Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Wordless Wednesday - It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas...

Yes, I have had a couple of conversations the past few days about our decorating plans.  I MIGHT have a problem...


Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Truthful Tuesday - Back to Normal, If There Is Such a Thing

Well, it's life back to normal around here.  Or as normal as life can be for us at least.

Little Man is back in school, and I am really hoping that this year goes so much better than last year.  Since we did the testing and got the results at the very end of the year last semester, we are a little unsure exactly what this school year will hold for us.

It was a pretty rough summer for all of us.  Between me being typical Emo Marie about our struggle getting pregnant, Little Man being gone for so long for visitation, my aunt passing away, and then the tragedy of Constable Bachmann... Well, let's just say I am totally on board with summer being over.

Surprisingly, Little Man being gone for a whole month for this summer's visitation seemed to work better for him than going back and forth every few weeks.  But we have had him off his medicine for most of the summer to let him gain some weight back, and so there have been some struggles.

But we did make an observation.  The side effects of the medicine that he was on far outweighed the little benefit that he was getting from it.  So, for the time being, he is going to school medicine-free.  And I am terrified.  I keep waiting for the phone to ring with a call from the teacher about how she is at wit's end with him.  He seems to really like her, and I think that is going to be helpful.

We are working on making changes at home, too, in order to  make things easier for him.  When I redecorated him room while he was gone this summer, I put most of his toys into plastic shoe boxes with lids.  Each type of toy has it's own container.  This has been a really great tool for helping him to keep his room clean.  The Autism specialist told us in May that the reason that his room kept turning into a war zone and looked like a bomb had exploded in it was that there was just too much in there for him to deal with and he was getting overwhelmed.  So I decided to try and compartmentalize things for him, because he seems to like it at school when everything has its own container or particular place.

They are going to be using a visual schedule for him at school.  I honestly don't know what theirs is going to look like, but I found class schedules at the craft store that are dry erase and are large enough for me to fit his whole day on.  Deputy D and I are hoping that by having a visual chart to refer to, it will help him know exactly what he is supposed to be doing at certain times.  The down side to this is that if I put that 7:15 is the time for him to brush his teeth, we better be brushing right at 7:15 on the dot.  Or there will be mass hysteria.

The other thing I am going to try is to post visual reminders around his room and bathroom about the order in which he is supposed to do things.  I am hoping that all of this put together will help home life go much more smoothly this year as well.

We have an appointment with his doctors in a couple of weeks to assess the medication situation.  He has filled out and grown so much over the summer, that I am really reluctant to put him back on any medication.  But I know that I will do whatever it takes to get him the best quality of life possible and to be as successful as he can be.

Wish us luck, because we have not had homework sent home yet this year, and that was one of the biggest challenges last year.  Once we get to that hurdle, I will be better able to predict how the year is going to go.

May the force be with us!


Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Truthful Tuesday - A Million Little Pieces

One week ago, Constable Bachmann was senselessly gunned down while serving an eviction notice, an event that shook our community to the core.  Constable Bachmann and an an innocent bystander lost their lives that day, and another bystander was left fighting for her life in the hospital, her only crime being that she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

One week ago, I had to come face to face with all the "why's" and "what if's" that are involved with being  law enforcement officer.  I had to watch a stoic widow hold her children as they said good-bye to their father, while a community said good-bye to one of its finest citizens.

One week ago, I was forced to stop living in ignorant bliss and actually deal with all the "what if's" that come along with being the wife of a law enforcement officer.  What if he did get injured or did not make it home one day?  What would my life be like?  How would I even begin to handle that?  Am I strong enough to even face that possibility head on?

I have wrestled with some very harsh realities and ugly truths this past week, and will  admit that it has taken its toll on me.  The fact that I dealt with most of them on my own has made me come out the other side a stronger person and, I hope, a better wife to Deputy D.  I still have a long way to go... Everyone does.  Grieving is a long process, and everyone does it in their own way and in their own time.

Some of the ugly truths I had to face were about myself.

I am still angry at the shooter.  Judge me however you want.  I don't think he had the right to take lives to deal with his own internal struggles.  Everyone has internal struggles.  Not everyone picks up a gun and starts shooting people to deal with them.  His decision to pick up a gun that day and start shooting has tragically impacted countless lives.

The truth is that anything could happen to any one of us at any point during the day.  We could be in a wreck, we could get sick, or we could encounter any of the numerous unseen dangers that we face every day.  The fact that we live with law enforcement officers just makes those possibilities so much more imminent.

The police, firefighters, and first responders are heroes to me now even more than they have ever been before.  Up until last week, their service and sacrifice was something that I took for granted and did not give much thought to. Never again.  Over the past week, I have seen up close and personal what their job really entails and what they willingly choose to give to up for people (mostly strangers) each and every time they go on duty or start their shift.

