The last Davis family portrait (1999): Danielle, Lacey, me, and Mom and Dad in front

It’s been several weeks since I’ve written a Thankful Thursday post, but it’s about time I came back to my top ten list and gushed about #4.  Admittedly, I ranked my friends as #4 and family as #5 on the official list, and I’m not going to edit it, but I feel that I’m actually more thankful for my family.  We have no say as to what kind of family we are born into, and when we end up with a good one, I think that’s something worth giving thanks for. (Perhaps it’s not a bad idea to find something to be thankful for even if we end up in a bad family, because I’ve noticed that out of something bad often comes something good.)

Just like most families, mine has no shortage of issues.  There have been and still are substance abuse problems, mental illness, verbal and physical fights, bad habits, cruelties administered and/or said in anger.  But overall, I come from a loving family and one of the best things about us is that we do not hold grudges.  We give each other plenty of reasons to hold grudges, but we always forgive each other and have just as much fun at our next family gathering as we did during the last one.  We hurt each other, we drive one another crazy, but we don’t even have to say we’re sorry in order to move on.  We just do.

The Miller family 2007 (back): Al (FIL), Lance (nephew), Richard (BIL), Joan (SIL), (front) Phyllis (MIL), Carson (nephew), Dennis and me.

While Dennis got the raw end of the deal with his crazy in-laws, I got an unexpected blessing.  I married into the “plastic family.”  That’s what I used to call his family (behind their backs, of course-lol) because they were so perfect (like Barbie and Ken with their children in my childhood dream world), I couldn’t see how they could be real.  A real family had deep and major issues, they yelled at each other at the top of their lungs, threw glasses across the room and pulled hair, the Moms threw their daughters through walls and had nervous breakdowns every summer, the daughters got arrested for marijuana possession and suffered from anorexia and binge-eating, the Dads were alcoholics,  and every so often a 300-lb steel desk in the home of a real family would get thrown down the stairs.  Only a “plastic family” could be so gentle, so understanding, so soft-spoken and happy all the time.

Me holding my baby sister, Lacey...with a knife. Do you question the dysfunction?

I thank God for my new plastic family. :)  Without them, I might have never known that a better sort of “real” could exist.  It was in my mother-in-law’s kitchen that I first got the idea to start my Thankful Thursdays feature, while I was overwhelmed with joy to be preparing scalloped potatoes with her (something that will never happen in my mother’s kitchen).  She isn’t as goofy as Dennis, but I think I can safely say that he got his wonderful sense of humor from her, and I’m thankful for that too.  I love spending time with them all because they are not only kind and loving, but fun-loving and the laughter is always plentiful.

Now, that’s another thing my blood family has going for them.  The laughter.  It has seen us through every battle, and is perhaps our strongest bond.  My Dad can find the humor in any situation, and in fact just recently was cracking up, and cracking me up, while telling me about a fight he and Mom had in which she locked him out of the house.  He lifted his foot to kick down the door, but lost his balance and fell backwards, then couldn’t get up.  Mom unlocked the door in response to his yelling, only to laugh uproariously at him before helping him up and letting him back in.  My family isn’t the most functional one on the block, but hey, at least we can laugh about it, forgive each other, and love each other despite ourselves.

Danielle, Lacey, and me

So what about you?  Are you from a real family or a plastic one?  And what about yours are you thankful for?

XOXO,

V

P.S. If anyone is interested in a monthly feature from Dennis, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

*******

As I write this, 20 days have passed since the New Year.  When you read this, 23 or 24 days will have passed.  In a way, that makes you a time traveler.  You are able to view a past event as though it is happening right now.

Time is an interesting subject.  For this blog, we are going to consider that for most of us, time is really arbitrary.

Quick!  What is your age?

Did you know you have at least three different answers to that question?  They are:  chronological, mental and physical.  What I always find interesting is people mainly focus on chronological age, but that is the only one you can’t do anything about.  You were born when you were born, and each second takes you closer and closer to the other extreme.  You can change your physical age by exercise, or the lack of it, and by what you eat.  Mental age can be decreased by too much television, or just a general lack of mental stimulation (like reading something I write).

I find birthdays interesting, because as far as I can tell, I really get just one day older.  People have asked me, “What does it feel like to be 44?”  And honestly, I feel one day older.

Every 365 days the Earth goes around the sun.  On day 1 most people decide NOW is the time to take charge of my life. This is THE year I’m going to lose that extra weight!  I shall master squid juggling by this time next year!

At the dawn of a new year, it seems like it can be done this time.  You are more determined, and with a stronger will.  You tell your friends, you write it down, even post it on the internet.  You make your goals, but to accomplish them, you have to realize that it’s a step by step, moment to moment decision and action.

Think of it this way.

You are sitting on your couch.  You want to turn the TV on. Your hand travels from where it is, to the remote, hand picks up remote, finger or thumb presses the “on” button.  That was four basic actions to get a simple result, and we could have thrown in hand-eye coördination, tactile sense, and a host of other things needed to perform the above task.

