Happy Birthday!!

Happy Birthday to my Daddy! :)

I miss you every day, I love you, and I hope today was wonderful!

PS - We went and got grape snow cones today!! They were pretty good. :)
PPS - We all went to eat dinner for your birthday. That was pretty good too. :)

Is this normal?

Yesterday I came home to this...

Is it normal for a cat to smash her face so far into the couch that her ears fold back? You really don't have to answer that because nothing with my cats is normal! Haha! Everyday is something new and exciting with them.

Wishful Thinking...

I wanna go here and watch the sunrise again.

Who's with me?


I have had a super busy week! We are getting ready for the 4th of July party Saturday night! :) We also had a great trip home to visit family. I took my camera but didn't take any pictures. :( There is always next time, right? So what are you 4th of July plans?

100

So this is my 100th post and I don't have anything super duper exciting for you all. (oops) :) Right now I am about to start packing because we are going home this weekend. It is pretty exciting because my uncle from Canada, my cousins that also live in the DFW area, my cousins that live in Lubbock, and my brother and sis-in-law will all be there. It will be so great to see everyone, especially the new addition to our family that was born in March and we will get to see him for the first time. :)

Now to be honest with you all..
I am so happy to be able to go see my family, but tonight the emotions have finally hit me and it really sucks. I am going home for the first time since my dads funeral and to top it off it is Father's Day this Sunday. :( I'm not trying to dwell on the situation. I am just being real. I know that I will be fine around my family and we will have lots of fun hanging out. Everything will be pretty much normal, and this weekend will end up being really fun. But on the flip side of things, I know where I have to go (the cemetery) and who wont be there to give me a big bear hug as soon as I pull up to the house. It really hurts, but I know it will all be okay. It's just hard getting past those new firsts. Meaning, the first Father's Day without my dad, and so on, and so on.

I'm sorry my blog seems to have been a little sad lately with all of the events happening in my life here lately. When I come back from this weekend, I promise I will be posting all of the pictures from what has been going on lately that is a little more upbeat. :)

I hope you all have a good weekend! Yay for 100 posts! :)

PS - I am looking forward to seeing this guy this weekend!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

So here is a recipe for some NO BAKE cookies. They are super easy to make, and you don't even have to worry about dealing with the oven. My grandma used to always make them for Christmas, and my mom would make them occasionally too. You can find a recipe for them online, but my family has been using this recipe for at least 30+ years.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:
1 stick of butter
3 cups of sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 heaping tablespoons Hershey's Baking Cocoa
1 teaspoon vanilla flavoring
3/4 cup creamy peanut butter
3 - 4 cups oatmeal

Directions:
melt stick of butter
add sugar, milk, and cocoa, stirring frequently
boil for 1 minute and turn off heat
add vanilla flavoring, peanut butter, and oatmeal
stir until all ingredients are mixed evenly
lay out wax paper or foil for cooling
spoon cookies onto wax paper/foil for cooling (about 30 minutes)

Note: This recipe makes more than 5 cookies. I forgot to take a picture until there were only 5 left.

My grandma would mold her cookies into little balls and my mom would just spoon them out into oval shapes. I on the other hand was on the phone the entire time I was making these, so mine just got blobbed off a big cooking spoon and that was how they were left to dry. :)

Creamy Garlic Penne Pasta = Yumm :)

Okay so for the last three or four days I have been wanting to make some kind of penne pasta with garlic sauce. That doesn't sound too strange does it? Well, when you have never eaten it before, never made it before, and sure as heck don't have a recipe for it, I would say it's a little strange. So today when I got home from work I browsed the web for a recipe that was simple and quick.

Creamy Garlic Penne Pasta

Ingredients:
1 lb penne pasta
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
2 garlic cloves, minced **I bought already minced garlic, so it would be 1 tablespoon if you do it that way**
2 tablespoons flour
3/4 cup chicken broth
3/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons parsley flakes
salt and pepper to taste
1/3 cup parmesan cheese


Directions:
Cook penne pasta according to directions on box
In a medium saucepan, melt butter and garlic
Cook on medium for 1 minute
Add flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly **I used a whisk and it made it easier**
Add chicken broth and milk, stirring frequently until sauce boils and thickens
Add parsley flakes, salt, pepper, and cheese
Stir until cheese is melted
Toss hot pasta with sauce and serve immediately

Serving suggestion:
Serve with 4 cheese garlic breadsticks. yum :)


This really was super easy to make. I measured out all of my ingredients while waiting for the water to boil for the pasta. Once I started cooking the pasta, I made the sauce in the 10 minutes it took for the pasta to be ready. Quick, easy, and delicious!

