Black Bean Salsa

2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, drained
1/4 cup finely chopped white onion
3/4 cup finely chopped tomatoes
1 can white corn, drained
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
4 jalapenos, finely chopped
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon Tabasco sauce

Add all the ingredients together and stir up for a yummy salsa dip!

Yummy Alfredo Sauce

So, I was getting a little tired of pouring Alfredo sauce from the jar. It never seemed to taste right to me. I searched and combined and came up with the perfect and simple recipe for Alfredo sauce that my whole family enjoys. Chicken Alfredo has become Kobi's absolute favorite meal.

What you need:

1/4 stick of butter
1/4 stick of margarine
2 cups whipping cream
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 cup mozzarella cheese
1 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 tablespoon garlic powder

1. First in a large sauce pan, melt the butter and margarine
2. Next add white pepper, garlic powder, whipping cream and Parmesan cheese
to the melted butter.
3. Stir continuously over a medium heat. Keep heating until cheese has melted
and sauce thickens just a bit.
4. Next add the mozzarella cheese. Continue to stir until all the cheese has
melted and the sauce is smooth and creamy. If sauce is not as thick as you
would like, add a little more mozzarella to thicken it up.

Add this Alfredo to just about any kind of pasta. I have topped it with grilled chicken and even grilled shrimp and scallops.....YUMMY!

Still toying around

I am still toying around with my blog and html. Yes it is taking me forever it seems... I have now added some links over on the right side. I am following sneaky momma's blog designs and then I created backgrounds and headers using digital scrap book stuff from summertime designs and my microsoft picture it....I am so loving playing around!

So what do you think?

New Look

HA! This BLOG is temporarily out of order....

Please be patient while viewing my blog.... I am creating a new look.

Please come back to visit soon!

Sorry for the inconvenience....

I will post links to all that need to be credited to the designs soon.

Give me a BREAK!

I NEED A BREAK! Really Seriously I do! I am so stressed out over family stuff and it’s not even funny! OK now that I have that off my chest, I can resume to normal.

A few things I want to mention though that I am excited or HAPPY about:

• I have a wonderful hubby that not only helps out around the house… but he does so many extra projects. He just finished a double gate on the side of the house and will be tearing out a computer room/office that we have had for a few years. We need that 3rd car garage fully opened up.

• My child is doing REALLY good in High School! She actually comes home happy and does homework. She even likes her teachers! She is back to making good grades. Last year was SO rough!

• I sold some stuff on ebay! WOOT WOOT Made a little extra to add to my pay for my CPA exam that is way too expensive fund!

• I am hosting a Scentsy/Premier Jewelry Party in the beginning of October. YEAH! Two of my favorite things, jewelry and scentsy! I also love making tons of food and the entertaining my friends part...

• It is Fall! I am going to climb up in the attic this weekend and search for all my fall/Halloween decorations.

• I am also so happy the way Big Brother turned out!! I am glad that Jordan won. I was so not liking some of the others, you know the ones that are obviously jealous. I think she made the correct move bay taking Natalie to the end. I think Kevin would have won if he would have made it to the final two. Although, he really didn't do any more than Jordan did...except tell lies and back stab. But hey, that is what the game seems to be all about. My one vice is over... I am now away from the TV.(well except for some football)

Lastly I am going to tell you about a giveaway on another blog. Go visit the blog of her southern charm . She is having a Cambria Cove $100 Giveaway. This stuff is so awesome you must go look!

UH OH!

I am so so so horrible! I have so neglected my blog. I have just been SO busy and haven't had the time to set down. Crazy times! Here is a bit of what has been going on....

• First we had Labor Day and we were gone out camping in the travel trailer.
• I had food poisoning or stomach virus ALL night the night before we left on our trip. NO FUN!
• I had my EMG done, that was NO fun. They found nothing in the test to alarm them, so I go undiagnosed for now. The doctors want to stop testing me and see if my symptoms occur again.
• There are a few BIG deadlines coming up at work and I have been swamped!
• I have been a cleaning/organizing freak lately around the house. I HATE clutter!
• I have been doing alot of cooking & baking.
• I have started selling junk on ebay again.
• K has a boyfriend and phew, we let him come over and well, gotta stay on top of that situation. Not that I don't trust K, but they are teenagers....enough said.
• I have applied to become an applicant for the CPA exam. I hope to take the first of 4 tests in November. Can you say FREAKED OUT!
• I finally organized all 1000 songs on my computer and figured out how to work my ipod and itunes. I was so challenged in that area and it frustrated me!
• Gardens and flower beds have consumed alot of my time also.
• College football has started! Go Sooners! Go Pokes!... unless they are playing each other then it is GO SOONERS!
• My niece ran away from home. She has been missing since August 19. I just want to cry. Secretly, I really want her to come live with us, i want to try get her set back on the right path in life. Not that my brother and sis-in-law is not doing a good job....but I just would like to try. She seems to really open up and talk to me and the hubs. Two more years of school, that's it. I have faith in her... We just have to find her!
• I am getting ready to have a scentsy/jewelry party.... trying to plan for that.
• Our friends just bought a house in a nearby town.... they will now be 30 minutes away vs. 2 hours away.

