Dear June

Dear June,

            What a month you have been!  You have always been my favorite month of the year, what with being the first month of summer and my birth month, but this month has been filled with many changes and emotions.  I think that I have felt every emotion possible with all of the things that have happened. 

You began with the girls' due date and a reminder of everything I have lost.  Then came my birthday three days later.  That was a sweet day full of love and friendship.  Next came the ups and downs of looking for a house, finding one much sooner than we thought, putting in an offer, and finally the prospect of truly being homeowners.  I also found out that I have the possibility of employment in the fall.  I will write more about this when it is for sure, but just the possibility has brought both excitement for being able to start my career and anxiety of if I am prepared and can actually be successful. 

Throughout this month I have been planning and organizing a memorial for my daughters that we are having in July.  That has been hard, but I feel peace in knowing that it is the right thing to do.  Finally, you are leaving me with much sadness and fear as my husband's grandfather had a stroke yesterday. 

June, as much as I usually like you, I am not sad to see you go this year.  You did bring good things like our house and a possible job opportunity,  but also much sadness, fear, and anxiety.  So, I am not too sad in saying "See you next year June!"

- Ann

Learning a Lesson can be Painful

Monday night I made a really silly mistake.  I am almost too embarrassed to share it here, but I feel like you will be understanding, and that perhaps I can warn others not to make my same mistake. 

I was making a pot roast and found a recipe from the Barefoot Contessa for her Company Pot Roast.  I love her, have made many of her recipes, and was excited to try this one because I knew it would have amazing flavor.  One of the last steps of the recipe was to take the veggies and liquid from the dutch oven and puree it in a blender or food processor to thicken it into a sauce.  I decided to use my blender, loaded it up with the hot liquid, and then hit blend.  Let's just say that the result was explosive.  The lid popped off from the hot steam and sprayed burning hot meat juice and vegetables all over me and my kitchen.  Now I have burns on both of my forearms and am still finding places in my kitchen that got sprayed.  Not to mention the clothes I was wearing are ruined. 

I learned that you must have a way for steam to escape when you are blending something hot and that I should have thought about it long enough to realize that my immersion blender would have been the perfect tool for the situation. 

Will I make this mistake again, I think not.  Will I make this pot roast again, I think not.  It did have great flavor and was moist and tasty, but my painful memories will override the desire to try this one again, I think.  I do want to say that now that it has been a couple of days I find this to be really funny and laugh when I think about what happened.

How My Cats Spend the Day

Here is how I found my cats, and really how they spend their days.  What a tough life they lead!  They are storing up energy for crazy adventures at night while we are trying to sleep.

Blueberries for Ann

Saturday morning my husband and I got up bright and early and headed out of the house to pick blueberries.  We packed up sandwiches, lots of water, sunscreen, and bug spray.  On the hour and a half drive we spent time talking about upcoming events, how we were both doing with things, and what are goals are for the house.  We passed a great looking fruit stand and vowed to stop on the way back (we got a half bushel of the best peaches I have tasted in a long time!). 

The sign that welcomed us to our blueberry picking fun!

After a couple of wrong turns and having to use my husband's blackberry (the irony :), we found the farm.  It was already getting warm but we were there and excited, so with white buckets in hand we hopped on the golf cart and got a ride out to the blueberry bushes.  We learned that the farm had over 60 acres of blueberry plants, they just seemed to go on and on.  Another thing we learned is that there is more than one type of blueberry.  They actually had us try two different kinds and then pick which one we liked the best.  We both liked the tarter kind. 

Here is just a snapshot of the rows and rows of bushes.

Once we had found our row we got down to business.  My husband and I started picking next to each other, but over the course of picking drifted apart, and then back together.  I enjoyed feeling the sun warming my neck and hair, popping warm blueberries in my mouth and feeling them explode with juice, the comfortable conversation my husband and I shared, and especially the sound that the blueberries made when they hit the bottom of the white buckets.  It reminded me of one of my all time favorite children's book, Blueberries for Sal.  If you are not familiar with this book, I would highly recommend it.  I have great memories of my mother reading it to me.

