This is a two part answer. Because I want to vacation at the beach, but live in the mountains.
The beach it’s warm and sunny. Beautiful! There is the hot sand, the blue oceans. It’s paradise. But honestly for me not where I want to put down roots.
I have some reasons. I’m not just stating a fact or anything. But for one, I’m afraid of the ocean. Yes it super pretty to look at; but only my knees will be dipping in. The husband and I went to Hawaii for our honeymoon, and I was having a panic attack swimming around in the ocean. I totally was a buzz kill for the husband.
Second reason…tsunamis. Not a fan…or hurricanes…nope nope. It’s all sunshine and rainbows until your house is washed away.
Third reason. I burn. No matter how much sunscreen I put on; I burn. Peeling is the pits.
But still, even with all those things; I would love to vacation at a beach again.
But putting down roots; I’m a mountain girl. The trees, the mountains, the Autumn’s breeze, the snow, the cold. All of it is beautiful.
But the extreme weather is not the greatest. The over 100mph winds or the -50°, terrible. But you learn, you adapt. My great fear in the mountains is grizzly bears and rattlesnakes; but there are things to do to handle those problems.
So I guess that’s what it is for me. The extreme weather issues of living in various places. You live up north you freeze. You live farther south you get whacked with baseball sized hail. The east you get humidity and tornadoes. And the west you get sky high population and expensive living with nice weather. Haha! But no matter where you decide to put down roots; you take the good with the bad. You learn to adapt. You live!
I’m going to stay away from holiday meals. Because Christmas and Thanksgiving to me are easy answers.
#1 I think one of my favorite meals is a big juicy steak. With some side of potatoes, corn, salad. But most importantly, we need the horseradish sauce. I like to make the sauce extra spicy. Where when you eat it, it clears your sinuses. But this meal is an easy one for me. I marinate the steak the night before. Then I make the side dishes, and the husband cooks the meat. I can make most things. But he does those dishes,I have trouble with, and they come out amazing. Steak, burgers, chocolate chip cookies, and biscuits.
#2 It’s a recent meal. I made beef enchiladas a couple weeks ago. And they were amazing!! I wish I had taken pictures and used it for a blog post. Maybe next time I will. But I also made the enchilada sauce from scratch too. And I think that made a huge difference. Another part that amazed me was, that my daughter ate it. She didn’t particularly like it, but she ate it. But that my son ate 1 and half enchiladas. I had 3…I’m a grown adult. He is not even 1 1/2 years old and he devoured them. The husband also took the leftovers for work. I was a little annoyed he took them; I wanted to eat them…
🤤
#3 Probably Orange Chicken. What’s funny about this meal is, it’s a staple in my entire family. At my mom’s house they also have this often. I just take it a step farther and I make everything from scratch. Not the sauce. I use the panda orange chicken sauce. It’s just so delicious. And less work for me. I always strive for that. Haha! But this is a meal that has transcended generations.
Like all the posts I could probably list more favorites, but I think I will leave these answers as the only answers. Because they are true.
Well I should get back in the kitchen. The husband worked yesterday so today is our Thanksgiving dinner day.
Have an amazing weekend!!
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Five colors.
Four painted hands.
Three crisp papers.
Two excited kiddos.
One wet brush.
That’s right! Thanksgiving Hand turkeys. I hope to do it every year. To see how their little hands grow every year! ❤️
Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?
I think I would choose age 15-17. When I was a competitive swimmer.
I stayed on my swim team because I didn’t want to lose my friends, start from scratch, and I didn’t want to let my coach down.
But if I had switched teams I would have probably gone farther in the sport. Not gotten hurt. And probably would have made it to the Olympics.
But instead I choose my friends. I thought they would be my friends always. But the older friends tolerated me because I was fast. The younger friends respected me because I was fair. But in the end I only have one good friend from my 17 years of swimming; living in a different state, and I only text her. It’s been almost 5 years now since I last saw her.
Another reason for not leaving, was I didn’t want to have to figure out my place on a new team. I knew there were faster swimmers than me. Surprisingly enough, more dedicated swimmers than me. But on my old swim team I was respected.
You can’t really leave one team, try out another, and then return. It would have not gone well.
The biggest reason of all: I didn’t want to disappoint my coach. My coach was my coach for 8 years, I think. She was the one that kickstarted my desire to become great. I always did anything she said. She was the one that was going to take me to the next level.
But like most things, many different events happened that began to unravel my hoped future.
She always wanted me to be the best, but I’ve come to realize it that she just expected the best without her 100% effort to help me there. She had a favorite on the team; and to her, that swimmer could do no wrong.
