my dream...

to have my husband's boots waiting for him in the hallway. i dreamed that i would marry some rancher and live on some 1,000 acres out in the middle of nowhere in a beautiful stone house with a wrap-around porch with rocking chairs. i've dreamed this for as long as i can remember. i'm cowboy, well... as much as i can be. my family is cowboy, thru and thru. it's in my blood. it's home. i guess that's why living in the city is "cramping my style" if you will.

but this is what i wanted. a tall, rugged cowboy wearing wranglers, pearl-snap shirts, and his favorite cowboy hat to call me his. and i waited. and waited. and waited some more.

and then i met "him". i'll never forget the day that he came to pick me up for our first date. wranglers.. check. hat... check (well it was a baseball hat, but that works too). boots... check, but they weren't the retro squared toe with a riding heel that i had invisioned. shirt.... a nice t-shirt. okay, half check. it wasn't a panhandle slim, but that's alright, we can work on that.

and nine years later, he still wears his t-shirts with his wranglers. and he looks really good in a cowboy hat. we don't have that nice ranch house with land and some hundred head of cattle. but we dream about it. maybe one day when we say goodbye to the little city where both of our parents grew up just walking distance from where we live now. maybe he'll have that dream job of being a "cowboy"... hey, men have dreams of what they want to be when they grow up too!

and even though it's not the "dream come true" that i whole-heartedly wanted some ten years ago... it's exactly what i needed. and when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter that he doesn't wear pearl-snaps and rides a horse to work each morning. he calls me "his".

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

evidence..

... of a very crazy busy week:






that would be my window over my kitchen sink looking into the back yard. an empty diet coke and my wedding ring... and yes, i have the window cracked because we have a gas stove and i'm afraid of us getting sick off of smelling gas.. one of those weird things that you do because your mom told you to. love ya mom!

if i had three wishes....

... i would want to be like her

... if i had another wedding, i would want this dress

... and i want any of this for lunch

so yea, back to laundry i go. along with the lil' "mini Mr." fussing that his "bed is RUINED!" because i took off his sheets to wash them. dang, i'm such a horrible, horrible mother for washing the kids sheets.... ::sigh::

3 birthdays in 3 days...

... and i'm wiped. and to think that i've had cake each day too!! wowziers! "hello weight watchers, i need immediate assistance..." yes ma'am, back to counting points tomorrow. so anyways, thought i would share with you some photos of the past three days:

my sweet nanny's birthday was on friday... took her to cici's pizza and to walmart, but had the shin-dig on saturday at my parents. love this photo of her. my plan is to frame it and set it somewhere in the house... probably in the kitchen somewhere. and yes, these were her fresh strawberry cupcakes that i made for her. strawberry anything is her absolute favorite! i remember going to braum's when i was little and she always, always ordered strawberry. now i like strawberry too, but when they have something with chocolate and something made of chocolate added to it with chocolate drizzled on top... well sorry nanny, the strawberry is all yours!

and it was independence day for us americans! woo-hoo... a national holiday to grill out hotdogs and hamburgers, go swimming, eat watermelon, all that kind of good stuff. i love america.. i love this history, the heroes, the wars, blah blah blah... and i'll be generous and save you from my history lesson. that's was the history channel is for. which i LOVE.. almost more than braum's chocolate ice cream.

and to wrap up the festivities, it was noah's 5th birthday today. noah is the son of my best friends, sheri and jeremy... which on a day when i'm talking fast, they are referred to as "sheremy". but anyways, they put together an amazing party and an even more amazing cake! so thanks to them, we had our fill of pizza, cake, and arcade games for the summer. thanks you guys! we had a blast!!

so now i'm back to eating healthy after all this sinful eating i have done for three days. and no the tofu noodles are not on the menu, but that could change in desperation...

number 80

today, my sweet lil' nanny turned 80. can you imagine, 80 years: lived in 3 different states, married to her best friend for 43 years, mother of 2 children, 4 grandchildren, and 2 great-grandchildren all the while keeping the same phone number for almost 50 of those years. my nanny. i have some of my best childhood memories with her... going to the library in the summer, the grocery store on thursday and the beauty parlor on fridays. i probably know every short cut in haltom city and fort worth, because she never drove on the highway. i'll never forget her telling me that "boys like girls who curl their hair and wear make-up".. i lovingly told her that's why i don't. (i had recently broke up with "the stalker" for the... 2nd or 3rd time).

but i love her! i can still smell her pot roast on a sunday afternoon after church, her popcorn balls for halloween, and poppy's coffee cooking on the stove. and i love the way that she always left the light on in the bathroom. i remember being little and her waking me up to watch princess diana get married. her showing me who to jitterbug to old elvis records and sewing my first skirt that i wore everywhere proudly. i was her "pride and joy" and love it that she still calls me that today.

i could rattle on and on about my nanny.. i could honestly write a book about her. so here's one of my favorite photos of us. yes, it's our shoes but we were crossing our feet exactly the same. that's just one of the many things that her and i do alike. and i love that about us.

childhood checklist for the summer....

to wear a cowboy hat every where you go... even if you're wearing shorts and flip flops.




to play in the mud. to the point where you can't even ride home in the truck because you're so dirty and you have to be sprayed off with the water hose before you can go in the house.

to make friends with the roly polys. God's little friends for the summer. :)

whatcha cookin' good lookin'?

i love to cook. i'm not an expert.. i HAVE to follow the directions to the letter. that would be why i can make a rachael ray 30 minute meal turn into a good hour's worth of cooking. but i do it anyways. another "enjoy the process" kind of things. so here's the latest that graced it's presence in my kitchen: my super quick fettuccine. looks normal right? well, it's made from tofu noddles. it's a hungry girl recipe. love that girl! when you can come up with a cupcake recipe that is less than 200 calories per cupcake?? you're a hero in my book! anyways, the whole bowl was less than 200 calories and it was actually really good. the noodles... well they had a funny texture. a little on the rubbery side for me. but i ate it! not sure if that gives me a gold star from trying something new or a "wow, you're not right in the head" stamped across my forehead?

now! let's get to the GOOOOD stuff! enough of this tofu mess. enter stage right: the mr's kind of meal... bbq pork ribs and mac-n-cheese. yes ma'am! lovin' me some crock pots meals this week! i cooked a roast on monday... not near as good as nanny's but these ribs will give you a run for her money! i would much rather have coleslaw, baked beans, potato salad, something else other than mac-n-cheese to go along with this... however the mr. sits on the picky side of the fence, so the mac won out. and i will give all the credit to my fabulous crock pot for this meal! don't know what i would do without you this week! the crock pot and i have a loving relationship... we LOVE food! and a good hot bath when we're doing working. :)

and this is where it all went wrong. *raising my right hand* "betty crocker, i apologize for not following the directions that you printed beautifully on the back of your butter recipe cake mix. i acknowledge my foolishness and will never replace any ingredient you have listed for one that i think is better..." IDIOT! yes ma'am! learned my lesson in baking 101 this afternoon. thought i would be all "miss know-it-all" and swap out the oil for a cup of applesauce. yes ma'am! betty crocker mocked me in the face when these cupcakes came out heavy and crunchy in the top! and i didn't even see the red flag when my ice cream scoop turned cake batter dipper outer thing broke while dipping the batter that weighed 10 pounds! so nooo, not again, will i swap oil for apple sauce!! may tomorrow be the day when i redeem myself with martha stewart's strawberry cupcakes with strawberry meringue buttercream... oh how i wish i could have juila child for a fairy godmother!