From virtual to real life

For about 5 years I have been chatting with a great group of people online that until today I had not met in real life. We all started out on the clothing and accessories board on Ebay which I went to as a new seller. From there we migrated to various groups and now talk on an off-Ebay discussion board. Although I hadn't really met these fabulous people, they were my friends. There have been periods of time when I wasn't active and didn't check in much, but they never forgot about me. After my cancer diagnosis, they sent me a lovely bouquet of flowers and a gift card to pamper myself. I have had so much support and well wishes from this group. They are amazing!

So it was quite the honor to meet a few of the ladies in person today.

Farra and her adorable baby girl:






And the group. Clockwise: Me, Fara, Ruthie, and Jonelle.

Relay

Today was the Relay For Life and we had a blast. I made my fundraising goal which made me so happy. Thank you so much to all who donated!
Thank you also to those who came to support me. It meant so much that you were there. And also thank you to those who were there in spirit.
Some photos from tonight:



Hubby and I:

The team:

Doing my survivor lap:
I got to walk with my good friend Amanda's aunt. That was really nice.

Help me kick cancer's butt!

As you probably know, I am a thyroid cancer survivor. Cancer sucks because it takes away your control over your life and your body. So as a survivor, it is important to me to do whatever I can to fight back. A positive attitude goes a long way! So does participating in fundraising efforts to help fight cancer.

This Friday I am participating in Relay For Life to help raise money for the American Cancer Society. I am just $50 away from my meeting my fundraising goal of $200. Thank you so much to those who have donated!

If you haven't donated yet, there is still time. Please click on the link below to go to my fundraising page:
Click me

The creativity continues

This week has been really busy and kind of stressful actually. Suffice it to say that being a stay at home mom wears me out more sometimes than working full time did.

Today Abby wanted to make a bead necklace. When Josh's parents were visiting for his graduation, his mom gave Abby a necklace kit. Of course being Abby, she had to add her one flair to it and she found this large purple heart to add. We actually had a lot of fun making it and I'm hoping she's in a necklace making mood again soon because we still have more beads and string.

Pretty beads







Modeling the finished product:


What you can't see in the photo above is that she was doing a curtsy. Oh my goodness, that was cute!


So where are all the photos of Evan from this week you ask? Well he's 13 so he suddenly wants to spend all of his time in his room because hanging out with your mom and little sister is so uncool. Oh and top of that he's grounded for less-than-stellar grades from his last report card. So hopefully he'll emerge from grounding and teenage angst soon and have some fun with us!

Abby wanted to take some pictures too, so she took one of me playing SIMS 2.

Cookies!

The baking streak continues and today we made cookies! Abby wanted to make them while in her jammies...don't know why but that's what she wanted. She also had to have blue frosting for them. Bear with me on the video, it's sideways.

Leave it to Thich Nhat Hanh

Boy is this ever true. Sometimes you can give advice and listen to people's problems until you are emotionally drained and they won't heed your suggestions or change their situation.

"People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar." -- Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist monk and poet

Baking Bread

I was feeling creative today so Abby and I decided to bake some bread. Don't get too impressed, it's an easy recipe. Abby actually did most of the mixing of the ingredients.





Rising:





And Voila, the finished product which is oh-so-yummy!





Abby really got into the mixing. She was giving me lessons.





And the recipe:

Beer Bread



3 cups self-rising flour*

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 (12-ounce) can of beer



1. Preheat oven to 375*F (190*C). Lightly grease or spray a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray.

2. Combine all ingredients, mixing well.

3. Pour into prepared loaf pan and bake for 1 hour.



Makes 1 loaf.



*Or you may substitute with 3 cups all purpose flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder and 1 1/2 teaspoons salt.



I added some crushed red pepper, garlic and shredded cheddar because I found some very yummy suggestions online to modify the recipe. One person suggested brushing the loaf with garlic butter 1/2 way through and I did that as well.

2 short video clips from vacation

Father's Day BBQ and more vacation photos

Saturday we had a BBQ at my parents' house to celebrate Father's Day with my Dad. Josh and I, the kids, my sister, brother-in-law and my Aunt Joan were all there. Josh cooked up some fabulous chicken and veggie wraps. My sister made a tasty salad and we had fun hanging outside. Poor Abby had her itchies acting up really bad. But that's par for the course with it being summer and her being outside. Hopefully her doctor will have her prescription called in tomorrow and we can get her healing up.