Another event was that when I was 16, I had finished 3 exhausting swim meets in a row. I had been invited to an invitation only swim meet, that I had to go to as well. But into the first day of the meet I had an excruciating pain in my stomach that I couldn’t even sleep through the night. My mom came to get me and we went to the hospital. Turned out I had a cyst the size of a large grapefruit in my lower abdomen. The doctors were amazed that I had continued through the pain, for this long, while being an athlete. I had to have surgery. So it was quite serious. The doctors said that if the cyst had ruptured I would have died.
But what do you think my Coach’s response to all this was… disappointment. She made me feels so awful for leaving that swim meet. She made me feel like I embarrassed her; and that I should have just sucked it up, and finished the meet.
After that day my Coach gave up on me. The swimmer that could do no wrong was now more than ever her favorite. And I continued to try and prove myself to my coach. I did more in my 16-17 years than I had already done for her from the age of 10 to this point.
And you might be wondering how it ended…
Without any help from my coach. I bettered myself all the way up to the nationals level. That’s one step lower than the Olympics trials. Two steps away from the Olympics. I thought, I would have at least one more year of her help. But instead she took her favorite to the Olympic trials. The swimmer chocked and didn’t perform well, and then my coach retired.
She gave up. She gave up on me. If she had given me some direction the year before she retired she might have taken two swimmers to the Olympic trials. I think I lost my spark after that.
She then sold the team to my teammate. He then made a rule that after the age of 18, if you are not swimming in college you couldn’t continue to swim on the team. So I lost my coach. I lost my drive. And I lost my team. All after I turned 18.
I swam at my community college. I did amazing. But it wasn’t the same. My spark was gone. I broke almost all the records. But then I got hurt. I think it was an old injury from when I tried to earn my coach’s respect back.
Now as I look back over those years I can see that I should have left. I wasted 8 years trying to swim for someone who never seemed to care. But I wasted the best years especially; where if I had just switched I probably would have made it. I know I would have!
But with all things you must go on. I coached. Which I loved!! I will definitely do it in the future if I get the chance. Without the public speaking part. I’m terrified and terrible at that part. Another, I still like to do hard work. Any projects we have on the property I’m rearing to help complete them. My body feels sore and tired afterwards. Most importantly, I found someone who cares for me, who wants me to do my best, but will also accept me as I am.
So yes, I want to change those years. Because I wish I could give my 17 year old self a chance to succeed on the level she desired. But like all things. You learn. You move past it. And you then live your new life.
Digital Art By: emily2jane 11-04-2023 “Stilled Moments”
This is a difficult question to answer. Because I think it will change based on where you are in life.
But to me I think it’s to still have that innocence. Where you can be an adult, but there is something that makes you giddy and excited; just like it would for a five year old. That it’s the purest enjoyment.
Like for me, when I get a new painting idea. I get all giddy and excited to at least get my idea down.
I think for my husband it’s playing video games. Not as giddy as I would be. But I think it reminds him of his teenage days. He still can get online and play with his buddies.
But I don’t think it’s really behavior like a child. It’s the pure excitement that comes with doing something you love.
So for me when someone is being immature and someone says they are a child at heart I don’t feel the same.
That’s more like you are stuck in the age of a fifteen to sixteen year old, and you are still a pain. Every parent knows the age. It’s the age where you yourself regrets experiencing personally.
So to sum up. For me…
Child at heart = pure innocent excitement.
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Inspired by my sons costume yesterday.
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Yellow
And in charge.
Waddle here,
Waddle there.
So cute,
So large.
Definitely in charge.
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He was a duck. It was super adorable. But he was stomping around the harvest festival like he was the boss. It was so cute!!
Now it’s time to decorate for Christmas!! My son loves going to Costco and seeing all the lights. Excited to see his reaction when it will be in and outside our home for almost 3 months.
It’s strengthens everything; arms, legs, back, core. Lungs, flexibility, balance. When you swim it’s an everything body workout.
But in all honesty where we live, our city pool is only open 3 months of the year…they should really enclosed it.
So my year round exercise is… stress, panic, and ”running” chasing after my son…😑 He is not even a year and half and he is getting into everything. Like our bed. We finally got ourselves a nice bed frame. And it’s maybe 3.5 ft tall. He proceeds to climb it…then he stands on the edge of the bed to claim his victory.
So my days are spent in fear and panic of what he is getting into. Like last night he wouldn’t go to sleep so we played in the living room a bit longer. And the moment I wasn’t watching, he had moved the packed up air mattress, stood upon it to grab something off a surface above him, a….battery powered drill. The husband didn’t put it away…and obviously what daddy uses must be the coolest things ever…so naturally my son needs to play with it too.
But I got up from the floor at lightning speed and cleaned up the disaster and future disasters in a record time.
So that’s what I feel like my exercise is currently. Flash style reflexes done at lightning speed. Mix in some fear and panic, and you can loose some weight this way. Believe me I have.
