I never fully intended to not blog all summer long, but as summer came into full swing, my schedule filled up and I was running from one thing to another, from one playgroup to the next, from one dinner party to the next, to and from summer camps, etc. At one point this summer, I looked at the calendar that hangs on our refrigerator and it was completely covered in appointments, playgroups, command events, friend visits, date nights and so much more. Overwhelming? Absolutely. Fun? Heck yeah!
This poor neglected blog. For almost two years it has served as a sort of journal. I have blogged my way through deployments, moves, ups and downs. I have missed it. This blog has served as a way for me to sort myself out. Through food and blogging I am able to remember that being a mom doesn’t mean I have to be on mom duty constantly, I can take a minute out of my day and enjoy the cupcakes. The topics I blog about have served as a source of humor for some of my fellow military spouses. It has been a way for my friends to keep up with what I’m doing.
Now that summer is winding down, I’m back. I’m back to share food and of course the salty inner workings of my crazy life as a military wife.
Let’s start with breakfast! It is, after all, the most important meal of the day (and did I mention it is my absolute FAVORITE meal of the day?)
I accidentally overbought raspberries (terrible, I know). This recipe for Raspberry Breakfast Bars from Smitten Kitchen caught my eye. I couldn’t forget about them, they look so fantastic.
They taste as wonderful as they look. I really love oatmeal. By that, I mean, I would eat oatmeal for almost every meal if I could. Not only was this recipe super delicious, it was also super easy.
This weeks {Listable Life} really made me think. I like the self-reflection that these lists bring.
5 Regrets
1. Not standing up for myself sooner.
This is a perpetual problem of mine and every time, after I build up the courage to say/do something, I regret not doing it sooner. This regret could also be titled, “Not going with my gut instinct.”
The older I get, the better I am at this. I have learned to walk away or stand up for myself sooner.
2. Getting stressed out over nothing.
I dislike being stressed. I recognize that as military families, we carry a certain amount of stress around. Our lives are unpredictable. Our spouses can be here today, gone tomorrow. Orders could come tomorrow and we could be moving in a month or less. We just never know. However, sometimes I bring stress on myself.
9 times out of 10 it’s something so ridiculous that I look back and think WHY?
I like to think that I am a superstar at sorting my feelings out. After years of adolescent counseling, I learned to make mental piles. So, I have a Navy pile, which is stuff that I have zero control over; and a Misc. piles, which is stuff that I sort into further piles and ask myself, “Is this worth getting worked up over?”, if the answer is yes it goes into the ‘Yes’ pile and if it’s ‘No’, it gets discarded. Sometimes, something that was supposed to go into the ‘No’ pile ends up in the ‘Yes’ pile. That’s where I end up with a regret.
3. Not listening to the people who love me.
“Is that a good decision?”
“He isn’t good for you. He’s cheating on you!”
“You don’t think so and so might be using you because you’re so generous?”
“I think 7 candy bars might be a little too much.”
“I think you might be working yourself a little too hard.”
I have heard it all. I have been given great advice by friends and family and completely ignored it. Later, I figured out that they were right and I regretted not listening to them in the first place. I could have saved myself a world of hurt. Years later, I appreciate their sound advice.
4. Running through the pain.
I really thought I just had shin splints. Turns out, it wasn’t shin splints, it was stress fractures.
Fortunately, the doctor I saw was a military doctor, who has some understanding of this wild ‘never give up’ mentality. I could have given up any day. I could have told myself that it just hurt too much to continue running. The reality is, I just can’t give up, there was too much keeping me going.
Now I’m paying the price, sitting on the sidelines, when all I really want to do is get back out there.
Oh well.
5. Eating a bag of sour patch kids.
Now my tongue feels weird and I can’t taste anything.
While I am listing these as regrets, I do understand that these things make me who I am. I am able to move past these ‘quirks’ and understand that it’s all okay. People make mistakes, I’m not above that. I am not perfect and I don’t wish to be.
