Musings of a Louisville St. Louisan

I had a much different blog started about a week ago for my ten year wedding anniversary to my husband, John Mark.  Our actual anniversary date is May 10, but because of a series of events, I have been prevented to write about it until now.  When I met John Mark I am pretty sure it was love at first sight.  We met in Mr. Puhse's biology class the first day of college at Missouri Baptist University.  I thought he was the most gorgeous guy I had ever met...and he is still pretty hot, if I don't say so myself.  We had a long, year and a half engagement, tying the knot May 10, 2003, two weeks after we graduated college.  We went on our honeymoon and less than two weeks later moved to Louisville, KY, where we now reside. We Were SO Young! Growing up I had witnessed my share of hardships and trials.  My family had gone through quite a few.  John Mark saw the last end of some of it while he was dating me in college.  I think what impressed ...

If you were on the internet yesterday it is possible that you stumbled across the # fitchthehomeless campaign.  When I first watched the video I chuckled, laughed out loud even at the antics of Greg Karber.  I tittered when Karber compared CEO Mike Jefferies to an Old Biff look alike.  At the end of the video you found Karber handing out Ambercrombie and Fitch clothing to reluctant homeless men and women in the street.  The video ends with this logo: Together We Can Make Ambercrombie and Fitch the World's Number One Brand of Homeless Apparel.  When a friend posted this video on their FB page the only response I made was, "I think the homeless are too good to wear Ambercrombie and Fitch."  I was holding back what I really wanted to say (which is what blogs are good for).  It slipped my mind until I saw this wonderfully worded blog on the subject by a young mom, named Kristen. If you aren't sure what all the buzz about Mike Jeffries is, you can ...

I finally did it.  Something that I desperately wanted to do last year, but was too scared to do.  Was lacking the self confidence to do.  And basically too chicken to do.  I signed up for a triathlon.  The emotions leading up to that fateful task of entering your credit card number and hitting submit were a bit of a roller coaster.  It seemed like for every reason I came up with that I could do it, my mind would dredge up a reason why I couldn't.  The main one being that big fat "I" that was stamped on my head...okay, well actually bladder, but you get what I am saying.  Over six years ago I was diagnosed with a condition called interstitial cystitis (IC).  It's kind of a difficult condition to explain, but I recently read a blogger called "Pretty With Pelvic Pain that explained it pretty well.  Basically the blogger says that when you have IC your bladder bleeds.  The pressure, the pain, the burning and my new best friend, blad...

When I was a little kid my mother made everything from scratch, and I mean EVERYTHING!   From icing to cookies to spaghetti sauce to chicken noodle soup.  At the time I thought there was something definitely wrong.  I would go to my friend's house and they would have icing from a can and rolls of cookie dough (that their mom let them eat WHENEVER they wanted!).  My dream as a child was to eat icing out of one of those plastic, preservative filled tubs of icing.  YUM! When my husband and I first got married we lived off of Hamburger Helper.  We had it at least once a week.  We also bought all of the other things my mom wouldn't buy like sugar coated cereal (Lucky Charms, sigh) and had ice cream every night for dessert.  When I was diagnosed with interstitial cystitis all of that prepacked food glory came to an end.  The medical condition in some ways was a positive thing for me because it forced me to make almost everything from scrat...

The day started perfectly, well almost perfectly.  I was woken by my cat, Toto's, annoying meows that had been plaguing us since we got back from vacation a week and a half prior and the sound of trash trucks outside.  I knew that even though the child (Alexandria) had not woken up yet, there was no way I would get any extra sleep that morning.  I groggily pulled myself out of bed and decided to take advantage of the quiet and do my morning exercises.  Alexandria woke up after doing 20 minutes of exercises and actually let me give her a bowl of dry cereal and a sippy cup full of almond milk while I finished my workout.  By the end, she was trying to do them with me (victory mom moment!). That morning we had a play date scheduled with a very dear friend of mine, so Alexandria and I busied ourselves getting ready.  In previous mornings Alexandria showed interest while I fixed my hair and pointed to her own, saying, "Hair?".  As you can imagine, thi...

I could only  imagine what it was like for you to watch your son die before I had my child.  Now that I do have a beautiful baby girl I can't imagine the anguish it caused you. In eternity past you fellowshiped with him.  He was beside you when you created the world and he held all things together.  You watched his face as you told him what needed to be done on earth and that he was the one that would have to suffer in shame.  You adoringly looked on as Mary-who was made pregnant by the Holy Spirit-grew carrying your precious son in her belly, your eyes filled with tears of joy as he was born and placed in swaddling clothes in a manger.  You looked on with pride as he taught the religious leaders in the temple at age 12.  And marveled at the man he had become when he fed the 5,000 and brought a dead girl back to life.  Your heart broke as he pleaded and begged with tears of blood that you might take the cup from him. You held back your mig...

I have a confession to make:  I love breakfast foods.  One of my favorite indulgences growing up when I would go on trips with my church was sausage biscuits from McDonalds.  Unfortunately I can't have sausage anymore, but my love for breakfast foods has not wavered.  Something I have eaten on a handful of times is a quiche.  I always loved it, but had never attempted to make it myself until recently.  I made one for a clothing exchange party that I threw back in the fall.  I felt that it fell short of my previous quiche experiences.  It was soggy.  Not just a little soggy, but that terrible wet, squishy texture that will haunt your dreams for nights after you had it...Okay, maybe not quite that bad, but it does seem to haunt your kitchen.  There is nothing I hate more is soggy eggs.  And I'm sure my friends were just being nice when they said it was good.  I decided to take the non soggy quiche challenge about two week...