But the most important thing is this.  There had to be a steady stream of consciousness to make it happen.  If you were distracted at any time during the event, like if a giant purple sock suddenly appeared in front of you and launched in an explanation of the importance of the human knee cap, then the cycle of action would be broken and the TV would not have been turned on.

What I’m saying is this.  You have got to make moment to moment decisions to get to your goals.  You have to think beyond the “here and now.”  You’ve got be a time traveler.  If you are in your car, feeling like, “Hey, I really need ice cream,” the “needing ice cream” is a here and now thing.  What you have got to do is think ahead of that.  Will the ice cream make you feel better or worse one half hour from now?  Or will you be able to say a week from now, “I have not had any fattening foods in a week, and I feel great.”

You can practice keeping a stream of consciousness during the day.  When doing dishes, try just doing them for a while, don’t think of anything else but the dishes maybe for just one plate. What you will find is your mind will wander off.

Making resolutions is easy.  But the mind does tend to wander.  The best thing you can do is know that you have to make those resolutions again, again and again in order to make them happen.

********

To say I was shocked when Veronica asked me to guest post on her blog is a huge UNDERSTATEMENT!  Wow!  I was so honored…. ALMOST rendered me speechless (note I said “almost”)… Those who know me know that I am rarely speechless. LOL.  I tried to think of something very specific that I am thankful for at this very moment.  Of course, I am always thankful for God and my family.  But, specifically something that I am particularly thankful for at this very moment is … that I am where I am! Sounds like the beginning of a Dr. Seuss book, huh? But, I AM thankful that I have made it to this point in my life; that I AM WHERE I AM.  Let me explain…

At this season of my life (I’m 45), my children are almost grown (well… one is, technically).  My husband and I both have good jobs with normal hours.  With that comes regular paychecks (need I say more?).  In this season of my life, I have all of my immediate family in the same state.  I have been blessed with wonderful in-laws.  There are just so many things that make me thankful for being who I am at this very moment, living with a mostly empty nest.

That’s not to say I was super happy about seeing these days arrive.  Oh no!  Upon dropping our younger daughter off at the University two hours from home, I cried like a baby all the way home.  Not just weepy – oh no!  I mean sobbing, hiccuping, crying like a big baby!  I sat in the dark for two days until my husband came in, opened the blinds, and coaxed me out.

The kicker is that I never saw it coming.  I have always worked full-time (plus commute time) so my daughters are fairly independent.  What I mean is that I had lots of life outside being a mom (or so I THOUGHT! LOL!).  But, when THEY LEFT?  Both of them?  Ickk – it was like a punch to the stomach.  In one of my crying jags when I went to start supper one night I told my husband, “bbbb-but, I don’t have anyone to cook for anymore.”  He chuckled (trying to calm me down) and said “Hey!  Don’t think this means the kitchen is closed.  The kitchen is NOT CLOSED!”

After only about five months, I am really warming to this idea of having grown children.  My days start out pretty quiet.  Days of rushing little ones out of bed, trying to get loads of laundry started or folded (before leaving the house at 7:15AM), finding uniforms, checking backpacks, delivering kids to school or babysitters, checking sports schedules, are gone.  My husband and I have only ourselves to get ready.  Wow!  Yes, I do miss those little ones.  I miss making bowls of Fruit Loops and packing Lisa Frank lunch boxes.  But man, it was quite chaotic at times and I’ll have to say I enjoy a reprieve from all that it took to be a working Mom.

*I am thankful for calm mornings.

The next thing I am thankful for is my husband’s new job.  My husband was always a self-employed contractor/carpenter.  He now is a building inspector in the city where I work, which means I no longer have to trek icy roads alone.  We ride together each morning (I tell him, he’s “driving Miss Daisy”).  There was a time when we hardly had five minutes alone with each other.  Now we not only get the commute to and from work, but we get to come home together.

* I am thankful for time alone with the man I still love to hang out with.

My parents always lived 1200 miles from me.  I prayed but knew there would never be a solution to how they would come home to me.  But, they did!  They retired in Missouri.  Not long after that, my brother and his wife made the journey back home.

*I am thankful for the time to spend with ALL of my family.

The final thing that I am most grateful for in this season of my life is that I have two bright, beautiful, and GOOD daughters!  So many kids are lost these days.  They have addictions and motivation problems.  There are families I know whose children are just so lost – and I am so very grateful that my girls are motivated, hard working, healthy, and happy!

* I am thankful that my daughters are terrific young women. 

When the day comes that you find your own nest empty.  Try not to focus on the unwanted change that is thrown upon you, but look around at all that you have accomplished and remember what it is like to be YOU.  And if you’re like me, its not long before the texts are chiming and the phones ringing and its one of your children saying, “Mom????? I know its 9PM and you are in your PJ’s, but I don’t want to go grocery shopping alone.  Will you go with me?”  (Sigh)… a mother’s work is never done.

Blessed is what I am – I have much to be thankful for!