5 Things I do not regret
1. ‘Marrying the Navy’
I love being a Navy wife. I love hearing about all of the cool stuff my husband does (after it’s Unclassified, it stinks having to wait to hear what he’s doing sometimes, but I do understand the need for secrecy). I love moving, seeing the world, and trying new things. I think deployments are hard, but worthwhile. I like that I can be married, but get to hang on to my fierce independence. I like knowing that I can do things like, register my car, change the oil, change the tires, fix a sink, mow the lawn, patch walls, and move, all by myself – with no assistance from my husband.
I love that being a Navy wife has made me a stronger person. I’m a little rougher around the edges, but I’m proud of that.
I won’t sugar coat it, my husband and I had a rough go at first. We got married in March and he deployed in November. I was listening to too many people who, looking back, had no idea what they were talking about. For some reason, I kept being told that my husband should be able to call everyday, because so and so’s husband called everyday during deployment. Because of some phone issues (his calls were not going through to the blackberry I had at the time, I had to break my contract with the phone carrier we were with at the time and get an iPhone) and bad timing, 4 months of deployment had gone by before my husband was able to call.
Through the lack of communication with my husband and listening to everything that everyone else was telling me, I ended up feeling like he just didn’t care. (During that first deployment, I had a civilian tell me that her husband could never deploy, because he cares about her. People say crazy things. Once he got home, he said, “Maybe I deployed because I care MORE about you.” Which makes sense.) I learned to be flexible and to listen to no one, but my husband. The next time he deployed went 1000 times smoother. I also learned to remind those who thought that my husband should call everyday that he is on a ship, in the middle of the ocean, not only does he not have the opportunity to call sometimes, sea to shore minutes are CRAZY expensive. Sometimes they have zero communication. Zero. If they are doing something that requires a certain amount of security I may not hear from him for a while, simply because there is a communication blackout or the network is down.
2. Making the wrong friends.
The way I see it, if I never made the wrong friends, I would never realize how great my good friends are. I would never appreciate all of the wonderfulness my great friends bring to my life.
3. Having two kids.
When I had my oldest, I was all set with it just being her. I was okay with having a single child. Then my husband and I talked about the future and his career progression and I wasn’t sure I was okay with my oldest moving and going it all by herself. So, we had a second.
Even though somedays are trying with my kids bickering nonstop, I have never regretted the decision to have our youngest for a second. They argue, steal toys from each other and do all sorts of crazy sibling things, but they love each other and they lean on each other when the Navy throws us a curveball. They lean on each other when my husband is away.
4. Being assertive.
Living in privatized Navy housing has taught me a very valuable lesson. Don’t take ‘No’ for an answer. If something is not done right the first time, you can bet I will be on the phone having them come back. Such as the hole that is meant for our air conditioner. Every time it rains (which lately is frequently), water pours into the wall. There are electrical outlets along that wall that we have to turn off the electricity to because the wall is pretty much caving in. They came out and put putty over it, but it doesn’t fix the issue. They’ll be back. One would think it would have been easier to do it right the first time.
5. The oodles of money we have spent on family pictures.
I love professional photographers. Our living room is filled with beautiful family pictures because of them. It wasn’t cheap and at the time I thought I might regret it, but looking at them fills my heart. I love my husband and kids and I love being able to look at pictures that have been taken of us over the last 5 years. They are beautiful.
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I haven’t posted music in a while either, so I’m sharing this:
Mat Kearney’s cover of Mr.Springstein
I have a bunch of his stuff in my iTunes library that I had completely forgotten about until I was out with a friend and heard one of his songs on the radio and remembered how much I love his voice. (It’s not Chris Martin…I know it’s crazy how much his voice sounds like Chris’.)
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Now for the goodies and my absolute favorite candy on earth.
Marshmallow cups, of the homemade variety.
