Third Time's the Charm

Welcome to my third, and hopefully final, blog site!

My first foray into blogging was on Diary-X, where I had more than two-and-a-half years' worth of posts. A year-and-a-half ago, they crashed and I lost everything I had written.

I needed an outlet so I signed up for a LiveJournal account. It wasn't everything I had hoped it would be. Since I've recently been a target for comment spam, and they have no way to block it short of making my blog private, I was spurred to move on.

I had looked at Blogger before, but I wasn't sure what I was looking for. I liked the tag/label option that LiveJournal had (which Blogger didn't have at the time), so I signed up there. Most of my friends, as well as many other random blogs I read regularly, are on Blogger, and I've really liked what I've seen.

So here I am...

From Something to Nothing

Don't you hate it when you have big plans and everything falls through? That was yesterday.

I was supposed to have a cooking show from noon to 2 p.m., but my host called me Friday night to let me know her air conditioning was out. She switched to a catalog show and booked a cooking show for later.

Saturday evening we were supposed to have dinner with a friend and her two boys. (Her husband is out of town until next week.) We had originally planned for Thursday, but switched to Friday after I found out the VBS program at our church was Thursday night. (We were all really tired and ended up not going.) Thursday she called and asked if we could switch to Saturday. She had just gotten back in town from visiting family and needed some time to straighten up her house and get caught back up on laundry. Plus her 3-year-old had just gotten over some sort of illness. No problem. I thought that would work better anyway since I still thought my show was on and could use that time to prepare. She called back Saturday morning with the news that her 5-year-old was sick and running a fever. We definitely don't want to catch anything, especially since Jacob and I just recovered from a stomach virus last week.

We ended up spending the whole day inside. It was too hot to play outside, and stores are always crowded here on weekends. We didn't do much, but it was enough to wear us out. I think we were still exhausted from a full week of VBS. Shortly after I got the boys to bed, I crashed on the couch to watch some TV and woke up shortly before midnight!

And Back to Something

Today was a full day. This morning at church, the children spent time in both services singing the songs they had learned the previous week at VBS. The video they make every year, a montage of videos and stills of the kids from the week put to music, was great. The man who creates it has his own production company, and he always makes the music camp, VBS, and other special event videos for the church.

I had intended to stop by Wal-Mart on the way home and pick up some ingredients to make a banana pudding for a contest at church tonight, but Caleb hadn't had a snack and was starving. And he was eager to watch NASCAR. He wanted to go straight home and not even stop to pick up lunch. I didn't want to fight over going to the store, so we came on home and ate a few Totino's pizzas. They're cheap and quick.

Throughout the summer, while AWANA is on hiatus, we have special event family nights with different themes. Sometimes it's a praise night with an ice cream social afterward. Once a year they have a talent show. Tonight they had a great ventriloquist named Dennis Lee, cofounder of the group Nana Puddin. Caleb and I loved it. Jacob laughed here and there, but since he hadn't had a nap, he was tired and fidgety. Since I never got around to buying the ingredients for the Chocolate-Covered Banana Pudding recipe I had come up with, I had to make what was on hand: Pineapple Angel Food Cake. I also had a can of mandarin oranges in the pantry, so I drained them well and added them to the cake. It was okay, but I prefer it with just the pineapple.

I think there were 12 banana puddings entered in the contest. They all looked alike to me. Well, all except the one that had been cooked. I didn't know anyone still made it that way. I definitely should have made the one with chocolate! I'll have to try it another time...

I'm just impressed that I've started playing around with creating my own recipes now. I'm Type A and like to follow recipes to the letter, tweaking them only after I've tasted the original. Lately, though, I've felt creative in the kitchen. I came up with a Jerk Chicken with Pineapple Chutney recipe a few weeks ago and it turned out really good. Next time I want to add some fresh jalapeno to it (Billy's idea). Another recipe I'm playing around with is a Tuscan panini. Unfortunately I won't get a chance to try it until July.

I don't know what's got me so inspired. Maybe it's all the Food Network I've been watching lately. Maybe I'm secretly wanting to prepare to be The Next Food Network Star... :o)