Gina

Tasty AND Healthy Foods For the Family…

Being the first of the year, I imagine a lot of us have resolved to make healthier decisions. To do that, I have FOUR FABULOUS cookbook recommendations for you. But first, let me just tell you a little about how I roll. I have a nutrition page on my site, which includes both HOW and WHY to change the way you cook & eat… so as you’d probably guess, I do care about making food that’s reasonably healthy and not complete junk. I’m not into all the packaged, processed, hydrogenated junk that turns us into chunky monkeys. But, my family likes regular food like pizza and enchiladas and I will forever be a mac & cheese lover. So where does that leave me as the main meal preparer?

Well, I can tell you one thing… if I’m going to the trouble of MAKING food for my family to eat instead of getting take-out, it better TASTE GOOD or else it’s not worth my effort! I’m not the kind of gal who eats rice cakes. I like real food with fresh ingredients. I don’t want to diet or weigh out serving sizes. I just want a collection of do-able recipes that are yummy and nourishing too.

If you’re interested in changing the way you cook and eat, you’re ready to wean yourself from excessive processed junk that makes you gain weight and feel sluggish, but you don’t really know where to go from here… then perhaps my cookbook recommendations will help. I’ve kind of bumbled around a bit in this area for a while, trying to find that happy balance between “healthy” food and “yummy” food… finding a recipe here and there that was fabulous, simple, and healthy. Now I finally feel like I have a couple of good GO-TO sources for recipes that fit my nutrition approach AND taste great.

So… Without further adieu…

Here are my top three choices. I can’t really rank them as #1 #2 #3 because they all tie for first place, for different reasons. You’ll also notice that these cookbooks have EXCELLENT reviews on Amazon so I am evidently not alone in thinking they’re great. In no particular order here they are….. (cue drum roll….)

My first #1 choice: “America’s Test Kitchen Healthy Family Cookbook:
A New, Healthier Way to Cook Everything From America’s Most Trusted Test Kitchen“

I’m so excited about this cookbook! This is my most recent cookbook purchase, and I think it’ll be a looong time before I buy another one. It’s got over 800 All-American homestyle recipes that they made over to be healthier without sacrificing taste. The recipes are great, reasonably healthy choices the whole family will love.

It is NOT a diet cookbook. Their bottom line factor is taste, so you won’t find them plugging in bland cardboard-like ingredients just to reach a certain calorie count. They don’t play games with the serving sizes or nix all the tasty foods that contain fat (nuts, eggs, avocados, cheese, salmon); they “just use them judiciously.”

Here’s their recipe for Baked Chicken Fingers…

And Creamy Chicken and Spinach Casserole…

We’ve loved the recipes we’ve tried and are mainly eating from this cookbook right now as I continue to try more of them. I also love all the helpful hints and preparation tips sprinkled through with the recipes. It comes in a nice binder with tab dividers for all the sections- including dessert! We all need some brownies now and then, don’t we? Their desserts reduce fat and still taste deliciously dessert-y. If you don’t believe me, check out their fudgy-brownies, which are nice and fudgy WITHOUT using a cup of butter and a pound of chocolate. What are you waiting for????

My second and third #1 choices:
“Whole Foods for the Whole Family“
& “Whole Foods From the Whole World“

These two cookbooks are fab-u-loso! They have loads of healthy, tasty meals as well as really helpful kitchen tips. I’ve found lots of great dinner recipes, and “Whole Foods for the Whole Family” is my go-to source for baked goods (pancakes, waffles, breads, muffins, etc.) made with mixed flour (I use half whole-wheat, half white/all-purpose). Their cooking philosophy is right in line with mine, and they give recipes for flavorful, nutritious meals made from non-processed foods.

They don’t have impressive covers. OK, one of them REALLY looks like it belongs in the 80′s. Aaaaaand they don’t have dazzling photos inside. Let’s face it- we ARE a little spoiled, aren’t we? We expect glamorous, color photos with each recipe (especially those of us following Veronica’s blog!)… but getting these two cookbooks is quite like gaining your great grandma’s collection of favorite recipes that have been tried and tweaked to perfection over many years. You don’t think your grandma was snapping pictures of her famous world-famous dish before she put it on the table, do you? No. She was probably snapping a rooster’s neck so she could throw him in the oven. You don’t see a great photo before you start cooking… so what? Just trust your grandma on this one- it’ll be yumm-O! And healthy to boot!

Here’s their recipe for yummy Carrot Spice Muffins, which are made with no butter, oil, OR processed sugar…

I’d recommend “Whole Foods for the Whole Family” to anyone with a mouth. And I’d recommend “Whole Foods from the Whole World to those who are curious to taste family favorites from around the globe. I got a great recipe for Do Yuk Sahn Juhk from it. I may not pronounce it properly, but it tastes GREAT! :)

And my #2 choice…
Pampered Chef’s “Make it Fresh Make it Healthy“

I am a Pampered Chef consultant (only in the most technical sense, I’ve never done a “home party” I just keep up my consultant status to reap the benefits since I LOVE their products) and I have SEVERAL Pampered Chef cookbooks. I will tell you this about PC cookbooks… their recipes are good. Really good. But a decent amount of them rely on packaged foods, which is what I’m trying to scale back on. This one doesn’t. The title says it all.