I was perusing through Baked:Explorations and came upon the recipe for these and HAD to make it. I actually made them for my daughters Bake Sale this weekend. I donated them and them bought most of them back. They are so so so good.
I bake a lot. I bake a lot of pretty things, a lot of chocolate things, mostly in the form of cakes. Cakes that probably weigh more than 5 lbs and are 6 inches high. I don’t make a lot of single size snacks, simply because I love cakes and intricate pastries. The single size snacks that I do bake, don’t always pack well or they are extremely messy.
That being said, I have a child that goes to school. This weekend they were having a fair. This fair included a bake sale. Baking is right up my alley, so I was happy to donate some goodies to the cause.
For the last bake sale in December, I baked a cake. Cakes don’t sell so well when people want a snack right at that moment. I decided to skip the cake. I also learned that kids sell baked goods and kids like bright shiny things.
I settled on cake pops. Cake on a stick. Kids were sure to ask for those.
I have never made a cake pop before, but it didn’t look too hard. Fortunately, I have beginners luck. I tend to do things well the first time around and screw it up the second, third, …
I used the recipe from Bakerella’s cake pop cookbook, but I didn’t get overly creative (I was on a bit of a baking time crunch, lots to do, not a lot of time to do it).
These are GREAT for a bake sale! I packed them up in a basket, so that they looked like a bouquet. Even my kids asked if they could have one while we were at the fair and they had helped me make them. My oldest daughter said they looked so pretty wrapped up. I agree with her.
My kids and I came down with a nasty cold this weekend. I was able to catch up on some blogging (after almost 3 WEEKS! of not having time to think clearly, let alone blog), reading, television, etc. My husband worked on our backyard, fixing the mud problem we have, that usually helps my yellow lab disguise himself as a chocolate lab after a rain storm. It was awesome to just be able to sit down for more than 15 minutes.
It seems like the older my kids get, the more hectic our lives get. I feel like I am constantly on the go. When I get home, my house looks neglected, so I clean. Then I’ll look at the clock and realize that we’re late for something or that I didn’t even think about taking something out of the freezer for dinner and now it’s too late.
Next month is going to be even crazier. Then, summer will be here and with everything we have planned for summer, I foresee needing extra sleep now to catch up on the sleep I have yet to lose.
But for today, I am not thinking about everything that I need to do and I’m linking up with Nicole at Moments that Define Life for her Listable Life link up.
5 Reality Shows I Could (or Could Not) Be On!
I could be on:
1. The Amazing Race
I’d choose my husband to be my partner, only because I think it would make for entertaining TV. I’d probably loose my passport, my bag and about a zillion other things, but I’m sure we’d have a blast.
2. Hell’s Kitchen
It would be a guarantee that I’d get yelled at, then I’d cry. Gordon Ramsey would tell me that my Risotto is *beep* and I would loose it. I think it would be a great experience though.
3. Wife Swap.
Who wouldn’t want to swap lives with me?! I’m a Military Spouse. This life is glamourous. haha. Of course, I’d only swap when my husband was deployed, so they could get the full effect.
4. The Real World
I’d be the token crazy person complaining about the dishes. I’d be in bed by 8:30 and probably the most boring person in the history of the show.
5. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
I would not cry if ABC wanted to build me a beautiful house. I have not been through any kind of hardship or natural disaster, so I don’t think I would quality, but still…
Reality T.V. shows I could NOT be on:
1. Survivor
I think I’m super tough, because when my husband is away I can hold down the ‘fort’ and do it with a smile on my face, but the reality of that is, I have a phone and frequently order take-out. Take those two things away and a mental breakdown is sure to ensue.
I’ve been stranded on O’ahu before and I learned that I really don’t like being stuck on an island. I also don’t like bugs. Lose-lose for me.
2. American Idol
I’m not sure I could put myself out there like that. I can sing (granted not as well as the contestants on the show can sing), but I don’t want to be judged.