So basically now that I blurted out all that has been going on.... I am taking my OCD self and soaking in a HOT bath, then crawling in bed. After I have K stop GIGGLING so loud as she talks to her boyfriend. I so love high school!

Just a boring ol’ post to update…

· Made 4 cakes this weekend. I am really starting to enjoy fondant more and more. I am getting used to working with it and I am not so stressed and worried about it turning out PREFECT. Here are 3 of them…



· We are planning a trip to the lake in the travel trailer. I plan on making lots of food! I love making food, have you noticed? We are going to have the football game on Saturday and I plan on having a big spread of fun foods. Today is Tuesday, we plan on leaving Thursday. No internet for 4-5 days. We may end up with NO fellow campers on this trip. That will be very VERY weird! We normally have 3-4 trailers camping together. I still plan on pigging out. It’s all about the food - right?

· The Hubs’ Grandmother is not doing well – AT ALL! Last night she was placed in the hospital for the first time in many years. She has made several trips to the ER lately and sadly enough, her health has been rapidly declining. The first round of news is that her kidneys are failing, her heart is having problems, and she needs an operation to fix a hernia ASAP. She was transported to a different hospital last night and we are now waiting test results and a plan of action. Even at 95 and with all of her ailments, she was still FULL of spunk last night when we went to visit her in the hospital. She had a lighted monitor on the end of her middle finger. When anyone would mention it, giving her a hard time that her finger was glowing, she would proudly give them the middle finger and laugh. She also wanted a mixed drink and a slot machine to occupy her time, she was bored. Gotta love her!

· Today is my birthday… I am slowly creeping up to that 4 – 0 mark….

· Did I mention we leave in 2 days? 7am Thursday morning to be exact. I have yet to pack anything… Maybe I should start?

**UPDATE**
Father-in-law is now going camping with us... YEAH, not totally by ourselves now.

Even better news on the home-front tonight. The Hubs' Grandmother is doing better. She is now getting hydrated. Seems not being able to keep things down for 5 days did her in so to speak... Her kidneys are still functioning at 20%. They are hopeful that they will get betterwith the hydration. Please pray that they do, because if not, she has to live with them at 20%. They can not do Dialysis, they said her body would not tollerate the process. They think the illness and sickness is do to gall stones. They are looking into that more. They believe they can deaden her stomach and move her hernia around so it will not cause the problems that it is now. This is good, because they didn't think her body would tollerate the surgery. At 95 she is still putting up a good fight!

Petunia aka LuLu

Magically and mysterious--That is what she is! She appears out of now where and can disappear as fast as she appears! Who am I talking about? It is Petunia aka LuLu our neighborhood pig.



What is a neighborhood pig? Well, she is a friendly creature that likes to come visit your front porch! But be nice to her, because she may disappear as fast as she appears! Side note- K is utterly embarrassed by Petunia and makes sure her friends entering the house know "it is a joke-the pig is not ours"!!

Our neighbors down the street started this tradition, one that was originally started about 4-5 years ago in a different neighborhood far, far away. Anyhow, Petunia was given away to someone else, in a garage sale *gasp*. They were tired of Petunia appearing on their porch! Although far from her original home the tradition continues, but now in a new and better neighborhood. A neighborhood with good people, that love her!

Petunia goes around from porch to porch. The rules are, there really are no rules. Just be nice to the Petunia, she is a sweet pig. You are allowed to be sneaky and pig nap Petunia for yourself, or you can pig nap her and place her on someone else's porch.

So now we have Petunia. I hope she stays for a while. She really is a sweet little piggy!

Birthday Weekend

This week's Blog Hop theme is TIME TO LAUGH. Post your favorite joke, cartoon, funny picture or video. We all need a good laugh sometimes, what a great way to start the week. Here are some silly times from over the weekend...

So this weekend my K celebrated her 14th birthday. I took off work a little early to finish up her birthday cake.

The day was basically K's to enjoy. Her best friend M came to stay the weekend.

Saturday morning we rose early and got to the local zoo before it got to hot outside to enjoy ourselves… Fun times at the zoo as always…







Saturday afternoon was spent relaxing and playing rock band. Then it was time to go eat a Yamatos Japanese Steak House. (K’s Choice) The girls enjoyed the meal.


AND HERE IS MY FUNNY PICTURE FOR THE BLOG HOP!!! THEY GIVE NEW MEANING TO THE PHRASE "PLAYING CHOPSTICKS"....


