Giving Back :)

Helping to head up the American Heart Association Fund Raiser this year for my hospital!  So far we are on track to meet our goal.  Orchestrated a bake sale this past Friday which proved to be an phenomenal success!  Yay for sweet tooths like myself!!

My Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins were a hit!

The whole kit & caboodle  :)

In addition this week I'm organizing the canned food drive for our hospital being put on by Gentiva Health to benefit Second Harvest Food Bank! 

 

Bravo for Non-profits and those who work there!  You make our world a better place :)

JoJo's B-day!

26 here we come!!!

So for Jodi's Birthday I made an fat free Vegan Dessert!  Aka a dairy free giant cupcake with strawberries & icing, delicious!!

First we have the giant cupcake form, which resembles Madonna's Infamous Cone bra, circa 1990:

Then some fat free angel food cake, baked per instructions:

Icing made of 4 cups confectionary sugar, 1 tsp vanilla flavoring, 1 tsp butter flavoring and 1/4 cup water (more as needed if too thick)

Drizzle 1/2 to 3/4's of icing over bottom half of the cupcake:

Add half of the Sliced Strawberries :)

Gently place top of cupcake over strawberry and icing layer, then pour remaining strawberries and icing on top.

Devour Giant Cupcake!  Done.

And her are 2 pictures from Jodi's birthday dinner at Lime

Checking Off 2 TO-DOs

Working on checking a few items off of my ever changing, constantly wavering life lesson TO-DO LIST! Working on 2 simultaneously, training for a marathon and a Prison Ministry. In all reality I’m running a ½ marathon, but it sounds more monumental if you leave the “half” off, and so I do! Another item to be addressed on the TO-DO LIST is that I want to be involved in several ministries throughout my lifetime, constantly trying to be used as a light to others while being sharpened and shaped as God would have. And so the opportunity presented itself to get involved in the Prison Ministry, it tugged on my heartstrings a little, so here I am.


Other items on the horizon are this side business of mine, really wanting to make it take off! Few orders here and there but nothing substantial yet, we shall see what’s in store. And then on to the subject of friendships. Inspiration of my dear friend Bethany, I want to be intentional in all of my friendships. When I’m at the end of my life I want to be able to say that I truly knew my friends. That I knew their hearts desires, their goals, struggles, fears, dreams, scars and that I loved them completely and free of judgment.

And all of these aspirations I have would never happen if I didn’t have a beyond extraordinary husband. A husband, who comes home from working an umpteen hr day and takes out the trash, then lets out the dog, then picks up our sweet baby so I can go on a run (if its too hot out for her to join) or go to prison ministry or work on my sewing orders, to ultimately check something of my life’s TO-DO LIST. But because it’s important to me, it’s important to him, regardless of what it is. Now that is an amazing man!  Now that is love!

Me and Wyn on a run!  Her keeping me poor company by sleeping on me, again... Must be my phenomenal speed that lulled her to sleep ha!

Time & Love

How is it that time is going so fast? Wyndham started crawling this week! So exciting, but at the same time I don’t know how she can be 7 months old and crawling when I only had her last week?? She is growing up so fast and time is literally FLYING BY! I swear time never went this fast before we had her…Every week, every day she is doing something new. It’s so exciting to watch her face when she accomplishes something new, the grin and the radiance on her face because she’s so proud of what she just learned or accomplished. And I love when she learns to complete a task herself, it teaches her confidence and to have good self-esteem~ although she’s probably not thinking that right now, as I am ~the over-thinker that I am.


And the love that I have for this little person is such a crazy crazy love. A love that is so deep and consistent, patient, selfless, unwavering and un-expecting of anything in return. A love I didn’t understand until I held her in my arms. Even when she was in my womb I loved her so deeply, but the immediate love I had for her the moment I held her was such a all-consuming love. Ryan and I ask ourselves all the time, “What did we do before we had her?”. She is just so fun and so much of our life revolves around her. And our love for her has made our love for one another deepen that much more. It is almost as if another chamber of your heart just opens up the moment you have a child, truly the craziest thing. I would cut off my own arm to make her stop hurting, or jump in front of a train, whatever it took~~ that why I say a crazy crazy love. There is nothing that Ryan and I would not do for her. We still have our list of priorities and things we like to do and enjoy and we take times for ourselves and have date night (they just happen a lot less often ha!), it’s just that everything on our list of priorities just moved down one notch to make room at the very top for this very tiny person.

Having this love for my child gives me a whole new view on what it must have been like for God to give Christ to us knowing that he would die on the cross for our sins. Oh my goodness, I can barely wrap my head around that….

Just some food for thought and some pictures for smiles :)

Little Miss Sunshine

Just got a new blog background and am sooo excited about it!  1- because of its name, B- my favorite color is yellow and 3) Because it reminds me of florida and I am really missing her today!

I Blog of This...

Of all the things to blog of, I blog of this: http://gammasquad.uproxx.com/2010/06/catwoman-is-real-not-very-good-at-her-job


Please oh please!! The lopsided afro alone is enough to send me into complete hysterics, and oh my word what an arr-tiisssttt. My best friend Jodi was flying to NY yesterday and while in the airport alerts of the catwoman burglar in NY were launched on the news. She texted me of the Catwoman burglar and explained the sitch, and not to be confused, the robber was not in fact a cat theft but merely a person dressed as a cat with the whiskers, tale, ears, whole 9 yards ~ as depicted in the detailed sketch. This event lead me to recall 2 other astounding recent events

1- Another costumed robbery, the 2 Leprechauns who wanted their pot of gold on St. Patty’s day. The however ended poorly… should you wish to read further: http://hubpages.com/hub/Leprechaun-the-Bank-Robber-Yesterday-in-Tennessee

2- This also reminds me of another NY event. While working for an unnamed recruiting company I staffed a few employees to work for me in the NY area. Some of the GEMS we came across… Guess that happens when you can only do phone interviews… Here is a sampling. ‘Tis an email that was sent explaining why she has a criminal record, or as she likes to refer to it as “on record”

"hello ---,

like i was explaining to yesterday. i have that record on me, because i was living in that apt. for 4 years, and then i start having rats in my apt. and he didnt want to do nothing about it, and i call the city on him, and i took him to court because of that, and he decide that he didnt want me to pay him, like that i can move out. and i was on court with him for over a year until the city help me to find another apt. and i didnt know that after that he put my name on record, until last year, i have to take him on court again to solve that matter."

Oh me, the things that make me laugh… the catwoman burglar, leprechauns on St. Patty’s and random emails of rats and being “on court”. Laugh may not be the right word, more so trying not to bust into hysterics BY MYSELF while reading this at work so that they don’t send me to be a consumer at our behavioral unit.

Amateur Shutterbug

So took some pictures of Michelle Gilmore her belly bump (AKA Hayes) and her beautiful family!  With some nice lighting and a gorgeous family, i look like a decent shutterbug!