Coming from Pampered Chef, you KNOW the recipes will be rockin’. The only reason this book is slightly ranked below the first three, instead of having a FOURTH tie for first place is not because the recipes are less fabulous, it’s just because the cookbook isn’t extensive by any means, whereas the first three are.

It’s an assortment of deliciously fresh, healthy recipes you’ll be glad to add to your collection. One of our favorites from this book is Creamy Saffron & Asparagus Risotto. It is seriously SO good that if I had to pick only 5 meals to be served the remainder of my life over and over again, this would make the cut.

(Disclaimer: I don’t use wine, I substituted in slightly watered-down grape juice.)

The same gal posting the Risotto recipe also featured their Cracker-Crusted Chicken, which takes 15 minutes from start to finish. That’s a winner in my book.

Well… That concludes my top choices of cookbooks to rock your socks off. Buy them, love them, and thank me later ;)

But, while I have your attention, I wanted to mention three more “honorable mentions….” which are each geared to more specific cooking needs…

For Babies & Toddlers…

“Mommy Made and Daddy Too! Home Cooking for a Healthy Baby & Toddler,” by Martha & David Kimmel. This is a FABULOUS cookbook for making your own fresh baby food!!! It also has some nice transitional recipes for toddlers (& the rest of the family). I Love it. I bought it for my sister-in-law, who wanted to make her own baby food. She received a couple different baby food books as gifts, and this was her favorite as well. If you’re considering making your own baby food, be sure to check out my Mommy-Made Baby Food page!

For Sneaky Moms of Picky Kiddos…

“Deceptively Delicious,” by Jessica Seinfeld. She has yummy, easy to make recipes that sneak in pureed veggies and improve store-bought foods. Here‘s her website for it. I have tried a couple of these recipes, and they were tasty. Luckily we don’t have picky kids (yet) so I don’t have to sneak stuff in. I do find this handy though when we’re making baby food purees and have them on hand anyway. If you like this sort of thing, she also has a sequel called Double Delicious!: Good, Simple Food for Busy, Complicated Lives.

For Those More Aggressively Trying to Lose Weight…

“Cook Yourself Thin: Skinny Meals You Can Make in Minutes” cookbook by Lifetime Television.  This is a must if you’re wanting to hit it hard going healthy… Although it’s not considered a diet cookbook, I’d say it’s the closest thing to it that I’d use happily. They revamp your favorite recipes, keeping or improving flavor while increasing nutrients and cutting calories.  Their introduction is really good too, giving lots of helpful hints.  Click here for the show’s website, and here to read and print recipes they used on the show.

Well, that’s it! I hope my cookbook recommendations are helpful, and here’s wishing you a happy, healthy new year!

As you may have guessed from the title of her blog, Jenna writes about pretty much anything and everything, including food and recipes, her family, her music gigs, photography, books, and her faith.  Jenna is a rare and precious soul that is kind, carefree, positive, and loving.  We share a love for food and family, and also a bond as sisters in Christ.  Needless to say, this gal is pretty special to me.  I hope you love her as much as I do.

***

Hi everyone!

I’m excited to be here, and I love you all already. Why? Because you read Veronica’s blog, so you must therefore a) have good taste, b) share her great sense of humor, and c) love food.

I have been a faithful reader of Veronica’s blog for quite a while now, and I’m glad she’s getting her beauty rest from blogging this month so that she can recover and continue her mission of entertaining us, encouraging us, and giving us delicious recipes in the months to come! Blogging burnout is NOT something I wish on her, so even though I miss her daily posts, I’m thankful that she’s taking care of herself.

Which brings me to the topic of today—thankfulness.

I don’t know about you, but I love Veronica’s Thankful Thursdays posts. They remind me to keep my perspective on everything that happens in life—not just because I’m an optimist, or a generally happy-go-lucky gal (which I am, with a streak of melancholy to balance me out)—but because I believe the truth that everything works together for good for those who love God. He will use my circumstances, my skills, even my sins, for my benefit. Just like a loving parent, who will use their child’s mistakes and sins as a learning experience to help shape them into a better person and teach them something valuable for the future, God isn’t going to let anything—good or bad—go to waste. And that is surely something to be thankful for!

At the end of every year and the beginning of a new one, I like to look back and think about all the things that have happened, good and bad alike, try to see the big picture, evaluate lessons learned, and allow myself to imagine what God may have in store for me in the coming year. This exercise for many of us, with its writing down of resolutions and cataloguing of the previous year’s events, can sometimes be discouraging. For me, it involved reviewing last year’s resolutions, many of which I didn’t accomplish—or even attempt! For example, I was supposed to make this Sugar Cream Pie recipe. My husband’s Aunt Laura gave me her mom’s original recipe card, and I thought it would be meaningful to make it, since my husband had such a special relationship with his grandma. The pie is simple enough—but I never got around to it, dangit. (Please tell me I’m not alone in totally dropping the ball on something so simple!)

I also made a lengthy list of things to do this year, which includes some big projects and goals I have no idea if I will complete to my satisfaction. Honestly, when I look at my list I feel a little inkling of dread, like maybe I’m doomed before I even start.