Evan hanging out with Grandma and Papa:












Playing a bean bag game that Papa made:









Evan and Grandma being silly:




Naturally when it comes to grilling, the guys are in charge:












Aunt Joan making a silly face:





Aunt Joan laughing at me:









Abby making music (her definition, not ours) with Papa's windchimes:




My yellow bell pepper has gone from a little baby nugget to a for real pepper over the past week. My plants are definitely my babies! I really enjoy them.








And some more vacation photos:












Those three figures you see (barely) are Josh, Evan and Abby:







Abby and I went to Build-A-Bear at the outlet mall while the guys went to play golf. She made this new kitty and named it Hearts.

Vacation pictures

Our vacation this week was so nice. Despite the nasty weather that the Midwest has been experiencing, we had a lovely time because our resort had 3 indoor water parks and various other fun things to do inside. We were even completely unaware of the horrible situation with Lake Delton going on just miles from where we were staying. If you haven't heard about it, click here to read about it.



We stayed at The Wildneress resort in a townhouse type of place.





I only remembered to take photos of the downstairs.








We had so much fun playing in the water. It amazes me how fearless little Abby is. There was only one water slide that she didn't try and the reason she didn't try it was because she didn't meet the height requirement. My personal favorite was the wave pool. It was all the fun of the ocean without the salty water and sand.













Video of Josh and Abby enjoying the water slide.







Apparently since he's now 13, it means that Evan has to suddenly act like the stereotypical teen and not want to be photographed. So this is me trying to get him to show his face.





While we were there, Josh and Evan also had some fun rock climbing. It was Evan's first time and he did quite well at it.









When we drive up to the Dells area, we pass this creepy old ammunition plant. I always wanted to get some photos of it, but it's hard when you are moving. I totally bet that place is haunted.




And last but not least, my favorite photo of the trip:

Our weekend

This is one of those Sunday nights where I'm sitting here scratching my head and wondering where the weekend went. It was a busy one for sure. Josh put in a lot of Jamapps hours this weekend along with his partner. While I'm thrilled about their current project and the company's success, it's always hard to give up our alone time as a couple on the weekend.

But we had a date on Saturday afternoon to make up for that! My Mom watched the kids and gave us the afternoon to ourselves. We went shopping. The World Market by her is going out of business and we picked up a few deals there. Like $.25 for a placemat! We also went to The Container Store and drooled over the organizational stuff. That place is a dream come true for the small OCD part of me.

We tried a fabulous Thai Restaurant in Hoffman Estates called Taste of Thai for lunch. We had appetizers, drinks, lunch specials and dessert for only $30. So I definitely recommend it if you want to go somewhere different, nice and reasonable.



My appetizer

Today in pictures

I've been feeling like taking a lot pictures lately.



So starting with last night:



Adorable cheesecake from Schnuck's fabulous bakery. The have the best bakery and the prices are amazing. It always feels like a treat when we make the trip across town to shop there.







Today's lunch, a super yummy veggie and grilled chicken wrap. Food like this makes eating healthy a lot tastier.






Abby looked so adorable today in her school clothes (school clothes because I make her change into play clothes after school) so I had to take a picture.







And she loves her new kitty. She is carrying it around everywhere.








Abby is getting more comfortable with riding her new bike. Hopefully soon those training wheels can come off. She'll do it at her own pace though.







And because I'm so excited that I actually got footage of Abby on her wheels, here's a really short video:

Weekend update in photos

Our weekend in pictures. Click on any to make them larger.

We ate lots of yummy stuff. Since it's been in the 80's, Josh has been grilling out rather than firing up the oven. We've had some really tasty veggie meals.
 

Saturday I went to Build A Bear Workshop to make myself the new tropical Hello Kitty they have. Yes I am 31 and still buying myself stuffed animals. But as you all know, I am crazy about Hello Kitty. While I was there I also got pjs for my one of my other Kitties who previously only had undies to wear.

And for Abby, I brought home a Charmmy Kitty which oddly enough is Hello Kitty's pet cat:

We also played at the park a lot and spent a lot of time outside on our deck which is quickly becoming the preferred place to hang out as the house heats up. We are all enjoying our growing plants out there and chatting with our neighbors.

Abby actually took this photo. I like the composition.