It really is a great book!

After two hours of picking, we finally felt too hot to continue and walked back to the main part of the farm.  While we had been picking my husband kept encouraging me to keep going by saying that we only had 3-4 pounds and we could pick more.  WELL, we ended up with 18 pounds of blueberries!!!!  That is a lot of blueberries.  As my husband said, "We have blueberries coming out of our blueberries!"  We spent all of Sunday freezing most of them, and I made a yummy blueberry cobbler. 

This is only two of three bags we brought back, and one is already missing half of it's berries.

Freezing the berries took a long time because we froze them flat on a cookie sheet and then put them in a container.

Overall it was a very fun experience, mainly because of the great time I got to spend with my husband outside doing something we both enjoyed, and also the blueberries!

The yummy cobbler I made, overloaded with fresh blueberries.

There was only a little bit of crust and lots of warm, gushy blueberries.

Pavlova

Earlier this month I celebrated my birthday.  It was pretty bittersweet this year, but because of the love and support of family and friends it ended up being a lovely day.  Instead of making a cake for dessert, I decided to make a traditional Australian treat called Pavlova.  It is a large base of meringue topped with whipped cream and fruit.  It is really easy to make and so tasty.  I chose to put raspberries and kiwi on top because they are tart and balanced out the sweetness of the cream and meringue.  If you are looking for a light, sweet dessert that is unique and special, I would recommend trying out pavlova.  This is the recipe that I used but cut everything in half as I only needed four servings, not eight.

Focusing on the positive

I have been having a really hard time doing that lately.  I seem to have a doom and gloom kind of attitude that has moved in and doesn't want to leave.  We have had some pretty positive things happen to us in the last couple of weeks, including finding a house we want to buy.  While I feel excited and hopeful about these positive things, I feel a lot of fear and dread that things are just going to turn out badly and be disappointing or too hard to handle.  It is like I can't allow myself to feel happy about something because things have been so sad for so long.  I really dislike this new way that I view life and situations but know that it is a way to protect myself because of what happened with my daughters.  I am in a much better place than I was a couple of months ago, however, this negative, unhealthy mindset has stuck around.

In response to this I am going to list some positive things that are going on right now:
- My husband and I are in the process of buying a really great house
- We are heading up to Missouri in two weeks for a vacation
- I have family and friends that love and support me no matter what
- I am making fish tacos with mango salsa tonight for dinner
- I have a great doctor who has helped me come up with a plan for the future
- I have two cats who really brighten my days
- I have had the time to work on projects and structure the days the way I would like

One of my goals is to use this blog as a place to honestly share my thoughts and feelings and then consciously focus on positive things, with the goal of changing how I view life.

Skirt

In the last year or so I have really started to get into quilting and sewing.  My mom is an avid quilter and has been my whole life.  She set me up with her old machine and the basics (mat, rotary cutter, ruler, scissors, ect.) about a year ago and from then on I have been working on projects in my spare time.  I plan to share projects with you on this blog. 

This post, however, is specifically about a skirt I created recently.  It is the first time I have made a piece of clothing.  I used these instructions from the sewmamasew site to draft my pattern and put the skirt together.  It was a challenge putting the ruffle on the bottom and figuring out how to attach the waist band.  Overall I think it turned out well and is a cool and light summer skirt.  If I did this pattern again I would use a little less fabric in the skirt section.

The fabric I used was Amy Butler's daisy bouquet from her daisy chain line of fabrics for the main body of the skirt and a dark batik for the ruffle and waist band.

I have more fabric to make another skirt, but am thinking about trying this pattern instead.  Here is the fabric.  As of yet I am still undecided.

Update!

Well, after signing the offer paperwork yesterday for the house, we were expecting the current owners to take the weekend to think about it and most likely counter offer.  We even thought the process might take a week.  Boy, were we wrong!  About a half hour after I had posted yesterday, our realtor called letting me know that they had accepted the offer.  WHAT!!!  I was shocked, and then very excited.  Now we have lots more paperwork to straighten out and a home inspection to go through, but if that all goes well we should be in our new house by the beginning of August.  Here is a picture of the front.  I will post more once we actually own the home, but I just couldn't resist sharing it with you.

