Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

I love home-made bread. I love making bread by hand. I love eating home-made bread with freezer jam. I love sharing my home-made bread.

One of my All-Time Favorite Recipes

I've probably posted this here before, but I'm doing it again. We LOVE this recipe! It sounds strange, but it is delicious. Try it, you'll like. Kids love it!

Jell-O Applesauce

1 large box Jell-O (we like strawberry, raspberry, lime, or orange)
2 cups boiling water

dissolve the Jell-O in a bowl. Stir for a few minutes.

Add 3 cups applesauce.

Mix well. Put in fridge for 4 to 5 hours.

Tasty!

Our favorite is orange. And then lime. And then the rest. It was originally just strawberry (or was that raspberry??) but we kept trying new flavors. Lemon is good too.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

Here's another one of my favorite dessert splurges-- the friend bananas at PF Chang's. They take bananas, wrap them in egg roll wrappers, fry them, and then serve them with caramel, berries, and pineapple ice cream. This stuff is heavenly!

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

Last week I had a marscapone cheesecake at Brio. Holy cow! This thing was absolutely amazing. It's my new favorite dessert indulgence. I'll go back just to get their cheesecake.

Blind 'wonder dog' helping recovering addicts see clearly | ksl.com

Blind 'wonder dog' helping recovering addicts see clearly | ksl.com

This is such a great story.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

Love Nielsen's frozen lemon custard! I also love when they have fresh raspberry custard. I don't buy it often, but I do love it when I have it.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

I grew up eating cucumber slices soaked in vinegar and water. Cover them with salt, and enjoy! It's sorta like pickles, but different. My grandpa loved these and I inherited his love.

My Indexing Addiction

This is my latest hobby/addiction. I signed up online to take photocopies of written records and create a digital record of them. My most favorite records to index-- Texas Death Certificates. Each one tells a unique story of a person's life. I got to create a digital record for 8 soldiers who died in World War II in Europe and the South Pacific. That was an honor for me.

I indexed 1,000 names in 2 weeks. Then I switched to arbitrating records and arbitrated 1,000 names in less than a week. Each record is "indexed" by two separate people; any differences in their records are sent to an arbitrator who then decides which one (if any) is right.

I LOVE doing it! I love spending time each day doing some indexing. If I'm going to be on my computer, then I'd rather do something productive besides just looking at Facebook.

Anybody can be an indexer. Go HERE for more information and to sign up!

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

I love asparagus. I love it boiled. I love it broiled. I love it steamed. I love it raw. I bet I would love it grilled too-- have to try that. I especially love it when I find it for $1.29 a pound like I did last week.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

Nothing says "Happy 4th of July" like ripe cherries! It's one of the best parts of the summer.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

I love peaches from the tree in my backyard. Every year our peach tree has beautiful pink blossoms that turn into delicious peaches that drip juice down your arms when you eat them.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

I love tomatoes fresh my garden when they are sun-riped and still warm from the afternoon sun.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

I love cranberry juice. A nice, ice cold cup of cranberry juice makes me happy (almost as happy as Pepsi Throwback).

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

Mmmm.... sushi. I love sushi dipped in soy sauce mixed with wasabi! Tasty. I love eating the pickled ginger when I'm done. When I really splurge on myself, I eat at 'Miso Happy' night at Mikado. That is the best.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

Garlic. I love GARLIC. I love adding garlic to food and to snacks and to salsa and to sauce.... So tasty. I love the smell of garlic.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

When pomegranates are in season, I love buying them and adding them to salads and fruit. Or just eating them by the handful.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

Mangoes. Ice cold mangoes on a hot summer day-- pure bliss!

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

I love fish tacos. This is a simple homemade taco-- corn tortilla (lightly toasted on each side), 2 fish sticks (or fish tenders), tomato slices, avocado slices, couple sprigs of cilantro, and squeeze a lime all over it. Yum!

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

In the summer, I love coconut snow cones. I also like Tiger's blood and cinnamon flavors for snow cones.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

I love eating at Cafe Zupas in downtown Salt Lake. I get a salad and a sandwich every time. My favorite salad is their "Nuts About Berries" salad with light dressing.

Yum!

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

I love Meyer lemons. My parents have a tree in their front  yard and then send me some. They are less sour than regular lemons. My favorite thing to do is to slice them, salt them, and eat them whole.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

I love ice water. I love ice water with lemon (lots of lemon). I drink a lot of water a day and love it.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

Every so often I will splurge and buy a loaf of Great Harvest Bread's cinnamon burst. It's like a dessert, but not that unhealthy.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

I love hazelnuts. Hazelnuts, filberts-- same thing. Tasty little snacks. You just have to crack them first.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

Costco berry smoothie. On a good day, I get one all to myself.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

Costa Vida sweet pork burrito. Black beans. No cheese, no sauce. Lettuce, cilantro, 3 limes.

Perfection!

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

LOVE this stuff. One jar, $8 at a grocery store. Two jars, $6.99 at Costco (when they have it). My friends and I love dipping bread in this.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

These chips are amazing! Thankfully my friend A didn't like them or I never would have known how awesome they are. I love olive oil and rosemary.

The one problem: Costco isn't selling them currently. Drat!

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

It's Strawberry season! I bought my first 4 pound clamshell box of strawberries from Costco last week. So tasty. My kids love eating strawberries and so do I. What a great snack.

