Return of the Blog

So I started this blog, and then promptly life took over, many posts I planned on making slipped away, and time passed.  I am planning to do a Re-Cap of 2012 (at least a 5 part series) and also a Re-Cap of the first half of 2013 (at least a four part series) .  I have already decided on bullet points for my Re-Caps, I just have to sit down and write them.  A task that is made difficult by the fact that I am constantly breastfeeding/entertaining my 2 1/2 month old (Don't worry, as I said I will catch you up).  Even though I spend much of my day on the computer while he is feeding, typing is tricky.  I have debated on laying the keyboard across him, but using him as a table somehow feels wrong.  So I have to wait for nap times.  Which are in no recognizable pattern at this point, so my days are a guessing game of hopes and tasks gone undone.  Right now though my little prince sleeps and I am concurrently making meatloaf, mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, and writing this blog post.  Should he wake up the blog will have to wait, but the food has already been set in motion and my father is coming over for dinner tonight, so kiddo will just have to hang out in his bouncy seat as he often does when I am trying to cook.  It is a fun way of letting him learn through watching and listening, as I frequently will explain everything I am doing, all the cool gadgets I have and for sheer entertainment of his highness I will also sing and dance.  Should a neighbor be looking in my kitchen window they may wonder what I am doing exactly, but I don't care, it makes him smile.

A few weeks ago I was on Pinterest (my favorite thing to do right now during feedings), and I realized I have over 1100 recipes for meals, drinks, and desserts on my personal Pinterest boards.  By my calculation that means that if I cooked one new thing EVERY DAY it would take three years to try them all.  So lets be more realistic, say I make two a week it would take me 11 years to complete all of them, if I did only one a week my son could graduate from college before I finished.  Of course, this doesn't even take into consideration the fact that I will obviously find more and want to pin them, some of those pins represent more than one potential recipe, and that I have an entire bookcase of cookbooks with hundreds of flagged recipes to try.  Now please don't think I am about to do some sort of Julie & Julia thing and make them all, that is nuts, and I just don't have that kind of time.  However, I am going to try to start making more of them.  I also have enough craft projects pinned to last me 4 years if I did only one a week.  I will try to do some of those as well, and as I cook more, craft more, garden and take photos I will keep you all up to date on how successful (or not) I have been at my attempts.  I will teach some of my favorite recipes I have adapted over the years, if I use something from Pinterest I will give you the original link, as well as any alterations and tips I found while trying them.

The baby is stirring and I just heard a knock at the door...

Dinner was simple, but tasty; dad has headed on home, but had fun playing with his grandson; and baby boy is now fed and napping once again.  The meatloaf was tasty and was a very simple recipe I found on, you guessed it, Pinterest.  My homemade meatloaf is tastier, but for a quick and cheap alternative this was awesome.  I will absolutely use this trick again sometime, as it took less than 5 minutes to mash together and pop in the oven.  You can find the link under my Discovering Daily- Dinner board, or go directly to the link that Pinterest would give you: http://dancingthroughtheminefield.blogspot.com/2012/03/secret-ingredient-meatloaf.html

One of these days I will make my own meatloaf recipe and post that here for you, it is delicious.  Look for my catch up posts during the next week or so (as nap time permits).

Tomorrow is hubby's birthday and I am spending my morning watching him do a one hour powered parachute lesson (picture a go cart with a parachute attached, I will try and get pictures) and then we are getting together with family and friends for lunch at our favorite Indian restaurant to celebrate his and our friend Julie's birthdays.  They not only have the same birthdays their respective best friends have the same birthday as well...weird right.  After that I predict a quiet, hopefully nap filled afternoon.   Hope everyone is having a safe and wonderful Fourth of July Weekend!

Musing - a calm, lengthy, intent consideration

I desperately want sleep, the sugar high I'm on will not allow my brain to shut down; it's five in the morning and all I can think is, I should start a blog. I want a place where I can not only show off the fun stuff that I do to my family and friends, but also so that I can keep a personal record of who I am, who I become and the journey that I take to get there; and lets be honest, if no one ever reads this it isn't the end of my world, this is mostly for me anyway. Really all I want is a record of the things that I have done and will do, and the experiences that I will have on my road to becoming who I want to be and how I want to live each day. The problem is I want to do a lot, I want to learn a lot, and I want to see...well, everything. Now on a more realistic level I have several interests that I would like to pursue, some I have already begun to learn about and some that stand out on my gigantic list of things I have yet to do. Currently I am interested in many things, I love craft projects, cooking, gardening, photography, nature, reading, writing, movies, music, party planning, I'm doing my best to love working out, and I have been known to geek out to video games and science fiction, or spend hours on pinterest.com (addiction may be a better way to say this). I also have denied my inner girl for a very long time and I am finally attempting to set her free, it is a work in progress. Another work in progress is that my husband and I are trying to have a baby, no luck yet, but practice makes perfect. There are many other things in progress, but we will come to those another day. For now, just know that I am trying a little every day to do things that I enjoy, that help me grow and that lead me closer to my goals. Discovering daily, Me.

Now that I have rambled on for a bit, perhaps I should properly introduce myself. My name is Jennifer, I live in North Texas (currently), but my husband and I greatly hope in the few years that we will be able to move to Oregon, I'm sure there will be more on that later. I am thirty one years old and I have so much that I want to accomplish in life that I don't feel I should waste another minute. And I don't mean to say that there won't be days where my report to you is simply, 'hey guys, spent a beautiful day lounging on my couch watching TV and eating chocolate like it is going out of style'. Those days have value, and I am not giving them up. I have a day to day job, in an industry that I never intended on working in, and while I am very good at my job, it is not remotely what I want to do. I have a plan to take all my interests listed above and many others and turn it into a career. I will explain someday when I tell you about my plans for Oregon, but I feel it needs a full post (or a thousand) for you to truly understand how determined I am to make the life of MY dreams a reality. Life isn't perfect and bad things can, do , and will happen; trouble finds me, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to fight like mad to get what I want.

I have so much more I want to say, and if you are going to read this you should understand just how great I truly am at babbling and side tracks. I can only hope this website doesn't put a character cap on my posts, or there are going to be many multiple page entries. I know this because I have done one blog before on weight watchers, and almost every post I made I was told I had to shorten my entry. This is only short because I should really be in bed at this point. Next time I will explain the sugar high, and all the fun projects that I have done recently, as well as the ones I know are coming up; but now I require sleep.