I have had to come to grips with the fact that I need to have the internal fortitude to be strong and make it through whatever life throws at us on my own, without relying on others to make it through the day.  Before, I would have said that I was not one of those people who can do that.  Now, I know that I can handle more on my own than I ever thought was possible.

I found myself in a very dark place Saturday night, darker than almost any other time in my life.  Deputy D had to work, and I found myself have to deal with my grief and all the extreme emotions that were spilling out alone.  I sat on the couch, hearing the clock tick and all the "why's" and "what if's" were echoing around the empty house and bouncing off the walls.  I could not turn on the laptop or TV because I just could not bear to watch any more news clips or Facebook posts about the funeral.  Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see and hear were the final status check from the funeral playing on a repeat loop in my brain.

I finally got myself to sleep... I will freely admit that I had medicinal help with this.  The next morning, I went to church thinking I would be able to find some comfort there, but that did not work out exactly like I thought it would.  I found myself alone in a sea of people, and ended up coming home and crying some more.

There has been a lot of crying this past week.  I have shed more tears this week than I have in several years put together.  Please know that it was not all about the past week's events.  The funeral was just the final straw in a string of really stressful events that have happened over the summer.  I think I finally just had all I could take and broke into a million pieces.

Funny thing is, it has been easy to start the process of putting myself back together.  Once you take a good long look at the pieces that used to be you, you start seeing that there might be a better way to put them back together.  And then you end up being a better person than you started out.

In Loving Memory of All the Heroes Who Make the Ultimate Sacrifice...

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Truthful Tuesday - The Thin Blue Line

I am still struggling to understand how I feel right now.

Of course, my heart aches for the wife and children of the officer that died yesterday.  I can't begin to even pretend to understand what they must be going through.  I can only try to imagine the heartache I would feel if it were me.

I am angry at the shooter and the senseless killing of an outstanding officer, father, and husband.

I am grateful that my law enforcement officer is safe today and came home to me this morning, and I am ashamed of my selfishness for that. 

I am sad for all the officers in the community that lost a friend, fellow officer, and mentor. 

I am thankful for the sacrifice that my husband and all the police officers in the community make each and every time that they go on duty to protect us and keep us safe.

Deputy D has been in law enforcement since we got married.  We have talked about the dangers the job entails, but I have always been overly confident that he will come home to me and nothing will ever happen to him.  After all, in my eyes, he is Superman and therefore indestructible.

A wife of a fellow officer said yesterday that she chooses to live in blissful ignorance of all the "what if's" and that about sums it up.   If we focus on and think about all the "what'ifs", how we would ever even let them walk out the door?

The cold, harsh reality is that anything could happen to them at any given moment that they are on duty, just like it did on an idle Monday afternoon in College Station yesterday.  Before he left last night, I held Deputy D closer and longer than I have in a long while.  He came home to me this morning, while there is a widow out there who is grieving and went to bed alone.  I am blessed beyond words that my police officer is safe and here with us now.

I sincerely hope that Officer Bachmann's sacrifice was not in vain.  It certainly has not gone unnoticed, and there is an entire community grieving right along with family and friends.  Aggies tend to love and support their own, not matter what and I know that a maroon wall of support surrounding his wife and children.

In her post, the fellow officer's wife continues to talk about how our guys are not always there to put our children to bed, and often are not home when we wake up in the morning.  They miss church services, school events, and birthday parties.  Our guys are up roaming the streets at night keeping us safe, while we are are home in bed sleeping peacefully.

I get angry and hurt about that sometimes, and it is difficult to deal with.  I don't even know how my real-life Army wife cousin KiKi has done it all these years.  I think it takes special people to be law enforcement, firefighters, and soldiers.  And I think it takes special people to be their families and support.  Yesterday has me seriously questioning whether I made of the stuff it takes to be one of those people.

Am I really willing to let Deputy D sacrifice our life together to possibly lose it all in a senseless killing?

I don't have any answers, and I have struggled to even get words out to begin to make sense of it all.  I hope you bear with me if any of this is offensive or is rambling.  This is the first time anything like this has even remotely hit close to home for us.

My Facebook feed has gone back to it's regular lineup of food, politics, and general comments about everyday life.  How quickly most have moved on.  But I have not, and it will take a while for me to sort through all of this.

Please continue to pray for Constable Bachmann's family, and the families of all the victims. They will need all the love, prayer, and support that they can get to make it through this time.

Rest in peace, Constable Bachmann.  I only met you in person a couple of times, but you made a difference in a lot of lives and I heard about that so many times.

