I won!!

I am soo excited!! I won my very first blog contest ever! A big thank you to Life in the Thrifty Lane for hosting the giveaway and to Stich Sense Designs for the great items I'm about to receive.  Very exciting.

What I've Been Reading - Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah

I just got done reading Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah, and it was a GREAT book.

The book follows the lives of two women born in the 60s who meet in their teen years and have a life of friendship and heartbreak.  They commit to be best friends forever, and we get to see the successes and failures they face along their 30 year friendship.  I really like the way the author writes and the book was funny, sad and heartbreaking all at the same time.  I give it 4.5 stars and if you want a good summer/beach reading book, give this one a try.

Gotye - Somebody That I Used to Know

So I am kinda obsessed with this song.  Its just so different and interesting.  I just looked up the video and its cray cray, but the song is still awesome. I listed to the entire album and it is just as good. You should go check it out!

From Pinterest to Reality - Lemon-Blueberry Yogurt Loaf

Sorry its been so long since my last post.  I am officially a stay at home "wife" now (until T decides to make his entry into this world) so I should have plenty of time to share my thoughts, recipes and random info on here.  

Now, on to today's post.  One of my goals as a homemaker is to cook and bake more from scratch, hopefully saving money and creating more healthy, non processed meals for Josh and I to eat.  I'll share about last nights dinner later, but today I made this. 

Recipe and photo credit go to Sweet Peas Kitchen 

Now in my version, I actually made muffins instead of the loaf, so that I could freeze some and so that they were easier to eat for breakfast or a snack.  I have to say, for the low cost of frozen blueberries and a few lemons, this was a great dessert/snack.  It does have a lot of sugar in it though, but seeing as how it made 18 muffins, I think its ok.  Here is what mine looked like. Yummy! :)

Remembering what God has done

After a bit of searching to find books on dealing with grief and the loss of a loved one, I came across this book, A Deeper Kind of Calm by Linda Dillow. 

Its a small devotional book that aims to help you get out of the valley of weeping when facing difficulties in life. So far, so good.  I just finished chapter two which discusses that in the mist of your sorrow, you must look beyond the sadness and despair of the current situation and remember all the great things God has done in the past.  

I must say, this has been a challenging task for me.  When you are overcome by the sadness of losing your brother, knowing you will never see him again on Earth and knowing that he will never get to see his own child grow up, it hits really hard.  It is very difficult to think about anything positive or joyful, when so much despair fills your thoughts.  But I have been forcing myself to be thankful for the little things each day, remembering that God has blessed me with a fantastic life, a loving and supportive family, a wonderful husband and best friend, and 26 years with my brother that I will treasure forever. 

The truth is that everyone has trials and tribulations in their lives, whether they be big or small, that effect them daily and fill their thoughts with sorrow.  But if we can pause and remember all the blessings that God has placed in our lives prior to our valley of weeping, we realize that the blessings greatly outweigh the sorrows, and light begins to shine again.  

I am thankful to have a very healthy baby growing inside me, for having such an easy pregnancy when so many struggle with sickness and bed rest. I am so thankful to have the best husband in the world who understands me better than anyone else and supports me 100%. I am thankful for getting to work safely this morning, for being able to sit and write this blog, because there are many who did not make it safely to work today. 

When adversity hits you smack in the face, take time to grieve, but also pause to thank God for the blessings that you do have in your life, and know that he is there to be your rock and salvation in time of need.

Anxiety

12 more weeks!! There are only 12 more weeks until our little guy is scheduled to arrive, and the anxiety has started to set in MAJORLY.  I have suddenly realized that we have less than 3 months before baby should be here, yet we still have a queen sized bed, dresser and night stand in his room that needs to head back to Julian.  And no, we haven't gotten the FIRST piece of nursery furniture yet. Queue major freak out mode!!!

My parents thankfully gave us a pack-n-play for Christmas, so we at least have somewhere for him to lay down if he does make an early entrance, but I am feeling major pressure to start preparing our house for him.  However, our loving family and my best friend have organized two showers for us, so hopefully that anxiety will cease once we start receiving all the items I so feel like we need, but I'm sure half we don't. I am just so excited to meet my little guy and want to have everything in order for him!!

In other news, I had a pretty hard night last night, talking to my parents about my brother and my nephew, and was just overcome with sadness.  My best friend, aka counselor, told me that those moments will come and go for the rest of my life, and its OK to let it out and be upset, but sometimes it just feels like your chest is caving in on you.  I dreamed about him last night and it was so good to see him and his pretty face.  I just miss him terribly and its just hard sometimes. I know it will never get better, but I'm hoping that things do get easier.   This guy right here is my rock and my strength.

Cleaning my Stovetop

So I have a love, hate relationship with Pinterest right now.  I have requested an invite like 5 or 6 times, from two different email addresses, and even had Abby invite me, yet it has been almost a month and I still don't have my invite! What the hay? Anywho, I still LOVE browsing the posts (even though I can't pin them) and learning more about crafts and DIY items.  One of my personal goals in the next year is to start cleaning more greenly.  By this, I mean using more green, homemade or safe cleaners for everyday cleaning.  The first experiment was one of course found on Pinterest from this website - http://behindthestudio.com/2011/06/15/how-to-clean-your-glass-cooktop/.

Source: behindthestudio.com via Charity on Pinterest

We have the most awful appliances in our house, and knew that coming in, but its not something we are ready to spend the time and money replacing at the moment.  Everything still works perfectly fine, they are just white and dirty and ugly, in my opinion.  Anyways, the stove top has been burnt to a crisp several times (some, yes by my wonderful cooking skills, others before we lived in the house) and I have yet to find a cleaner that could get off the burn marks.  So when I saw this I thought "this looks so easy, I have baking soda at home, I'm giving it a try!" So Friday, I got out a large dish towel, soaked it in warm soapy water, sprinkled on the baking soda, and let it sit for 15 minutes.  After the 15 minutes, I took a peek and it seemed cleaner, so I started scrubbing. It took a little bit more elbow grease than I expected, but the results were the same.  Most, I repeat, most of the burn stains were gone, others I think must be permanently ingrained in the stove because no amount of force was getting those off.

Overall, I would say this was a great success, and I hope to be able to use more green, homemade cleaners in the future!

Oh, and next time I will take some before and after shots (blogging rookie mistake.)