought by Miss Annette.

I love salad.  I should eat more of it.

Then the burger.

Not a cheeseburger.

Remember, Gary put a spin on it? He made a turkey burger stuffed with dressing and cranberry chutney on the side.

Thanksgiving in a sandwich!

I was hesitant (those food police in my head). I love turkey. I love dressing. Can do without cranberries.

I was surprised! 

The sandwich was very good.  Yes, I would eat it again.

What do you have with burgers? Well, potatoes of course.

Mr. Rick brought some crock pot potatoes with cheese.

How yummy do these look?  They were better.  I love potatoes and cheese.

We ended the meal with cookies made by Chris. He made these in his crock pot.

Very good - almost fudge like. 

See - I told you we ate well!  You know that tryptophan in turkey makes you sleepy. That may be why it took me so long to blog about it.

How about you?  What's the most exotic burger you have ever tried?

Vegas Wedding Weekend

What a weekend we had!!  We had another wedding in the family. One of our daughters got married over the weekend in Vegas.  Of course we were there!!!  They had the details all worked out. Booked a chapel, everything scheduled all we had to do was show up and enjoy ourselves.

Gary has just started a new job so we could not take an extended amount of time. We left after work on Thursday. We were driving out. Gary had the van stocked with plenty of water, Pepsi, Lipton Peach Tea for Chris and books on tape.  We were set for an 18 hour drive!  Since we were leaving after work we set our first goal for Santa Rosa, New Mexico for Wednesday night. This would leave us about a 10 hour drive on Thursday.

We made our goal about 10:30 (we  had gained an hour when we crossed into New Mexico) and got checked into a small hotel.  Older hotel - nothing fancy but clean and cheap. All we needed as we planned to be back on the road by 6:30.  Bed was comfortable and we slept well. What we didn't know, since we checked in after dark, was that the railroad track ran right behind the hotel.  Good thing Gary was already up and in the shower the next morning when the train came by. This would have been a very harsh awakening.  LOL

Onward to Vegas!

Stephen King's audio book Dr. Sleep had been our companion since we left. Very intense book.  My favorite author!  We continued our drive. I'm very excited as I know I will get to see two of my daughters that I don't get to see very often. And what's even  better - one daughter whom I usually see once a year - this will be the FOURTH time I have seen her this year!

The drive is pretty normal for us all the way to Flagstaff as we make it frequently. This time though we are headed on west - exploring new country.  We arrived in Vegas about 3:00 pm.  We got checked into our hotel and then wandered around.  We were meeting the bride and groom for dinner along with his parents at 5:30.

We let Chris loose on his own.  Beware Vegas.

Our other daughter arrived late that night - I stayed up to give her a quick hug and then went to bed.
We do not party as late or as much as our daughters do.

Friday morning we just hung out. We told Chris he could explore but to keep track of where he was and call us if he needed anything. We finally got everyone together and decided to do the monorail - now we have to find Chris to join us. This proved to be interesting.  Chris doesn't like to read and has never made it a priority. He catches the first couple of letters of a word and then decides what he thinks it should be. Gary spent about 20 minutes on the phone trying to track him down from behind the 'place we watched the show last night' to 'the place where I ate'.  Fremont Street became Foundation Street.  And he was actually outside the hotel not inside.

A fun day of exploring started. Gary, Chris and I had never been to Vegas so we were all agog.  Chris decided he really likes this place.  On his own exploring that morning he took in many sights and experiences. He had his picture taken with two Vegas show girls. He showed his sister the picture but said 'don't tell Mom.'  He also got one shoe shined.  He wears orange tennis shoes and they were a little scruffy looking. Someone offered to do one for free. Chris let him. He did not want to pay to have the other one cleaned though.  He was pretty proud of how well that one cleaned up.

Vegas has taken it out of Chris.

Saturday - WEDDING DAY!  The bride and female family gathered in one room to get her hair and makeup done. She had a good friend who offered to do this for her. Tarinda set up a small buffet of food and a bar. Mimosas, champagne, Bloody Mary's, bagels, cream cheese, meat, cheese.

My girls take after Gary when it comes to food.

They also take after my brother Wayne when it comes to drinking.

We finally get her dressed and she's beautiful!!

Now off for some pictures around the hotel and with family before a limo ride to the Chapel.

Charlie had a convertible dress. It was a long dress with small train. The skirt detached to become a short dress. This created some unique situations. She wanted to keep it a secret from groom and guests. Anyone who happened to step on the train would cause it to come unsnapped - even the bride herself could cause this. We made a security guard around her as she walked to protect the skirt from becoming detached.