3. Wipeout
How do these people not break their necks?! Or their spines?!
It’s entertaining to watch. I would hit my head once and cry.
4. The Kardashians
I would for sure smack someone. Except Khloe, I like her.
5. The Real Housewives
I would like to go on this show as the voice of reason, but I’m sure by the end of it, it would just make me crazy.
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Since nothing goes with reality TV like junk food:
Peanut Butter Crispy Bars
These were incredible and had my husband not taken them to work, I would have eaten the entire pan (because I have no self control when it comes to this stuff).
Last week, I made a cake. It was a birthday cake, even though it was no ones birthday (at least no one that I knew). The cake, a masterpiece recipe by Christina Tosi, a Pastry Chef at Momofuku who just won a James Beard Award.
I bought her cookbook, Momofuku Milk Bar a couple weeks ago, but she uses some fairly obscure ingredients that took me a while to track down (Citric Acid, anyone?). I also needed a cake ring and a quarter sheet pan.
Once the stars aligned, I got to work. (If you’re looking for clear vanilla, don’t be fooled, it’s imitation. I spent forever looking for clear vanilla in the non imitation section…whoops.)
Boom! I felt like a superstar when this was done and from what I hear, it was REALLY good (even though I forgot to add the brown sugar to the butter during the first step of the cake (oops!)).
When I first started dating my husband, his palate left something to be desired. He would ask if I wanted to go to dinner at a chain restaurant notorious for not so great food and I would make a face. We would end up at one of the small restaurants adorning Main Street in downtown Bangor, Maine.
Over the years, he got use to my taste in food and my incredibly picky palate. That’s not to say that everything I make and eat meets my standard, nor do I shy away from chain restaurants. I just prefer, very well cooked food. My husband has adapted and now, does not like the same food he liked 7 years ago.
For our anniversary my husband took me to a restaurant called, Tallulah on Thames in Newport, Rhode Island. The food there is beyond incredible. Being someone who moves around the United States on almost an annual basis, I have gone to a lot of restaurants. Let me just say, Aquidneck Island has some of the best restaurants I have ever been to.
La Laiterie (okay, this is in Providence, but it’s worth the drive)
The Dorrance (this one is in Providence too, again, worth the drive)
Castle Hill Inn (they have a stellar restaurant, don’t be fooled by the ‘inn’)
and lets not forget
Thames Street Kitchen (I haven’t been here yet, but seriously, I’m willing to go with anyone that wants to meet me there. I have only heard great things.)
I think one of the most blessed parts about being a military wife is that we get to check out SO many restaurants all around the world. We also gain open minds, seeing Pig’s Head Terrine on a menu does not seem so odd anymore. I might not be adventurous enough to try it, but it doesn’t weird me out to read about it.
When we lived in San Diego, my husband and I took a trip up to Cardiff (I make it sound like it was quite the trip, but the reality is, it wasn’t that far) where we went to The Beach House. It has some incredible views of the ocean and was a lovely, intimate dinning experience, but other than that, I don’t remember there being a lot of culinary amazingness out there (and I could have totally missed it, my husband was deployed and I feel weird asking someone to go to a restaurant with me where their meal is going to cost $100.)
Okay, okay…and Oggi’s (which I still crave every time I want pizza).
Hawaii brought
Beard Papa’s, where I constantly filled punch cards by eating my USS Port Royal sorrows (HA!).
Lastly, but certainly not least, if you find yourself browsing about in downtown Bangor, Maine (and you should find yourself here at least once in your life) check out:
My time as a military spouse has taught me a lot about empowerment and perseverance, but it has also taught me about humility.
Last Friday, I bought my 3 year old her very own two wheel bike. She has been riding her sisters tricycle with no issues, but she really wanted a bike of her own (a ‘Cars 2′ bike at that). Since bicycles (even tiny ones) do not come put together, at nap time, I set out, with a wrench, making her bike – a bike.
2 things.