(just watch for the seeds getting stuck in your teeth).

a P.S. to the previous post

On a positive note, I feel like I'm personally doing better now than I have for years. I'm healthy and strong. I'm pursuing my goals. I'm sleeping better. I am in great shape.

During an appointment on Friday, my counselor even asked why I felt like I still needed to come and see him because he doesn't see that there's much I need his help with.

SAH-WEET! That's a first!

This is my P.S. in defense of that nagging little voice that creeps in and tries to convince me the problems at home are really all my fault.

I'm doing good. Really. I'm happy.

Rewriting Old Scripts

Let me fast forward to a time over 16 years ago: 

16 + years ago, the belief I had an erroneous belief literally beaten into me. The idea that anything that is bad that happens at home is all my fault was reinforced every single time I was beaten. It was always my fault I was being beaten because I was a bad wife or a bad housekeeper or unkind or not attentive or ______. There was always something I did wrong (hourly) and my abusive ex had no other choice (so he yelled) but to beat me to prove the point. And, as an extension of that, I was not allowed to tell people what was going on. Firstly, because he would beat me more if he found out I did; and secondly, because I was afraid people would say 'whoa. you are bad. I would beat you too.'

It's been hard for me to rewrite that script in my head. It's been hard for me to relearn that I am not the creator of all bad home-life things. I've had to draw new boundaries and keep them reinforced so I don't slide into the mindset that if it's bad, it's my fault.

It's hard. Some days are harder than others. Yesterday was a nightmare.

Let me fast forward from that time to a time 7 years ago:

My middle son's birth mom was frequently high and/or drunk. She neglected him dreadfully from the moment of his birth though occasionally she had manic bursts of attending to his every need. He learned from a small infant that mothers respond with anger and he became a master at goading his drunken mom into anger so that she would at least in some small way pay attention to him. He learned to distrust his mother, and by extension,  all mothers.

My son is a master at pushing my buttons. I mean, all kids are, but he is exceptionally talented because of his previous history. When we first had him, he would push me and push me until I would explode and yell and then he would calm immediately down and become happy and docile. I would be left hating myself for exploding at a 3 year old and he would be left playing happily because everything was back to what was familiar/comforting to him.

Thankfully, he's largely outgrown that, but every so often, his defiance and attempts to push my buttons resurfaces. This weekend was one time. He fought me at everything. He lied, he fought back, he dug in his heels, and I ended up losing it. It had been awhile. He caught me off-guard while I was struggling to get the boys ready for church after I had just barely returned from taking my very sick daughter to Instacare. I exploded and then was overwhelmed with a sense of rage and shame. It took over an hour to get the trembling in my hands to stop.

Fast forward to another point in my life:

Being a wife now for almost 14 years, those old scripts have been harder to combat. Each year, I feel like I get better and stronger. I am less prone to take responsibility for all bad things and to fault myself for anything that goes wrong. It's been a challenge, to say the least. Especially since my hubby struggles with depression.

You see, there's a similar thread that runs through my first nasty marriage, my relationship with my hubby now, and my relationship with my son. In public, they all seem practically perfect and functional. It's at home where the struggles are. And my old script throws me into the state of assuming it's all my fault and to try harder to fix it. And to not say anything about what's going on at home (which is hard too because when I tend to mention that my boys struggle I usually get surprised expressions from people to find it hard to believe that either of them could be anything less than practically perfect).

Depending on how things are going, things can be pretty tough around here. It's taken a lot of time and heartache to keep my boundaries strong and to not assume all ownership for depression, defiance, and discouragement that happens in this household.

Some days are better than others.

Yesterday was not better.

Yesterday was my day to quit.

I quit.

Well, I totally lost it first.

And then I quit.

I didn't go to church. I sluffed my sunday school lesson off onto whoever (which is SO unlike me). I did nothing.

I comforted myself with Pepsi too (might do that again today). And sat in the sun on my bed and wrote in my journal. I wrote until I felt better and had a clearer perspective of what was going on. Then I watched a movie on my laptop.

Today I feel wiped out and largely beaten down. I don't feel like keeping up the pretenses that everything is "practically perfect" at home like it is in public. Today, obviously, I feel like saying that things are really tough here and that I am struggling because my boys (the hubby & son) are struggling. I realize some will fault me for violating their privacy. We don't tend to talk about male depression in our society. We don't like to "label" kids with things that might stick with them.

But this is my way of reinforcing my attempt to rewrite my abusive, old scripts.

It's not my fault. I'm doing the best I can. I can't be responsible for the choices and faulty brain chemistry of others. I'm doing the best I can, even if it's not enough to "make everything all better."

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

Costco's Cashew Clusters are fantastic. Quick, easy snack. I think they are pretty healthy since they are made with nuts & honey.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

Otter pops. Love them. My favorite is grape. My next favorite is orange. But, I'll eat all of them. They are a staple at my house.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

I love avocados. I used to not buy them because I was too cheap. Then I realized how tasty they are and how much I enjoy them. They are now a staple in my home. Plus, right now they are cheaper than normal.

Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

The Sin Dawg loaf from Costco. Like a healthy cinnamon roll with good protein and fiber.

2 rolls for $7.99. A bit pricey, but SO worth it.

March Theme: Mmmm... Food I Can't Live Without

I had a great time having a "theme" for my blog in February and I want to do it again. This time I'll share with you some of my favorite foods.

First off, of course, is Pepsi Throwback. I love it more than I drink it, just so you know. I will drink maybe one or two a week.... really.