Benjamin, Last week, you turned 18 months old. As I say each month — where does the time go? It was just yesterday you were sleeping soundly in your swing clutching your blanket. Now you just carry that blanket around. You and blankey are pretty much attached at the hip. I think we might have [...] [...more]
I grew up Catholic. I joke about it a lot – Catholic guilt, Catholic school – you know the drill. I’m not going to knock Catholics or Catholic schools. I went to church up until I moved to Bend. After getting settled into Bend, I attended our only Catholic church and well, didn’t go back. [...] [...more]
We had a lot of traditions growing up. Coconut pies and Grandma’s for Thanksgiving. At Christmas, my brother Christopher said he loved the way we opened our gifts (from youngest to oldest, one at a time). For some reason, I always had the most gifts (my mom said this was because the stuff I wanted [...] [...more]
I’ve become a little obsessed with taking my blood pressure. My little Omron machine has been attached at my hip for the past 8 days. I have to take the machine into my doctor next week who is looking to see how my pressure is doing. As I told my husband, that little machine is [...] [...more]
I went a little crazy with pumpkin-flavored recipes goods this year. Inspired to try cooking from scratch, I roasted two sugar pumpkins and ended up with 4 cups of pumpkin puree. From this I made a tradition pumpkin pie, pumpkin brownies , baked pasta shells with pumpkin puree and pumpkin crumble. I was a little [...] [...more]
Last night I got home from work, fed the kiddo, decompressed and then I picked myself off the couch and went to the gym. I always feel guilty going to the gym because I’m away from my kid all day and then I go somewhere for an hour and be away from him. My husband [...] [...more]
My mom was pretty good at making the classics. One of her specialties was manicotti. The recipe wasn’t a secret — she always made the recipe on the back of the noddle box (you’re seeing a trend here). We would beg her to make this dish weekly but she’d put it off as long as [...] [...more]