We’ve been also doing various lifestyle changes but I’ve lost 6lbs in 2 weeks. 😳 not a good thing when still feeding a baby, but I think it’s just my son’s doing.
Our harvest festival is coming up. And I saw this shirt yesterday and I approve of this shirt. Haha 😂
So true.
I’m working a booth again this year, so I’ll have my own bowl to steal candy from. But all moms out there…while they are little and not eating candy…this is your right.
I know would is different than could. But trying things cost money…so I’ve been sticking to what I know, or make what I have work for what I want to try.
But if I could, I would try professional ballroom dancing. I love to dance. All types of styles! Ballroom, Latin, Swing….I like to watch hip hop, but I don’t know if I’m able to actually dance it well.
At one point in my life, I would go out dancing. I would be out swing dancing until almost 11pm every weekend. But I loved ballroom dancing the best. I felt so elegant and fancy.
To do it professionally would be fun. Not to do it to win! per say, but to do it because I love to dance.
But obviously I’m a full time mama, and I want more kiddos, so my figure is not what most professional dancers look like.
But it would be fun to try. I’ve even got the shoes already…they were my wedding shoes.
But still happy to be a mama. Never going to change that.
The latter is worse. But we’ve been so busy lately. My daughter is only four years old so I technically don’t have to be consistent until next September, but I’ve been trying to do some things before then. But “some” being the key word. It’s only occasionally and not at all consistent.
It’s difficult with my husband’s schedule being so funky. On his days off we do projects; so no school. On his night shifts I let my daughter spend the morning time with her daddy. And then the rest of the day is filled with our normal chores.
So I’m hoping to spend these next 11 months figuring things out.
But for me personally, it’s exercise. I want to get back into exercising, but again I never seem to have the time. And o know, most people say you always have a small window of time. True. But sleep is important.
Wake up. Wake daughter up. Make breakfast. Feed children. Eat my breakfast while cleaning up kitchen. 10-1pm on most days filled with playing with dad or a longer day until 3pm on projects. Also add in the middle my sons long nap time. 4pm let chickens out, and do outdoor chores or projects. Head back inside around 5:30pm. Start dinner. Finish dinner, eat. Watch a short educational show with kids. Start bedtime 7:30pm. In bed 9:30pm. Asleep by 10:30pm. Repeat. My days are the same all the time. So yes, maybe I could fit some exercise in there. And once it’s winter I will have more free time.
But for now my exercise is the projects I do. I’m constantly moving. Maybe even lifting things. So I think I’m good. I need to be able to stay fit for my kiddos. I don’t want to be a lump.
So yes, I’ve been putting these things off, but I’ve been trying to find different solutions that fit in my current schedule.
When was the first time you really felt like a grown up (if ever)?
I know they mean grown up as an adult but also remember the day I felt grown up as a kid.
I’ve already mentioned the day in detail on a previous blog post. But it was the day I stood between my dad and siblings. That day flared up my protective instincts. But felt like I grew up that day.
The day I felt like a grown up….not a very deep emotion day. But the day we bought our first couch. I don’t know why but that seemed to make me believe I had grown up.
But it’s strange. It wasn’t when we got married. It wasn’t when we bought our first house. Or moved away to a different state. Or had my daughter. But the couch came before our son. But I didn’t really feel like anything changed until the couch.
Normally when your young you buy fun things. I spoiled my husband….a lot. But I never had the desire to buy the grown up things.
But when the couch arrived I felt, “wow I’m old.” Haha! Blinds. Blinds are also something I feel like you have grown up if you want to change your blinds.
But I wonder when I’ll feel I’ve grown up to older adult life…
If you had a million dollars to give away, who would you give it to?
My mom.
She deserves it!!
I always have this dream. That if I win the lottery, what would I do.
First, I would buy my mom’s house; she could live there forever. I’d pay off debt. I would buy her a car just like mine. I would pay for all remodeling she wants to do to the house. And I would set aside money for her to get allowance for the rest of her life. She deserves this and more. So much more. ❤️
But also most importantly, my husband could choose to work or not. His choice. I know he has many dreams and ideas that he cannot do because he provides for the family. And he would invest some of it; into various things. He would want the money to continue to earn.
Next, I would pay of our debts. And also add square footage to our house and shop. We would still do the work ourselves. Just because we would be made out of money doesn’t mean we would be wasteful.
I might splurge and get myself one of those awesome craft stations….I’ve always eyeballed one.
🤤
But maybe the husband could build one for cheaper….
But other than that I don’t really have anything that screams out to me like I need.
But I would want to keep living the same. No one would know that we won the lottery. I would want to still be me. And our kids would still grow up the same.
I know. I’m pretty boring when it comes to what you want when you win.
But for me, if my husband is happy, I’m good. If my mom has no more worries I’m good. And if my family can live comfortably, I’m good.
emily2jane 