It's a testament to my daughter and new son-in-law on how much they are loved and respected by their friends. This destination wedding had 37 guests from out of town. (10 of us were family) They had friends from Washington, Kansas City and of course many from their hometown of Buckeye, Arizona.

The ceremony went off without a hitch. Adam could  not read the vows he had spoken and ended up ad-libbing and as Charlie said "when did he become a comedian?"  There were tears by bride and groom and of course myself and I even handed Gary a tissue.

Limo ride back to the hotel - now it's time to party!

But wait!  Gary and I have to head home tomorrow and we are driving it straight through.  Gary decided he would go to the room at 8:00 and get a few hours sleep as we plan on leaving at 2:00 am for our drive home. I join the wedding party and we head to Fremont street.  What an experience!   I head back to the hotel about 10;30 to get some rest before we head out.

2:00 am - we are wheeling our luggage down the hallway to the van passing Toby Keith's when who do we see?  The bride and groom and a few friends still celebrating.  One more good bye, tearful hugs and we are on our way home. We will take turns driving and sleeping.

We finish our Stephen King book between our sleep shifts and 18 hours later, two different time zones (where we 'lose' 2 hours of time) we are pulling into our driveway at 10:45 pm.  We have to be up early for work the next day.  The wedding was wonderful, the time with family even more so and we are happy to welcome a new son-in-law to the family.

Bedtime Routine

Don't know if you remember my post a year ago about one of my daughters and her family moving to Washington. We were happy for their adventure but really dreaded them leaving us.  The move was needed and they were where they needed to be.

Now they are moving back!  Needless to say we are very happy about this. Family is important to us. While two of our daughters are still in Arizona that is much closer than Washington.  So we have our happy faces on now.  

My daughter came back early. She left the two kids in Kansas City to spend some time with their dad and other grandparents and she spent her time hanging out with Gary and I.

Well a couple of weeks ago Gary and I picked the grandkids up from their other grandparents and they have been staying with us.  Let me tell you how our last couple of weeks have been going. 

We have a new routine every night. The kids read me a bedtime story.

I love that my grandkids love to read. So each child picks a story book to read. These are books that their mother and aunts read when they were little. The reading is pretty dramatic. The kids always put such enthusiasm into their reading!  We have lots of laughter.  One night I was really tired and kept falling asleep as they were reading to me. They didn't enjoy that night as much.

 After reading me a story they alternate 'tucking me in'. The covers are tucked tightly in and I receive a kiss on the forehead before they tell me good night.  I love it!

Michael is back from Washington. The family is all together again in their own house. See their smiling faces.

We are excited to have this part of our family close again! And you can be sure that there will be lots of fun going on in the future.  

A tour of Italy

I've been kinda bad about keeping up with my blog lately.  I apologize and will try to do better. We are still having our New Food Night every week so I have some items I can use for inspiration (and to make your mouth water).  I hope you haven't been going hungry waiting to see what was on our menu so you could decide what you wanted to eat.

I swear I must be part Italian because I sure do love my pasta!  Yes - you guessed it - we had Italian.

Miss Annette made some spaghetti.

Doesn't this crock pot of spaghetti look yummy?  It was

Gary was going to make some creamed fennel. He ended up having to work late so I made the fennel.  I know this may surprise some of you since you know that Gary does the majority of our cooking. It's kind of a joke in our family about the fact that I don't cook very often. Gary's dad even asked me one time if I knew how to cook.  My brother has gone so far as to ask exactly what I do at the house.

Anyway, I felt I was up to the task.  Creamed, baked fennel.

You take the fennel bulb and slice it.

I tell you - when I sliced the top of the fennel off the smell was amazing!  It was very strong.  Not a bad smell just very strong. I wasn't expecting that.

You know if it has half & half and creme fraiche it's going to be good. We had to look to find the creme fraiche (fresh) but found it. I would describe it as a really creamy sweet sour cream type thing.

So I put some oil in a pan and kind of browned the fennel. Then I added the half & half and creme fraiche and stirred until it was thickened.

I then poured all into a greased pie plate and added grated Parmesan cheese and baked.

 It was mighty tasty!!

We had salad which Chris brought over.

 Some garlic toast from Mr. Rick.

 See my full plate?

Good stuff right there.

We have another contributor tonight to our meal.  K.C. and her family are moving back to Tulsa!  (We are very happy about that). K.C. is hanging out with us for a while until the full move is made by the entire family. She chose to make us --- Italian Cream Sodas!!