Saturday night the girls went to the movies. After the movies cake was enjoyed. Here is a picture of the girls eating the cake, with their hands tied behind the back. Was it messy, YES… but so totally worth it.




K was totally upset when I told her it had "cream cheese" frosting under the fondant. I sneak cream cheese into alot of things and she loves it... until she finds it is in there!


I had to laugh when it was all done, I turned and looked at my kitchen sink to find my daughter cleaning her face with the water sprayer. Totally classic and I didn’t get a picture. I did get a video, but it wouldn't load. Just my luck!

Exciting Day!!

Why is it such an exciting day?? There are many reasons....

This is my garden. I have 11 jalapeno plants and about 6 green pepper plants.

I picked my garden today and this is what I got...




Yes I counted every pepper. 199 jalapenos and 12 bell peppers. I haven't decided if I am going to can the jalapenos, or share them.

My wonderful hubs completed yet another project over the weekend and the timer is now set, so at night we now have lights around the deck. They look so neat! I am so excited and lucky to have a hubs that is so handy!




Another exciting point of my day was a got a picture of one of the humming birds that has been visiting us in the evenings...



Now another highlight of the day is watching Big Brother. I am so excited about how things are working out! YEAH!!

Where Did The Weekend Go??

I really have no earthly idea where the weekend went! I felt better on Saturday and Sunday, than I have felt in about a month.

First things first though.... Friday I got a call from the neurologist. All of my blood work came back normal again and so did my C-Spine & T-Spine MRI. They will now do an EMG on September 10. I am still not convinced that this is neurological. I totally think that it is circulatory. I put another call into my regular doctor to discuss this more.

This weekend went to fast. I felt really good and got alot accomplished. I made 6 batches of fondant for K's birthday cake next weekend. I cleaned the entire house. Did the grocery shopping and even went to Walmart. Sunday I got up and made homemade bread.... Yummy! It was great to have energy again!

Vacation Fun & More

Sorry it has taken me so long to post again. Life has just been so busy, so here are the details:

Update on me: As some of you know I have been having neuropathy. We still do not have a cause. My symptoms have been getting better though. I am getting SOME of my energy back and my arms, hands, legs, feet & face only tingle now sometimes. My regular doctor did blood tests, all came back good. Well my cholesteral was high, but otherwise good. He ordered a MRI on my brain and that came back clean. That is REAL good. Means no brain tumor or MS. Yeah! Still puzzled, my doctor sent me onto a neurologist. They got me in right away due to a cancellation. Another YEAH! He did an examination and said it could be one of 7 million different things causing this, so we want to start testing and rule out what it is not. I had alot more blood drawn that day for different tests. I also ended up having a T Spine MRI and a C Spine MRI. SO SO not fun. I had to be sedated all 3 MRI's. The C Spine MRI went fine. Today during the T spine MRI, she kept telling me last one, then when it was done, she would ask if I could handle another. She ended up doing 3 extra scans, that were all longer than the others. I go back to the doctor after Labor Day for all of the results.

Miss K:

This is my Little Miss K



This is my little girl...well what was my little girl. She's not so little any more. Today we did the hardest thing...we went to pick up her High School schedule. My baby is starting High School in a week. Growing up way to fast. I do not know how time has flown by so fast. I blinked and WHAM! Here she is all grown up! I am not ready for high school, not yet!




One Last Summer Trip:

We took one last summer trip in the travel trailer to our favorite little place, Eufaula Lake. We let K take a friend, M. They had so much fun. The resort/campground that we stayed in was hosting a wake board tournament. BOYS BOYS BOYS all over the place. The girls kept us on our toes... This is what it looked like the day we got there.



We went shopping downtown one morning while it was cool out. K took some good pictures of course.




We went to eat at our favorite place down in the cove... K & I had fun snapping pics while eating...









On the last day there, we had alot of fun watching the wake board tournament. That evening, the boys had fun on some ramps and pipes. K again took some good pics...










So now you know why it has taken me so long to do another post. We have just been a crazy sort of busy with life....

Update time again...

OK, so I just can't seem to keep up with everything! We did have a fun little cookout with a few of our neighbors on Saturday. That made the day fun. I soaked up the sun in the pool with my brother-in-law and sis-in-law and then got out and grilled up a storm. I really over did it I think as I slept for about 11 hours that night. I had such a migraine/headache the next morning (to much info I know) got sick every time I moved.

I went back to the doctor this morning for the results of the MRI of my head. That was clean. SO with good blood work and a good MRI my doctor is sending me off to a neurologist. Hopefully someone will be able to get to the bottom of this! It sucks feeling sick all the time!

I am now on my lunch hour at work thinking of all the things we have to do today and Tuesday. With me not feeling good, this has so crept up on us, but we leave for vacation with 3 teenage girls on Wednesdays. Please Pray for sanity! :) Just kidding, I am sure it will be fine!