The things that have been keeping me in check while processing all this are two: thankfulness for the past, and hope for the future. I look at last year, and while I’m disappointed that I didn’t get as much done as I could have, that’s not what I want to dwell on. There’s nothing wrong with going back and evaluating, but dwelling in disappointment isn’t going to get me anywhere. Colossians says we’re supposed to be “overflowing with thankfulness.” And the big-picture perspective that I engage in during my end-of-the-year musings is a perfect place for that to happen. I may not have made that sugar cream pie, but I am so thankful that I’ve had the money to make so many other meals for my husband, myself, our families and friends. I may not have blogged every single business day all year long—but that pales in my thankfulness for the wonderful connections I’ve made through blogging, the lovely Veronica being one of them, and the encouragement that each thoughtful comment has given my heart. God doesn’t remove his blessing when we fail—instead, he weaves it through our entire lives, through failure and success alike.

And with regards to the future and the newly minted 2012? Hebrews encourages us to “run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” And what motivates the runner into that perseverance but hope? Hope of finishing well. Runners don’t run looking back—they run looking ahead, towards the prize. For me, this year, the ‘prizes’ I seek are many, and I’ll be blogging about that in my own space at some point. But I want to get rid of my dread and look ahead with hope.

So anyway, I’d just like to encourage you all to look at the past year with thankfulness—and look at the coming year with hope. Go back to your list of New Year’s resolutions with those lenses, and see how it changes things for you.

Love you guys!

Jenna

It was a cold and rainy day at the cemetery.
Gray black clouds blocked the sunlight and seemed to cast a shadow over our hearts.
As the coffin lowered the remains of my great-grandmother into the ground, my eyes locked with my sister’s across the grave.
It was just a moment, but that moment spoke volumes.
Now that great-grandmother was dead, the pact had ended.
Now could the family secret be told at last.
Now could the world know the recipe that is…
Boiled Salted Water!

***

The tale of Boiled Salted Water is one of great adventure and love. It began centuries ago, in the deserts of Arabia.  There lived a beautiful woman named Greta who served boiled water. Even though the others in her clan said it was the best thing they had ever tasted, she knew it could be better.

A few sand dunes away lived a man named Ali who had discovered a lump of salt in his youth while digging in the ground. One day, his pet squid went missing, and as he was searching for the beloved pet, he smelled something delicious wafting from a nearby tent.

He entered Greta’s tent and inquired about what she was cooking. She gladly showed the young handsome man her pot of boiling water, confiding that it still lacked something. He quickly showed her his lump of salt, and when they added it to the water, Greta knew that she had found the missing ingredient to her recipe and her heart.

Greta and Ali married and had many children. The recipe was passed down from son to son and daughter to daughter, staying in Arabia until one daughter married a squid juggler from Russia. His name was Ivan Onger Valisky the VII, sixth in the line of the house of Earlstoke but his friends called him “Biddy.”

Biddy and his wife lived in a small city in Siberia. They lived happily there many years, but tragedy struck when a small group of over-zealous Cossacks became convinced that with the salted water, they could build an invincible army. They stormed the young couple’s house but Ivan was able to fight them off using his deadly squid juggling skills.

After that, they knew that this recipe must be kept secret, and made  the pact that only family members may know the recipe, and decided to move to America.

The family grew and lived in harmony until approximately 12 June 1857 at 1:03 AM. It was then that my great, great-uncle Henry suggested that sea salt might be a good type of salt to use. This caused a massive argument, at the apex of which my great, great aunt Melva hurled a curse at Henry, “May all your squids develop dandruff!”

The resulting schism lasted seven years. Finally, it was decided many types of salts could be used in the recipe.

But the secrecy pact was still in force. Even when Ip Man Sao, the famous pork rind merchant of Hunan, China, offered my great-grandmother an ancient squid once owned by Emperor Wu, she refused to share the recipe.

The offer from Ip Man did make her consider that maybe it was time for the recipe to be released to the rest of the world. She asked that it be done after she had left this earth.

And this is why I can now post these most ancient and secret instructions for:

BOILED SALTED WATER

Ancient traditional recipe:

Take pot
Put in water
Set pot on strong fire.
Watch carefully with mighty eye.
When first three bubbles appear add salt.
Let boil for five chirps of the cricket.
Let cool for five to seven chirps of the cricket.
Eat.

Modern recipe with variations:

Water
Saucepan
Salt (sea salt, iodized or Earth)

Fill saucepan to desired level and set on high heat.
Salt can be added before or during the boiling cycle. (Uncle Fizbot likes to add it after it’s done boiling, but no one else in family likes it that way.)
Let boil for two and a half to three minutes.
Serve hot, warm, cool or even chilled (a favorite in the South).

I leave you with an old family blessing,
“May your squids never know the sorrow of a cold, hard bed, with only a rock for a pillow.”

__________________________________

Don’t you just love this blog? I’m sure like me, you enjoy how educational, entertaining and fun it is–so I jumped at the chance to help Veronica out by doing a little guest blogging while she is taking her hiatus. I am honored that she is allowing me to share a little of my musings.