Recipe found here.

Jealous

I just wanted to let it be known that I am jealous of all you with HBO! Especially those of you watching True Blood to be exact!

A little over a year ago we got rid of our DirecTV because we don't watch enough TV to justify the cost of the service. Between school, work, and a social life, there really isn't much time left for TV. Most of the shows that I watch anyway come on ABC, FOX, NBC, etc so there isn't much need for tv service when I get all of those channels for FREE. :)

source

Buttttt.... now I am really wanting satellite again. I'm reading the Sookie Stackhouse books, and I bought season 1 of True Blood, and now everyone is watching season 2 but ME!! :(

I think I might be hitting up my sister-in-law's offer on coming to her house and watching her DVR. I just don't think I can wait another year for season 2 dvd's to come out.

I'll quit pouting now :)

Friends make the world go 'round :)

I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU for all of your thoughts and prayers about the loss of my friend. The funeral was Saturday and then we had an after party at the bar. It might sound kind of strange, but it really was amazing having everyone there celebrating Aaron's life.


There was a slide show rolling for the majority of the time with pictures of Aaron and everyone else in the photo above. It was also probably the only time that crying was allowed and/or appropriate in a bar. It really was an amazing night. I don't really know what else to say, except that Aaron would have been glad that we sent him with a bang! :)

Life is hard.

It is 1am after a very long day, and let me just tell you that Tuesday sucked.

After a very bad morning of not feeling well, but making it to work, I found out that one of my friends passed away this (tue) morning.

His name is Aaron, he is 25, he is a great person, and very well the most physically fit and athletic person I know. He actually just completed a triathlon in May to give you an idea of how physically fit he was.


He suffered cardiac arrest while working out at the rec center on campus. The employees performed CPR and contacted 911 who then rushed him to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead.

I am 1000% shocked, and none of this seems real. It doesn't seem possible, and life right now is feeling very hard. I have been somewhat of a basket case on and off all day.

Aaron is the first person to pass since my dad died in December, and the fact that he died of cardiac arrest makes the whole situation worse. I have had friends and young people pass around me before, and it hurts, but I am usually okay. However, I have never personally known a young adult to die of cardiac arrest. As soon as I read those words, all of the feelings and emotions from my dad just came rushing back.

I know it's normal, and it will get better with time, blah, blah, blah. Right now I am just upset and confused. My husbands uncle just spent a week in the hospital from a heart attack, and one of my managers at work had a stroke last week.

There have been many other heart related issues with people in my family, my husbands family, and just people I know in general during the past year. Can we quit with the heart problems now? Really, I don't know how much I can handle.

So at this point I don't really know if I am upset about Aaron passing, or if it is mainly all of the feeling and emotions stirring up again from my dad passing away. I wish this was just a bad dream and everything will be normal when I wake up again. Except it won't and that really sucks.

I don't know when I will be back to the rec center on campus to work out (probably august), but I know that the next time I step foot in that building, I will think of Aaron. It won't happen purposefully, but it will happen.. I know myself pretty well. I also know that it will sadden me and most likely I will shed a tear (or ten) at knowing that I am benefiting from exercising on the very ground that my friend passed away on. That sucks too.

I don't want to start rambling, I just needed to get this out. If you are the praying kind, will you please pray for Aaron, his family, my friends, and me and my husband. We will miss him and I am so thankful that we randomly had lunch with him last week.

Life is unexpected.

The message that my dad left for me when he died was that there is a time and a place for everything.

I guess it was Aaron's time, and I hope he is in a wonderful place.

I took this picture of him at our groups Halloween party. He was J.D. from Scrubs :)

tired...

That pretty much sums me up this morning! I ended up only getting 3 hours of sleep last night. Now I'm trying to wake myself up so I will make it through the 4 hours of marketing I signed up for. Joy. The I get a 2 hour break, which at this point I think I will take a nap, before heading up to my first day back at work! I know I will make it once I get up, and I already know everything at work since I took my old position back at a brand new location. Until then, my eyelids feel like they weigh 1000 lbs. Oh, and lets not forget the sneezing and itchy eyes as a added bonus. Yay allergies!

Sorry if none of this makes sense.. I'm fairly certain I am still asleep. I hope you all have a good Monday!