Inspired Blogging - Post #5 - Time you told a lie...

5. That one time you told a huge lie and kinda got away with it {or perhaps you didn’t and that would make an even better blog post! Cringe}

I love the idea of this one but had SUCH A HARD TIME coming up with one. Not that I am perfect or honest 100% of the time but I have never been afraid to tell the truth or speak my mind so not an easy task. A huge lie is not really in my nature. (I'm more of a little white lie type ;D)

So here it is. It isn't that crazy or even funny but ... the time I told a huge lie and got away with it was...

When Brian and I decided to start having kids we had already been married for over five years. I guess we always knew we'd get around to it but when you get married at 20 there no rush. It became fairly evident early on in the "trying" process that it wasn't going to happen quickly or easily. After a couple of unsuccessful months I did some digging around online. I started charting my cycle and monitoring things like Basal Body Temperature. I had my cycle figured out to the day but still nothing.

When we decided it was time to get help we had been trying for about 7 or 8 months. I called a few doctors offices to find someone who could help and I was met with a question. "How long have you been trying unsuccessfully"? To which I replied (honestly) "7 or 8 months". Then I was informed that if we had not been trying for more than a year, at our age, no reproductive endocrinologist would see us.

So I lied. I called another office and I lied through my teeth. I confirmed we had been trying over a year and stuck to my story. I got an appointment and the process of Infertility testing started a few months later.

So, that's it. My big lie. I never did "get caught" although I doubt there would be serious repercussions had I been. We ended up with a different doctor in the end and I am guessing by the time we did any treatment we had been trying well over a month.

(Sorry for the boring story! ;D)

Inspired Blogging #4 - The day you left home

4. The day you left home

Believe it or not, the day I left home, was the day I got married. It almost seems odd in the world we live in but that was my reality. I was a Junior in college, yup, only 20 years old. I was not even legal to drink at my own wedding. And are you ready for this... I didn't! Not one drop. Laughable now, but I felt obligated back then. Not even the champagne toast.

 

Anyway, my wedding day was a beautiful blur. Church wedding in the woods. All of my family and friends. NINETY degrees on May 30th and I barely cared. The reception was at a beautiful reception hall. The food was amazing. The music was perfect. It was the perfect wedding. Obviously, the groom wasn't half bad.

We left for our honeymoon the next morning and spent over a week in California. We just tooled around different cities, staying in different hotels. It was a great trip. The funny thing is it didn't dawn on me until I came home that I was officially leaving home.

The day we got back my parents picked us up at the airport. We went to their house for a welcome home picnic. When it was time to go home I went to say goodbye to my parents and totally fell apart. It was like it all crashed down on me at that moment. I wouldn't be waking up in the house of the people who took care of me for 20 years. I adore my parents. I enjoy their company more than I can say. No more weekend coffee and newspaper reading. No more helping with dinner. No more sitting out back by the pond. All of that was, of course, untrue as I still spent a large amount of time with my family.

I settled into the idea of married life very quickly and still spent plenty of time with my parents and Genna. So I guess my leaving home story was bittersweet. I married my soul mate and began a beautiful new life. But I also left behind a pretty terrific existence of being my parents child. I am very thankful that I now live somewhere in between. I can be both a wife and a child.

Inspired Blogging Post #3 - Favorite Recipe

The next prompt from "The List" is 3. Your favourite recipe, even if you’re the worst cook in the world.

This one is so fun for me. Most of you realize that I spend a good portion of my life working away in my little kitchen. I like to play with recipes, make my own and perfect family recipes for sport. Nothing makes me happier than a well planned meal that makes every member of my family smile. Choosing my favorite recipes is WAY harder than I would think. However, one stands out.

My favorite recipes is my Two-Day Scratch Made Chicken Rice soup. The reason it is my favorite is way more involved than simple flavor or taste. When my dad was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma a couple years back I initially felt helpless. There was so little I could do to help him get better. Feel helpless is NOT something I handle well. After wracking my brain for days I figured out how I could exert control over a situation that was so out of my control. I would cook. I would cook and bake and make sure that my Dad was nourished with organic and healthy foods. I would make sure he didn't lose too much weight. And I would make foods he could eat (initially he had tumors in his lymph system so he had trouble swallowing).

Out of this insane need to cook and bake I spent hours and hours and hours baking him healthy sweets, making every kind of soup I could think of and learning to pressure can so he never ran out. I think it may have bordered on insane at times but it was my contribution. So this is it, my favorite recipe. I got the inspiration from the Crock Pot 365 Blog (which I adore) and did a lot of tweaking.