I am especially happy to be posting on Thankful Thursday. My view of life for most of us is we have so very much to be thankful for. I constantly feel so grateful, that one day cannot contain my great appreciation for all the blessings that have been bestowed on me. Therefore, I start and end every day just saying thanks for everything wonderful in my life.

Every day of Thanks for me always includes my wonderful family, all my great friends, all the many gifts that were just given to me at birth that have allowed me to achieve so much in my life. But for me, that isn’t enough. I am thankful for even the smallest things, like a new skillet, shower curtain, a smile from a stranger, the wind, so many little things—-and actually, I always have been.

Today, I am especially grateful for cultural difference in foods and people. All these differences allow me the joyful adventure of tasting so many different flavors and learning about so many different lives. I find people fascinating. They all have a story to tell and I am thankful to share in those stories. And these stories are more accessible to me now because of the internet.

The internet with its blogs and social networks has many wonderful features that I am very thankful for. It is because of it, we can easily get these engaging posts from Veronica and what allows me to be able to reach you now. Also, I come from a very large family and I doubt I would be able to be in such daily contact with my family without these advances.

There is so much to be thankful for, I could write on endlessly, however, I will just end with one more thing from this week: the warmer than usual weather.

Have a great week and remember, there is much to appreciate every day. Take some time and recall it often.

__________________________________

Kathy Hadley is number 5 of 9 children from the same parents. Her parents have been married for 57 years. She has founded, owned and operated several businesses and is currently a member of the International Organization, CEO Space and is a Life Coach. You can find out more at http://kathyhadleylifecoach.com and are invited to her Facebook page http://facebook.com/kathyhadley22 and her Facebook Fan Page http://www.facebook.com/kathyhadleylifecoach

Veronica was born some time before now on the planet Terra. She is approximately 64 inches tall and is an average human for the most part.

Being a female, she has a potential lung capacity of 4,200 ml of air. I will not venture to state whether she uses her total lung capacity each time she breathes, for it is well known that the amount of oxygen that enters the body depends on how it is taken in.

But, upper chest or diaphragm breathing aside, let me say that she can sing like no one’s business.

Now, you may have thought Ip Man Sao of the Hunan Province in China had a good business selling pork rinds by the Yellow River, but let me tell you, his business doesn’t come close to my wife’s ability to sing.

Here is my rendition of what Ip Man looks like.

Ip Man Sao has a very interesting story. He was found as a baby in a basket on Sue Shing Mao’s front door step. She took the child in and raised him as if he was a third cousin on her great aunt’s side. His name means “some white kid that was left with me.” Though not Chinese himself, he was accepted by them.

When I was younger (maybe 9 or 7), I remember saying, “I’m never going to get married.” My mother heard this statement and said, “That’s what your uncle Robert said too.” (Note: if I found out when my uncle Robert got married then subtracted three years from the Mayan calendar and added 3.14159 (pi) I could get a rough estimate of the age I was when I uttered this statement.) But I was determined to make my decree stick.

I sometimes wonder if God had a hand in my shunning of marriage so early in life. I didn’t chase women or date (the few times I did was a disaster). In a way was ‘innocent” when I met Veronica. I didn’t have a whole lot of emotional baggage from previous relationships or preconceived ideas about how things should work. So when I started dating her I could just “be” with her.

Veronica is great in all the ways I’m not. She really does complete me. She has a heart for other people and cares about what they think and remembers their birthdays, whereas I am barely aware of the other human life forms around me. Veronica understands the importance of family and reaching out to others. She’s a perfectionist (she’s done a whole blog about this here on our different views on her “it has to be perfect” versus my “Meh, it’s not completely lopsided or falling down – good enough,” so I won’t go into that here), which balances my tolerance for imperfection.

I like the way she sees me. She has often said that I could have ended up with anybody and would have had a good relationship, but I know that she really is the only one for me.

I shot this video of Veronica singing while cleaning the bathroom yesterday. This highlights her singing abilities, though I don’t like editing videos so I included the whole thing and she doesn’t really start singing until about a minute in.

• A technical note: The bathroom was chosen as the ideal environment for the recording because it has an aspect ratio of reverberation of 9:1. The recommended way to listen to this recording is to cup your left hand behind your right ear and stick your right index finger up your left nostril. This will bring the beautiful acoustics of our bathroom to you in vivid aural majesty.

Possible future blogs from Dennis Miller:

• Boiled Salted Water
• Famous Russian Squid Jugglers
• Things I found in my shoe
• Warp Tour of Martial Arts
• EPIC BLOG OF LEGEND!!!!

To get my own year off to a great start, I am going to take a break from blogging this month, though I might stop in from time to time with a recipe or a Thankful Thursday.  I have been going strong on posting 5 or more days a week since last May, and it got to the point where I had to let other things go in my life in order to do so, so I’m going to just take a break to catch up on life and then when I come back, I most likely will be posting less frequently.  I really love my blog and my readers, but I don’t want to have to give it up completely so I’m going to have to ease off a bit in order to keep it going without letting other things slide.

