How To Tell If You Are In Sun City

Today Jason and went to lunch with our friend Michael Shane. Don't ask me why, but we ended up in Sun City which is a place where old folks live so they don't have to be around young'ens here in Arizona. Anyway, this was in the ladies bathroom...

Yes, this is the reason we must always carry a camera with us when we go places.

This Made Me Laugh Out Loud

When I was dropping Jacob off at school, I saw something that had me laughing. I didn't have my camera with me (I should know better than to ever leave home without it). On my next trip out I went back and got a picture, just so I could share it with you.

Did Someone Say CAKE?

These are my adventures in making cake balls. Since I had never made them before, I read a few ideas from folks who have made these and most said to not mix the frosting when the cake is too warm, so I waited until it was a little cooler.
This is the delicious devil's food cake in the bowl. I know it's delicious because I sampled a piece. (or two)

I chose to mix in chocolate fudge frosting. Jared approved of this.

I used all of the frosting even though some people who made this said they didn't need all of it. The bags of chocolate chips in the picture were later melted down to make the coating...it was too messy for me to get any pictures.

I'm almost done scooping all the cake. It is really creamy and smooth with the frosting mixed in.

I went back and rolled all the scoops with my hands to make them into tighter balls.

Here they are with their chocolate coating, cooling in the fridge.

I actually forgot to get a photo of them finished and on a plate until a day later. Here are all that's left of the two full cookie sheets.

So I had some left over melted chocolate and couldn't bear to toss it out and knew that if I just ate it I would get a sick tummy, so I grabbed the bag of sliced, frozen strawberries and dipped a few into the chocolate until the water ruined the chocolate. These are yummy.

I hope your mouth is watering and you are thinking about chocolate now. I think I'll go eat a cake ball for breakfast.

Tomorrow My Baby Turns 13

I just can't believe it's been that long. As Jason says, "Fun flies when you're doing time". So in anticipation of the big day, I thought I'd blog tonight to tell you what I'm doing. Instead of the traditional cake, we will be having Cake Balls (not to be confused with Schweddy Ball you've probably seen on Saturday Night Live).


First you bake the cake. Then once it's done, crumble the warm cake in a bowl and stir in a can of frosting until it's blended. Then you use a melon baller (or since I don't have one, a small cookie scoop) and dip balls of cake into warm chocolate. Cool on wax paper until set. I can't wait. I plan to take some pics.

Just wanted to post some pictures of Jared
This is Jared when he was only 2 and a half years old. Just love that grin.
And this is Jared today. The hair is longer and he is a lot taller but he's still my baby.

Just One Question

I was just wondering if you think my ring holder looks like a boy cat with my rings hanging on it? Uh, no? Oh, me either.

Let's Have A Garage Sale

Moving really does suck. Jason and I came to the conclusion during this move that we needed to condense our belongings. When we got married, we each brought a whole house full of stuff with us. I couldn't part with much of my own property because after my divorce from Jerry I was gun-shy about long term commitments. I had this fear in the back of my head that warned me to save it all because Jason could leave, too. Now it's 3 years later and I am much more secure in my marriage and realize Jason is here for the long haul.

So, as we began the awful process of packing and moving, we started to give a lot of stuff away. I was prepared to just drop everything off at D.I. (for those who didn't grow up in an LDS home, D.I. stands for Deseret Industries, which is a second-hand store) and be done with it. My sister Suzee had been doing all my packing helping us move and suggested we have a garage sale to get rid of our extra junk. I really hate to have people poke through my things, but she pointed out that $1 for something we were just going to toss is more that we had before. So we had a garage sale...

Jason bought us donuts to give us the necessary sugar high we needed to get set up. Olivia was our helper for the day. She is the only one of our 4 kids willing to help. Can you read what's on the blue tape? We had to stop people from asking how much we wanted for the things that still needed to be moved.

I took my camera because I blog and everyone knows that bloggers take their camera everywhere. I took pictures of our crap saleable items.
Just looking at it makes you wish you'd been there to get the good stuff, I know...

These office chairs are still available.

And another picture of our goods. I think out of all the things you see here, only that VCR and DVD player actually sold.

Being an Arizona girl, I had to go sit in the sun to warm up. I mean, it was only around 70 degrees. So you can imagine how cold it was in the shade.

This last picture tells it all. We are on our way back to the new house. I took a nap, too, once we were home.

Things I Love About Jason

He is so easy to talk to

He does nice things for me for no reason

He never complains about all the time I spend on the computer

He laughs when he reads the technical help page on craigslist

He is the best friend I've ever had

He shares his sweatshirt with me when I'm cold

He will make breakfast for the whole family

He is very generous

He goes along with my decorating ideas

He takes good care of us

Jason

How Is Crissie Doing?

You are all aware that I've been suffering with sciatica. For the last few weeks I've been using these Wei patches, and I have to say that I am doing MUCH better these days. I thought you'd all be interested to see what patch removal day is like, so I've put together a series of photos for you to get the full affect.

This first picture is of the inside of my Wei Patch. It is a combination of all kinds of herbs and spices (well, not spices, but it's more fun to say it that way). I works almost like magic...magic tar.

Now you can see what my back looks like when the patch comes off. Kind of looks like it made the hair on my back grow, but that's not really what happens. Those hairs are just coated with the magic tar. It's VERY sticky, too. "How in the world do you get that stuff off", you ask?

Here is the magic tar remover. Looks a lot like olive oil.

Just pour it onto a paper towel and place it on the goopy spot. You need to let it stay there for a couple minutes so it can do it's work. Then you begin to wipe it off. I've gotten much better at it since my first patch.

See how gross the paper towel is now? But my back is nice and clean.

See...I'm smiling! I can even walk around without looking like I'm 80 years old.

Elvis had to come and see what that bottle was all about. I think he licked some off the edge.

I guess now that I'm up and about, I have no more excuses for not getting the rest of my kitchen chairs painted. It will be so nice once everything is finished and Jason and I can just relax.

Nothing Much

Well, I just popped in to my regular blog to tell you all that I don't have anything to blog about. Yeah, pretty boring. I could go on and on about how hard I've been working setting up my house and how I'm usually so tired by 7 p.m. that I go to bed shortly after that.


But other than that, I really don't have anything to share except this picture of Elvis on our balcony.

He's The Bomb!

My hubby is really fantastic! When I got home from work tonight, he had my computer all set up and he's got the external hard drive set up for me to do my back ups.

What a great man! Honey, these kisses are for you!!

I'm BACK...sort of

I have really missed getting on the computer! We began our move on Friday with me not being able to do anything more than sit in a chair and let everyone else do the work. I have a pinched nerve in my right hip...the sciatica nerve. It is the most excruciating pain I have had since I was in back labor with my first born.

As you can see by the image, every area that it shows in red hurts on me (except the foot but it always feels like it's falling asleep). Because of my inability to walk without having to bend over like an old lady and not for any period of time, the amount of "stuff" at the old house is way more than it would have been if I were feeling better.

My computer is still not set up and I'm having to use the laptop tonight for this post. I am way behind on posting to my Project 365 blog. Hopefully very soon I will be up and running and will get caught up.

Yesterday

I guess I'm the only one of my blogging sisters who didn't post something yesterday about it being my mom's birthday. Just like I did when she was still with us, I forgot until today. Of course, I do think about her quite often and I miss her a lot. Most times I miss her when I find something I think she would have laughed at, such as this visual pun....
This is a creation by Terry Border.

Other times, I would just love to talk to her and tell her about my crazy life. I think she would have really loved Jason.

I can't believe it's been 5 years that she's been gone. Happy belated birthday Mom.