OH MY GOSH!  These are addictive!  Club soda, half & half, syrup of your choice  Top with whipped cream.

My Carnival glass tea glasses are the perfect glass to serve these in don't you think? 

She gave us the option of white chocolate cream soda or raspberry cream soda.  Most of us chose white chocolate raspberry.

My empty glass gives you a clue as to how good these are.

Gotta tell you - this has become a favorite of mine this summer!  In fact I am having one right now! K.C. and the kids just came back from swimming with Chris and K.C. made us all a little treat.

I'll try not to wait so long before my next blog.  Do you have anything you are wanting me to enlighten you on?  I'd be happy to give my thoughts on anything.

In the meantime, make yourself a cream soda and enjoy your night. 

 

Painting the House

Gary and I decided that our house needed to be painted - inside. We have lived here 10 years and it was time to 'freshen up' the house. Hmmm, I am the only one who paints, Gary doesn't.

I have a project ahead of me.

First we have to choose some colors. We had an idea of what we thought we wanted so I brought home some samples.

Then more samples

And more samples.

This is what we finally ended up with.

I know that some people are wondering why in the world it took me so very long to paint the rooms of my house. Let me try to explain. Each room was totally emptied. Totally!  Then the entire room was washed down, walls, ceiling, baseboards, crown molding. Everything!  I also used Kilz on all three bedrooms and the bathrooms.

Oh, did I mention that I also emptied the closets and painted them as well?  So after a room was emptied and washed and Kilzed, if needed, I painted. I painted every surface in each room except for the floor.

The ceilings were painted. The crown molding then got painted. Then the wood trim (closet doors, baseboards, etc). Finally the walls were painted.

Then I had to clean up my mess. And I cleaned the floors. And then everything was put back in the room.

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that this was done is shifts. I would work on my painting after I got home from work of an evening. This was really quite a project. For me.

I started with Chris' old bedroom as it was the worst in the house.  The color we chose was supposed to be a soft peachy color.  It turned out orange.  I call it the Orange Room.  I think my giraffes go quite well with this room.

From there I moved to the big bathroom then the small bathroom.  Then on to the other two bedrooms.  As I was working on the last bedroom I knew the next project would be the dining room/hallway area. We thought we wanted to use purple here but this was a big change. I got some sample paint to paint various areas so we could see what we thought of it before committing to the big room.

I took pictures of my 'samples' and sent to my girls and some friends to get their opinions. Reactions were mixed.

After each room was painted we got curtains and rods and put up. Many many thanks to our good friend Mr. Rick for his assistance with this part of our makeover project. He also put in a new ceiling fan in the master bedroom one weekend when we were out of town.

Each closet was painted - ceilings included. And each closet was better organized when put back together. I know have a large collection of garage sale items.

By the time I was finishing up the dining room/hallway and getting ready to move to the kitchen K.C. showed up. See my happy face

I was happy to see her as it meant she and her family were moving back to Tulsa.  It also meant that she was there to help me with the kitchen.  Every item was emptied from the cabinets. K.C. referred to me as a hoarder. Let me say she referred to Gary as a kitchen gadget hoarder.  She thinks we have to much stuff. We probably do but I just don't know what to get rid of.  (Gary here:  K.C. is obviously just jealous of all the cool stuff we have!!)

With K.C. helping the kitchen did not take as long. She was able to do almost all the prep work while I was at work. She washed walls and cabinets. Scrubbed floors - major major help to me.

So the whole house except for one room has been totally painted. This takes care of my initial project. Only room left is the living room and I am considering it. Have brought home more paint samples but that room will wait a while.

Any issues while painting? Well, I only had two major mishaps. While putting things back in the hallway closet I misjudged which step I was on on the ladder and stepped down farther than I thought I had to step. That brought a yell out of me and Gary came running. I was able to limp off and assure him I thought I was okay. Luckily the hallway was narrow enough that I fell into the wall and not all the way to the floor.

Second mishap occurred in the kitchen. Not real sure what happened here but I was painting the cabinet and somehow fell off the ladder. I grabbed the handle of the microwave but that door swung open as I fell.  K.C. was nearby and was able to prevent me from falling all the way. This is a very good thing as if she had not done so I would have gone all the way down and either hit my head on the cabinet behind me, the refrigerator or smack dab on the floor.

So now I am going to enjoy my new house and my 'free time' for now. I will also start contemplating what color to use for the living room.  Any suggestions for me?