UPDATE: I called the neurologist to get an appointment and they said they could not see me until September. That just really didn't set well with me. I didn't want to go another whole month feeling this way and not knowing what is wrong. I took the appointment, then called and left a message for the nurse at my regular doctors office to see if they had someone else they could reffer me to. Then I called the hubs to tell him. By the time I had gotten off the phone with the hubs, the nuerologist called me back and gave me an appointment for tomorrow. YEAH! I told her she didn't know how happy she just made me! She said she could tell how devistated I was that they couldn't get me in sooner, so she immediately called me back because they had a cancelation. What an emotional roller coaster ride!

Tingle Tingle Tingle

Things have been a little different around our house lately. But then again that is totally normal. This year in February I told my husband and daughter (who had already met the insurance deductible) that if they were going to have anything majorly wrong with them….this is the year. Well why not? We hit our deductible after 5-6 short weeks of the new year. Here it is July and we are near 100% coverage.
I really wasn’t serious when I told them they could be sick or have something wrong. It was just kind of one of those funny little jokes. Anyhow, K and the hubs have been somewhat fine lately….the curse has fallen on me to be sick.

We have been seeing the same doctor for 6-7 years. I love our doctor. He is great and always on top of things and blunt and to the point. I love my doctor even more, because the only time I usually see him is when I take K in for something. When I made an appointment for myself last week, he was very concerned and got to work asking ten million questions and poking and pushing in ten million places.
Basically over the last few weeks, I have had NO energy. That is so not me. I have to go nonstop all the time. I also started getting A LOT of tingling in my arms, legs and face. I have no strength….I even actually took a nap last Sunday afternoon. I NEVER nap!!

The final conclusion, after all of my lab work came back “normal” is that I have Neuropathy. HUH? That is what I said. I have turned to several friends that are in the medical profession to explain a little more, to see if my doctor was telling me everything. (he was) Basically it is what is considered a secondary diagnosis. ONLY they don’t have a diagnosis. So now they are starting the testing to find out what is causing the neuropathy. To keep you from looking it up, neuropathy is muscle weakness, cramps, and spasms. Loss of balance and coordination may also occur. You can also have tingling, numbness, and pain. Pain associated with this nerve is described in various ways such as the following: sensation of wearing an invisible "glove" or "sock", burning, freezing, or electric-like, extreme sensitivity to touch.

The doctor said he is going to go head to toe on me to find the cause. I guess he meant literally…. I have an appointment in the morning at 8:15 for an MRI on my head. I won’t go back until Monday to get the results. This is going to be one LONG weekend! It is so hard not to stress…But I am trying not to!

Catch Up Time!

I have been SO lazy about blogging since we have been back from vacation. There is actually a reason and I will share that in a later blog, when I know more about the situation. But here is somewhat of a recap of all the happenings: NOTHING! Life as we knew it (busy and chaotic) while I was in school is so done. I just can’t believe it!

The garden has somewhat died out. We had enough squash, cucumbers, and zucchini to feed 8 families for a month make several families shudder with fear to think they may have to eat any more garden vegetables. I was actually able to make salsa and can it from fresh tomatoes, onions, jalapenos and habaneros that I grew myself. I was proud of myself… I got 8 pints! Of course I did have to buy a few extra ingredients from the store, but about 90% of the salsa was pure freshness. The tomatoes, cantaloupe and peppers are doing well now. Yesterday I pulled out all the vines that were dying out and planted new seeds for the fall garden. I have been trying to keep up with the flower beds and flower pots. They seem to be doing well and I am attempting to keep the beds weed free.

K has been having a typical summer. We either have extra kids at the house or she is at a friend’s house. Last week she had a different friend stay the night each night for I think about 5 days straight. I really don’t mind as long as they don’t tear up the house clean up after themselves.




A couple of weekends ago, we had our company picnic. That was actually fun. We played putt-putt, batted in the batting cages, drove the go carts, bumper cars and bumper boats. We let K take a friend with her, we just aren’t cool enough too cool for her to be seen with all the time.




This past weekend we went with our friends to a private ski lake. I has to laugh at the sign that was found posted out there....



That was a great day – food, fun & sun. They pulled K on the tube and she also got to practice her wake boarding. We also got to watch them slalom ski some and that is just amazing how they make it look so easy. There is no way I would even ever attempt.


K has also been very busy taking pictures.I am in love with the fact that she has found a way of expressing herself through pictures.





We will be leaving on a mini vacation soon. Going to head out to the lake for 5 days, well actually 3 days there and 2 days traveling. I think this will be the first trip we will be traveling alone. Well, kind of... While we will miss the fact that we will have no other families with us, we have allowed K to invite a couple of friends. There is a wake board festival going on that weekend so it should be interesting to keep track of 3 girls with all those "boys" running about! *BIG SIGH*