Holy Cow, We are almost homeowners!!!

Ashley, in answer to your question, yes, we are hoping to settle here for a long while.  It will be so nice to have some stability and true place to create a home together with my husband.  Of course, life always throws in curve balls, but that is our plan for the moment.  And Bethany, you are right, it is a bummer there is no pool.  Hopefully though, you will still come and visit :).

Jumping into the Deep End

When I was little I spent a lot of time at the pool.  One thing I remember distinctly is the decision of how to get in.  You could do a running jump and get the sensation of the cold water rushing over you all at once, or you could slowly creep in from the shallow end letting your body adjust to the water.  While a few times I would jump in if it was really hot or I was pushed encouraged by others, but most of the time I was a shallow end, little bit at a time kind of girl. 

Thinking about it now, I think that it says a lot about who I am and how I approach situations.  I am cautious, careful, and usually over-think decisions and situations.  I am not one to just jump on it without considering all of the alternatives and outcomes that could happen.  This being said, I feel like my husband and I just jumped into the deep end of the pool.  We just put an offer in on a house this morning.  This will be our first house and first experience with the purchasing process.  Today we held hands and took a risk by jumping into home ownership.  Needless to say, we have done our research and feel prepared for this investment, but at the same time it is a leap into the unknown.  Hopefully it will be cool and inviting.

A Little about Me

I have to say that blogging is easier than I anticipated, although I still wonder what I will choose to write about.  It was exciting to see that I have already connected with people who I have heard so much about from Bethany.  I am looking forward to getting to know you through this medium and also expressing myself.  Because of this, my first real post is going to be a little about me and where I have come from to get to this point.

While my family is originally from Missouri, I grew up living all over the country and the world.  These places included Colorado, Texas, California, Australia, Papua New Guinea, Missouri, Germany, and Florida.  While I did not have a typical childhood of growing up in one place and having that continuity, I have had a lot of amazing experiences that I look forward to sharing on this blog.  After finishing high school in California, I went to the University of Missouri and completed a bachelor's of art in international studies.  I also met my husband there.  We have been married for three and a half years.  I am blessed to be with the love of my life.  He is an amazing man that cares deeply about his family and his career.  His job has taken us from Missouri to Florida and now to a medium sized town in Mississippi.  We have two cats that bring us much enjoyment.  I am sure that they will feature on here a lot.

Gus and Boo

                                                               On our wedding day

I am a teacher.  While I am not working right now I am looking forward to getting back into the classroom soon.  I love to cook, do crafty things such as quilt and paint, read, spend time outside, and listen to music.  I have a weakness for bad reality TV and love the food network.  While we lived in Florida we spent a lot of time at the beach.  Now that we have moved to Mississippi we are adjusting to the heat and exploring what new things there are to do here. 

In January I delivered our twin daughters at 21 and 1/2 weeks.  They were too little and were not able to survive.  This has been the hardest thing that my husband and I have had to go through.  While this is not what I want the main focus of this blog to be about, I feel like I have changed as a person and that my perspective on life and faith and relationships has completely shifted.  It effects every day of my life and I will never be the same again.  I have learned so many valuable things through this experience, such as the importance of connecting with other people and being open and honest about my thoughts and feelings.  This is the main reason that I have started this blog and I am looking forward to seeing my continued journey to healing and happiness on it through my journaling and the connections I make with others.  I hope to be able to look towards the positive things happening now and that can happen in the future.

                                                     Wilma Jane and Hannah Grace

I am blogging!

After much deliberation and thought, I have started a blog.  I have been encouraged for a long time, especially by one special friend, Mrs. Haid, who has a really fantastic blog.  I want this to be a place where I can journal the positive things that are going on in my life, because too much of my life lately has been focused on the negative.  I hope it is a way to find balance in my life and also to connect with other people as I continue on this journey.