When I told my husband my plan to take a break, he offered to fill in for me and I immediately took him up on his offer.  He has a great sense of humor and I have a feeling you’ll enjoy his craziness.  He won’t be posting daily, but at least weekly, and I can almost guarantee you at least a few belly laughs.  If anyone else would like to guest post for me during January, shoot me an email at vraklis@yahoo.com with your idea and I will consider it.  I would especially love to feature another person’s (blogger or not) “thankful Thursday” write-up!

Before I start my break, I thought I’d leave you with a few outtakes from our Christmas photo shoot.  My sister met us at the baseball diamond practice fields near our home because they have lots of evergreens there, and we wanted to pose in front of one.  I told Danielle to just keep snapping photos until her finger was numb because when you have an ADD dog and a husband that has a knack for closing his eyes right when the shutter snaps, you know that you need at least a million and one shots to find one that might work.  And of course, the first shot of the day was no surprise.

And it didn’t get much better after that.

Jessie: “Yawn. Can we play now?”

Dennis gave us this “natural smile” after many pleas for him to keep his eyes open.

I figure since the universe seems to be balanced, such as the ratio of men to women, for example, somewhere out there is a dog with an unnaturally short tongue to make up for Jessie’s unusually long one.  She likes to let it flop to the side to give the impression that she’s an idiot so people are impressed when she understands a simple command.  It seems a bigger feat for a dog with its tongue flopped over on the side to sit when told than when an alert, bright-eyed dog shakes hands, and she probably gets more treats because of it.  She’s an evil genius.

The odds of us all not being ready when the camera snaps is always greater than us all being ready. I call this my glazed drunk-eyes smile and Dennis is giving us his usual closed-eyes, “I’m too busy talking to actually smile” look. Jessie looks like this, her mouth closed on her tongue, when her attention is suddenly drawn away. Think “squirrel!!” from the movie Up. Makes her look REALLY smart. ;)

This is what she was looking at:

A field of geese!

Of course Dennis had his eyes open when I had another drunk smile and Jessie and I were both looking away from the camera.  It’s just the way things work with us.

Jessie: “I’m not listening. lalalalala.”

I’m pretty sure I qualify for the role of Alphaba (wicked witch of the west) in Wicked for my chin length alone!  You know you’re jealous.

Had to share the outtake of our photographer, It. ;)

There she is! :)  You remember Danielle, right?  She was ready to give up and go home at this point, but I was sure that the million photos she’d taken weren’t sufficient, and convinced her to keep snapping them.  Thanks for your patience, Dani!

Jessie: “Look at mah throat! I could swallow you in one gulp. Bwahahahahaha!”

Dennis’ face.  Priceless.

After a million and two shots (you can thank me for not including them all here!), we finally have a winner!  Eyes are all open and on the camera, smiles all around. YES!

I uploaded the photo to picnik.com and did some tweaking to come up with the photo that I used for our card:

And I’m sorry but I just have to share this photo I snapped of Jessie chewing on a stick during the shoot.  I thought it was just too cute!

Hope you enjoyed the shoot! Enjoy my husband while I’m away (come on now, you know what I mean!) and I’ll see you again soon. :)

“Here is where I would likely list my children if I had them, but my Jessie girl takes the number three spot because she is my only child.  A dog-hater my entire life, it’s hard to believe how quickly she turned me around with those puppy grunts and her tiny tongue and tiny, dime-sized paws.  Now, it is such a joyful thing to come home to her enthusiastic greeting every day.  The big smile, the wagging tail, the soft panting as I pet her.  I now fully comprehend the saying “dogs are a man’s best friend” because I have experienced firsthand how well-suited they are as human companions.  Their devotion and unconditional love is something that we’d do well to learn from and apply to our own relationships!”

OK, as the title of this blog suggests, I call Jessie my “itty bitty sweetie,” but the truth is, she hasn’t been “itty bitty” for a long time.  She’s a larger mixed-breed dog, and according to the vet, is about 10 lbs. overweight.  Most dog parents are probably aghast that we have overfed our dog to this degree, but I’m kinda proud she’s not any heavier.  It is really hard for me to say no to this face.

There is a song called “God Gave Me You“  by Dave Barnes that Blake Shelton remade after hearing it during a low point in his relationship with his wife, Miranda Lambert.  The chorus goes, “God gave me you for the ups and downs.  God gave me you for the days of doubt.  For when I think I’ve lost my way, there are no words here left to say, it’s true.  God gave me you.”  The song really is meant for a partner, but the music video applies it to other relationships (like mother-daughter), and to other random people God puts in our paths to help us through life (like an EMT at the scene of an accident).  And that’s how I feel about my Bitty.  God gave her to me, to us, because we really, desperately needed her.  And we didn’t even know it!

Jessie was born on June 4, 2004, on our fourth wedding anniversary.  It was a year after we’d been trying to get pregnant, and at that point we weren’t very concerned that it hadn’t happened.  But God saw there would be a need to fill a hole, and helped fill it before we even realized there was going to be one, and Jessie certainly has.