Two-Day Scratch Made Chicken Rice Soup

Ingredients

For Broth:

• Whole Rotisserie Cooked Chicken 
• Approximately 8 cups of water
• 1/2 medium onion
• 1 carrot
• 1 celery stalk

For Soup:

• 1 chicken bouillon cube
• 1 cup uncooked wild rice (I prefer Lundberg's brand) 
•  1 medium onion, diced
• 2 stalks of celery, diced
• 1 cup of chopped or julienned carrots (the matchstick variety work great)
• 2 tsp sage
• 2 TB balsamic vinegar (yup, you read that right!)
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Remove the skin from the chicken and discard. Pick as much of the meat off the chicken and place in a bag in the fridge). In a crock pot place the carcass, 1/2 an onion, carrot and celery stalk. Cover with water and put lid on securely. Cook on low 10-12 hours or high 4-6 hours. * You will want to do this step either the day before you plan to serve the soup or early in the morning (and use the high crock pot setting). 
2. With a strainer over a bowl ladle the contents of the broth into the strainer. This will ensure that all bones are removed from the broth. Put the strained broth back into the crock pot. You can discard the carcass and veggies but I like to make sure no good chicken has gone to waste first. 
3. Chop the refrigerated chicken and add to broth. Add bouillon,  rice, onion, celery, carrots, vinegar and spices. Stir well and cover. Cook on low 8-10 hours or high 4-6 hours. 
4. Enjoy with a nice loaf of bread or soup crackers!

Have I said how much I love this soup?!? And yes, I do realize I have posted this recipe before. It is so wonderful I just have to share it again. 

Inspired Blogging #2

I am working through my list of inspired blogging. In an attempt to get back to blogging more regularly I'm using a prompt list for some creative blog ideas.

The next prompt on the 50 Things to Blog About list is:

2. The worst movie you ever did see, and why

I have to start this one by making an admission. I do not like to watch movies. I feel like saying that is almost un-American. It's not that I don't like to see movies on occasion but I am not a big movie person. I am equally not a huge tv person but I watch more tv than I do movies.

I have seen some great movies in my lifetime. The Sound of Music, Gone With The Wind, The Last Unicorn, Fight Club, Toy Story, Monsters, Inc…. just to name a few of my favorites. Unfortunately the list of bad movies far outweighs the list of great ones. I think the worst movie I have even seen was the movie Unbreakable.

It was one of those M. Knight Shamalan (I know I am probably butchering that) mysterious dramas. I realize it was supposed to be profound and moving. When the movie ended and the lights came on (I actually saw it in the movie theater which I RARELY do) I stood up and said (too loudly) "what the hell"? It was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. I'd like to say I was embarrassed by that but it was how I felt. SO many movies, that end poorly or don't tell a good story, eat up time that I can't get back.

It was just so stupid. Such an insult to people's intelligence. I drive my family a little crazy with my dislike of watching movies or going to the movies but what can you do. I'd just rather read!

Inspired blogging

In the vain of my last post I have recommitted myself to my blog. Not like there are thousands of people out there dying to read my every word, but for the few who care I enjoy sharing. It is a catharsis for me and hopefully learning more about each other helps us all grow a little.

Anyway, one of the blogs that I enjoy is Fat Mum Slim. She is a lovely aussie woman and I have been completing her Instagram photo-a-day prompts for a while now. Several months ago she wrote a post entitled 50 Things to Blog About. It was simply a list of 50 writing prompts for bloggers to keep the juices flowing and overcome writers blocks. I saved the page, not knowing if I would ever use it, but now I find myself in that "blocked" spot.

The first of her prompts was "1. That thing that happened in high school that pretty much changed your life forever".  Here is my story.

When I was a Junion in high school my sister got pregnant. The thing that makes this life changing is that she was one of my closest friends and she was only a Senior in high school herself. I can rememember like it was yesterday. On my Mom's birthday she told me she thought she might be preganant. So I had the fortunate job of taking her to buy a pregnancy test and sit on pins and needles for the results. At that point we both worked at a local McDonald's so she took the test in the bathroom of the place worked. We both cried when we saw two lines.

The next couple weeks were a blur of helping her tell my parents, silence then screaming and decisions.  While none of the decisions were mine to make I felt vested in each one. It was quickly decided that she would raise the baby with the help of the entire family and her (now ex) boyfriend would attempt to be a part of it. (That part fell apart, but that's another story.)

I met Genna a few hours after she was born. I wanted to be there when she was born but at only 16 no one thought I could handle it. She was pink and warm and sweet in the hospital bed. I can still close my eyes and see it. I remember spending hours there but it felt like minutes. I could still smell her as I rode home from the hospital. I got to stay home from school on the day she came home from the hospital. It was a whirlwind. A baby in the house... crazy.

Over the next few months we spoiled her rotten. I spent more time with her than any human being I have ever known. I talked to her, took her for walks and told her all my insights on life. When she got bigger she spent hours bouncing in her ducky in my room while I did homework or listened to music. It's hard to describe my relationship in words. I have never been her mother but I have always felt like more than her aunt. She has always been my "first born".

She changed my life forever in wonderful ways. And eighteen years later I guess she still does.



So, that's my first story. I tried to keep is short and sweet. More to come.