1. I bought her bike from the Navy Exchange and I should have known that it would come with directions for a completely different bike.
2. I realized, as I finished this task, that my husband had never got the chance to put either of the girls first bikes together.
I immediately felt bad. I never gave him a chance.
I am so used to putting toys together, fixing sinks and doing it all because he is away, that I forget, when he is home, that he is actually here and able to do those things. That, he WANTS to do those things.
When he got home from work, I apologized. He didn’t really mind, it was more my humility about the fact that I had done a job normally left for dad’s.
That was totally unrelated to the actual point of this post, but I thought I should just throw it out there that sometimes, I’m empowered to be able to do everything while my husband is gone and sometimes that just doesn’t stop when he’s home.
I missed last week. Boo. However, I’m present for this weeks link-up and hopefully this will make up for last weeks slip up (there are a lot of ‘ups’ in that sentence and even more ‘guts’ in this List).
5 Things I Wish I Had The Guts To Do
1. Reupholster a chair.
Even though we have already purchased new furniture and are just playing the waiting game until it arrives, I have a wing-backed chair that my mom gave us that I would love to reupholster. It has a small tear on one of the arms, that fortunately can be covered by the arm cover but, could definitely use a reupholstering. I just don’t have the guts to take the old upholstery off and sew new stuff on (it would look beautiful with a damask upholstery). Maybe, after the new furniture gets here and it’s not such a vital piece in my living room, I will take it on as a new project.
2. Jumping out of a perfectly good plane.
I don’t think of myself as a ‘chicken’. Actually, for the most part, I think I’m pretty tough. However, I don’t know if I will ever have the guts to just jump out of a plane that is 12,500-14,000 ft above solid ground (or even above water). I know people who have gone skydiving and really loved it, but…meh, it might not be for me. This also includes, jumping off of a bridge and base jumping.
3. Eat weird things.
This is pretty literal. I don’t have the guts to eat cockroach, snake, grasshopper, Rocky Mountain oysters or earthworms. My 3 year old has eaten a worm…yuck.
I think what I’m trying to say is, I don’t want to eat guts.
I have to stop here and say, I pondered and pondered what else I feel like I don’t have the guts to do, but there wasn’t anything. I would sword fight, given the opportunity. Most things that I use to not think I could do, I have now done.
Things I use to think I did not have the guts to do:
1. Move far away from my family.
I’m from Maine, after getting married, I moved to San Diego, California. It was scary and it was a long ways from the things I was use to, but I learned to adapt. Now, I really love moving and seeing new places.
2. Stand up for myself.
As silly as this sounds, I really really dislike confrontation. After becoming a parent, I realized that not only do I need to stand up for myself, but I need to stand up for myself. Now I have the guts to say not only say, “I don’t want to be treated that way”, but I also have the guts to say, “This is not an okay way to treat my child.” I am more vocal than I use to be.
3. Failing.
Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Not only does that apply to pretty much everything you try, but I think it truly applies to parenting.
I have good kids, but to be honest, figuring out discipline has been one of my hardest obstacles as a parent. I have utterly failed on the discipline front countless times. My kids have gotten away with things that they shouldn’t have. When I told my oldest daughters counselor that her and I were having a bit of a ‘power struggle’, she recommended 1, 2, 3 Magic. It has really worked (like magic…haha). From every failure, I learned something. We now praise more and discipline less.
Applying it to life, it’s the same. Relationships don’t always workout, sometimes they fail, but that’s not a bad thing. A failure can lead you to your next success.
I think I have more guts now, to jump in and try something I’m not sure I will succeed at, because I have the guts to fail…and then try again.
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I’m sure there is more. There always is. I’ll think of it three days from now and say, “Why didn’t I write that?!”
This weekend, I told my husband about an idea I had. To stuff boneless chicken breast with stuffing and then wrap the whole thing up in bacon. Anything wrapped in bacon is pretty much a sure bet.