Please take a moment today to stop and think about all of the police, firefighters, and soldiers that sacrifice every day to keep us safe.  And may we never forget those that have made the ultimate sacrifice.

Monday, August 13, 2012

Make Something Monday - Father's Day T-Shirt

I was browsing the aisles of Target looking for something really cool to give Dad for Father's Day, and I came across this nifty package of iron-on transfers for T-shirts.  They had versions for both light-colored and dark-colored shirts.  To me, the instructions seem simpler for the dark colored version, so that is what I went with.  I decided that making a custom shirt for Dad would be way more awesome than any shirt I could buy him!

The whole process was pretty simple.  I created my design on the computer and then printed it out using the high quality setting.  I used Publisher to create the art.  I know... shocker.  I HATE Publisher.  But it's the only publishing program I have at home, and sometimes you just have to work with what you have.



I washed the shirt, following the instructions on the transfer and then ironed it out until it was smooth.  You have to use a hard surface, like a table.



Trim out the art and remove the backing.  This is the part that gave me the most trouble.  I had problems getting the backing off, and ended up with one wrinkled edge where I removed it.  Put the transfer on the shirt, cover it with tissue paper, and then iron according to the instructions.





Dad loved the shirt, and Little Man thought it was pretty cool that his picture was on the shirt.  He was perturbed that I used pictures of both of the grandsons, and not just him.  And he apparently had no idea that Dad is a Sunday School teacher.  I am not sure how that is possible.  Mom has washed the shirt, following the instructions included with the transfer, and said that it washed up fine.  I know that Dad has worn it a couple of times, and it has held up pretty well.  Overall, an inexpensive project that makes a really cool personalized gift for someone.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

Life's Like an Hourglass Glued to the Table

"2 AM and I'm still awake writing a song.  If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me threatening the life it belongs to.  And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd cause these words are my diary screaming out loud, and I know that you'll use them however you want to.

But you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable and life's like an hourglass glued to the table.  No one can find the rewind button now.  Sing it if you understand.  And breathe, just breathe..."


~Breathe (2AM) Anna Nalick

Breathe, just breathe.  That's been my motto for the past couple of weeks.  It's been a while since I have given an actual update on the emotional status of Emo Marie.  That's because I was scared that that once I started typing the words, I wouldn't be able to control them and they would not stop.  There have been so many times I have written posts in my head, but haven't been able to sit down and write anything of importance.

People have been asking me over and over the past few weeks how I have been doing.  I give the appropriate "Oh, I am doing ok" response, when inside I am screaming that I am not ok at all, and I don't know when things are going to be alright again.

Breathe, just breathe...

For starters, my stupid biological clock is ticking so loudly that I think my cousin KiKi in Germany can probably hear it.  For some reason, I always knew deep inside that I would not have kids after I turned 35.  Well lo and behold, that dreaded birthday is creeping up on me.  It is no longer years away, it is a matter of a couple of months.  Now, every hour that passes is like another grain of sand dropping down in the hourglass that I can never get back.  I know deep, deep inside that a miracle could happen and I could get pregnant in the next few weeks, but with our medical issues and the way things have been going lately, I just know that is not going to happen.

It's like I have been trying to write the final chapter and close the book on an unfinished story, and the writer inside of me just doesn't know how to do that.  Never would I have imagined that not being able to have a baby would be something that I would have to deal with.  And honestly, it's killing me.  It's something I want so badly, and I don't know how to let the dream go.  I am truly trying, but I am struggling.

I have a stash of baby clothes, blankets, and miscellaneous trinkets from when Little Man was a baby stored in a friend's storage shed.  I have been holding on to them in the hopes that if we did get pregnant, it would be a boy and I could reuse them.  I think it is time that I go get them and go through them, keeping the most precious to me, and sell or donate the rest.  I think the best course of action for me at this point is to lock all of the emotions up inside my internal lock-box and move on right now, because they are overwhelming me and have been affecting my everyday life.  I know I will have to deal with them at some point, but I just can't right now.

Breathe, just breathe...

Then there is the struggle with being a working mom.  Work has been crazy the past couple of weeks.  In our industry, that is an amazing problem to have and I would never complain about it because so many companies have shut down the last couple of years due to lack of business.  I love my company and my co-workers, and am going to continue to do my best to help keep that from happening.

But I have been so emotionally and physically exhausted after work, that I come home and fall on the couch and struggle to stay awake until it's time to put Little Man to bed.  I have had trouble focusing, and have not been doing anything around the house that I need to.  I have to find a way to get back into the swing of things and keep up with our chore and laundry schedule that I made.

Breathe, just breathe...

My aunt, who recently lost her battle with cancer, passed away recently.  It has been a huge emotional drain on our family, and my heart has been with my uncle and my mom while they worked their way through everything.  It has brought how extremely precious each and every second we have with our loved ones is into sharp focus.  You never know what tomorrow will bring, and you should treasure each and every day that you have.