My youngest sister, Lacey, rescued the last surviving puppy from a litter in a bad home, where they were starving the Mom and she had eaten all her other puppies to survive.  Dad wouldn’t let Lacey keep her, and she asked us if we would take her since we had just bought our own home.  Well, I had been an avowed dog-hater my entire life because I thought they were stupid and ugly, dirty and smelly, and worst of all, they barked at everything.  But when I saw Jessie, who was rescued at just three weeks and was so young she couldn’t walk without falling over, I couldn’t say no.  I couldn’t see the last surviving puppy go to the pound and possibly be killed there.  So we took her home, and I’m so glad we did.

When we got her, Jessie was covered in fleas, and when she got sick a week later, we discovered that she also had worms.  We got rid of her fleas and worms and gave her the nourishment she’d been lacking.  (Her pot belly in the above picture is due to the worms, not fat.)  I really became this fur baby’s mother, and would even wake up in the middle of the night if I heard her get up–once falling out of bed in my rush to go to her.  She wasn’t fully housebroken until a month later, and I can’t tell you how many times I had to spot-clean the carpet and shampoo it.

She became the most horrible little hellion, biting, biting, biting, biting, BITING!  She drove me to tears one night because she had been so nice to my sister while she was visiting, and then bit me bloody after Danielle was gone.  She had so much energy, and we simply couldn’t walk/run, or play with her enough to diminish it.  And she would. not. listen.  Jessie chewed on the baseboards, ate our shoes, and our once clean carpets and floors turned into stained messes with dog fur in the corners.

I tell you what, this dog taught me patience, and to let go of my “clean house standards.”  If I ever have a child, whether of my own or adopted, I can tell you right now that I will be a much better mother because I first raised Jessie.   Marker & crayon all over the walls?  I wouldn’t bat an eyelash. You should see what Jessie has done to our front door!  (Dirt and claw marks out the wazoo.)  It will never recover.  And here she is, pretending to be so innocent!

Besides teaching me patience, her energy also whipped us into physical shape because we had to walk her an hour a day, minimum, or suffer the consequences (i.e. come home to a house  that looked like a Tasmanian devil had spun through it a couple dozen times).  Coming home from work became something I looked forward to, because I knew I’d have a puppy spazzing out with glee on the other side of the door as soon as she heard me pull into the driveway.  There was something about her huge smile and heavy panting (something I’ve come to recognize as almost the dog version of laughter or an expression of deep-seated contentedness) that could fix anything and everything.  Just her presence made me feel whole, even through all the tears of frustration as hopes of becoming pregnant were crushed month after month.  In addition to my relationship with God, I really feel her presence helped me come to terms with our infertility a lot easier and faster than if we hadn’t had her as a “child”  already.  (You can read my sob story about our childless-ness here if you care to.)  There is nothing like a dog head resting on your lap to make you feel better. :)

It has taken Jessie almost eight years, but her energy has finally diminished to what I would consider a “normal” level and she has turned into the dog I had hoped we were getting when we took her in.  She is kind, loving, and best of all listens and obeys!  I really  never thought there would be a day when I would call her and she would come to me, even for a treat.  But it’s here.  And Dennis is glad that she no longer pulls his arm out of socket every time we take her on a walk.  She walks at our pace now–a miracle!

Recently, Jessie was attacked by another dog at our vet’s office and her knee cap has been out of place ever since, about a month.  She is on pain medication and glucosamine to rebuild the cartilage and we hope that it will go back in place on it’s own because otherwise she might need a surgery we can’t afford yet.  Seeing her limping around gave me a preview of what it will be like when she is old, and has left me more aware than ever of how short a time we will have with her.  At best, another eight or so years.  I do not look forward to the day when I will have to say good bye, but I do relish every day we have with her.  She is my sunshine and makes me happy when skies are gray.  She not only fills the hole where children would be, but fills in every hole where sadness might lurk.

Jessie does this thing when she can tell I’m mad (well, it’s obvious, I start to get loud).  She comes into the room I’m in and gives me a worried look with her tail wagging cautiously.  Sometimes she’ll come up and put her head underneath my hand to make me pet her instead of yelling.  She knows that her presence will instantly change my mood and it works every time.  She is the magic cure.  It doesn’t matter how mad I am, as soon as I see her expression and that tail, as soon as she puts her head under my hand or reaches out to me with her paw and pushes on my leg, everything bad in my heart flies away in an instant and I apologize and comfort her so she knows I’m not really that mad.  What a gift!

I know I said Dennis completes me a couple weeks ago, but honestly, Jessie does too.  Life wouldn’t be the same without her and I thank God for her.  She is such a blessing.

]]> http://veronicascornucopia.com/2011/12/29/thankful-thursdays-56-my-itty-bitty-sweetie/feed/ 11 vraklis happy Jessie Jessie, 4 weeks Jessie filling in holes :) baby Jessie with round worms Bitey Jessie Jessie gnawing on my fingers Jessie the chomper Jessie, remote eater Sweet Jessie Jessie napping with Daddy Jessie with Mommy at the ball diamond Jessie walking by the Arkansas river Happy Jessie Me and my baby girl fun with Jessie