I don’t like scallops, but I do like scallops that are wrapped in bacon.
Filet Minon cooked with a strip of bacon wrapped around it always goes over well in my house.
I sliced the chicken breast horizontally. Stuff in a couple spoonfuls of stuffing. Then, I wrapped each chicken with 5 strips of bacon. Talk about overkill.
I recommend only eating half of one of these. Also, make sure to season your chicken with salt and pepper before wrapping with bacon. I forgot to do it and it really needed it.
Bake at 350 degrees until the chicken is cooked through.
Thank you COOL WHIP for sponsoring this post. Join us on Facebook for inspiration and recipes for everyday treats. What you add makes it. #coolwhipmoms
Let’s be honest. Being a mom is a lot of work. My days are busily spent taking care of my kids, making sure my house is semi-presentable, cooking/baking and somewhere in there, I manage to sleep.
The days when my oldest daughter has school, dance class and various other activities, I need to get dinner and dessert done, fast. As in, start to finish, under 30 minutes. For a while, we would go without dessert, simply because I could not manage my time in such a way that I had time to finish both dinner and dessert.
Then I started to get creative.
My kids are big fans of anything strawberry. This is a quick, everyday dessert that you can prepare in 10 minutes in the morning, let it sit all day and come dessert time, you will have a delicious, easy dessert that your kids with love.
What you’ll need:
Strawberries
2- 3oz boxes of strawberry gelatin
16 oz COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, frozen or thawed
water
For the strawberry mousse:
In a medium bowl, mix one package of strawberry gelatin into 1 1/2 cups of boiling water. Once the gelatin is dissolved, whisk in 8 oz of COOL WHIP (I measured out 8oz using my kitchen scale, but you can eyeball it, it does not have to be exact). Set in the refrigerator and let set for 6-8 hours.
For the strawberry gelatin:
Follow the directions on the box.
To assemble:
Have your kids help! Spoon the mousse into the bottom of a cup or bowl. Cut up some strawberries over the mousse (help your kids with this, I cut the strawberries before hand). Spoon the strawberry gelatin over the strawberries and top with a dollop of COOL WHIP. Enjoy!
My kids were thoroughly impressed by this dessert. I was impressed that the mousse was so simple to make, just gelatin, water and COOL WHIP.
If you don’t like or have an allergy to strawberries, you can switch out the gelatin and fruit for any other fruit flavor. Next time, I might try raspberry, or maybe lemon for a bright summertime treat.
Sponsored posts are purely editorial content that we are pleased to have presented by a participating sponsor. Advertisers do not produce the content. I was compensated for this post as a member of Clever Girls Collective, but the content is all my own.
I’m amazed. I didn’t even know this could be done, but it can and it’s incredible.
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I love Twix candy bars, but since I’ve been trying to stay away from candy in order to train for several road races and a marathon, I have not had one in what feels like forever. Then, while flipping through Baked: New Frontiers in Baking, I found a recipe for Millionaires Shortbread. It sounded divine and since I had extra butter to burn through, I decided to make it.
If you didn’t win the Mega Millions last week. This cookie bar is sure to take your mind off of it. I didn’t even play the Mega Millions, mainly because I am perfectly content with everything around me (materially, all 4500 lbs of it and personally, I’m happy with everyone in my life) and it would just drive me straight to a psychiatric facility to have that much money. So really, for me, this cookie is just a treat…which I will probably pay for later.
Millionaires Shortbread
I started making the caramelized sweetened condensed milk on my stove, then I gave up and put it in the microwave. I was sure it was going to explode, so I stood 5 feet away – just incase the microwave door blew off and a giant caramel blob oozed out.
That piece is now taunting me from the inside of my refrigerator.
Eaaaat meeeeeeee….
After I return from the gym, I will promptly reverse all of the hard work I did, hide in a closet and eat you. Then, I will probably wish I kept the rest of the pan.