My uncle is a truck driver and is back out on the road now, but I hope he knows how much I love him and that my thoughts and prayers are with him through this difficult time.

Breathe, just breathe...

I won't go into detail now, because I plan on blogging about it in more detail at some point, but another struggle I have been having recently is the balance of being an overly-emotional wife to an overly-logical husband.  Fire and ice don't always mix, and it has been hard to find a safe middle ground lately.

Breathe, just breathe...

The last big thing I have been dealing with is our struggles with Little Man.  When he came back from his long summer visitation, he was doing so great.  He loved his room make-over, and all the plastic containers with lids seem to provide him a great way to deal with all the items in his room.  He was cleaning his room and putting things up without having to be told, and was holding conversations with others and using his manners on a regular basis.  We were amazed!

However, he has slowly slipped back into his old patterns and we don't know what the trigger or the key is to help him maintain doing so well.  We don't want to put him back on the ADHD medicine, because the side effects far outweigh the small amount of benefit he gets from it.  However, with school coming up in a couple of weeks, we know he will not be able to adjust without finding what that key or trigger is.  We are working with his psychologist and doctor to try and find something that will help him without too many side effects, but I have a feeling it will be a slow trial and error process.

In the meantime, the stress of trying to have parental conversations with a little person who can talk circles are you and is so extremely literal is exhausting.  I end up staring at him with nothing coming out of my mouth, because I just don't know what to say.  If he ends up deciding to become a lawyer, I feel sorry for the judges that have to deal with him in court.  I apologize in advance.

Breathe, just breathe...

So for now, I am just going to keep breathing.  I need to get back to blogging because that was helping me, but trying to find the time and energy lately has been difficult to say the least.  I have a stockpile of photos, topics, and projects I have worked on, I just need to sit down and do the writing part.

Sorry for the long post, but I figured I should just go ahead and get it all out while I was at it.  Later today, I plan on trying a sourdough chocolate cake recipe that I found on the King Arthur web site if I have all of the ingredients, so stay tuned for the results.  And don't be surprised if you see projects from a far back as Father's Day showing up for Make Something Monday.



Saturday, August 11, 2012

Overnight Yeast Doughnuts - Best Recipe I Have Tried!

Last weekend, I found my favorite waffle recipe to date, and this weekend I found the best doughnut recipe that I have tried so far.  The doughnuts turned out light and fluffy and really tasty.  It is a two-day process and does take some work, but I was in the mood to cook last night and the prep work this morning wasn't too bad.

First, make a sponge from warm water, yeast, and flour.

When you mix the yeast and water and let it sit, be sure that it blooms before you add the flour.  For me, this always happens at the very last part of the allotted time.  Please note that the pictures of the yeast blooming are taken just seconds apart.  Just in case you have not worked with yeast before, I wanted to show what the process looks like.












Let it sit for 30 minutes to an hour.



Cream the butter and sugar.


Add the eggs, vanilla, and salt.


Add the sponge mixture and flour, and switch to the dough hook on the mixer.  Mix until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and clings to the hook.



Butter the sides of a large bowl, and let the dough rise in a warm place for an hour and a half to two hours.  It should be double in size.  I keep my house pretty cold during the summer months, so I have found that I have to set my oven on the "Warm and Hold" setting and leave it on for about 15 minutes.  Then I turn it off and put my dough in to rise.  This method seems to make the dough rise perfectly.


I deviated from the original recipe a bit here.  I punched the dough down, but left it in my large bowl because the bowl had a lid.  I covered the top of the dough in plastic wrap, put the lid on, and left it in the refrigerator overnight.

The next morning, roll out the dough to about 1/2" thickness on a floured surface and cut with a doughnut cutter.  I found that thickness is important.  My first try was too thin and my next try was too thick.  Once I found a happy middle, they rose and cooked perfectly.






I put the doughnuts and doughnut holes on parchment paper on cookie sheets, and put in the oven to rise for another 30 minutes.


While they were in the oven, I prepared my glazes.  These are the same glazes that I use every time I make doughnuts.

Plain Glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
4-5 tablespoons of milk (more or less, depending on preferred consistency)

Cinnamon Sugar
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Chocolate Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup dark chocolate cocoa powder
4-5 tablespoons of milk (more or less, depending on preferred consistency)



Of course, these can be adjusted to taste.  This is just what I have found works for my family.  A couple of side notes... The pictures will indicate a really dark-colored cinnamon.  This is because I was working before my second cup of coffee and started pouring the cocoa powder into the granulated sugar.  Once I realized what I was doing, I scooped as much of it out as I could, but there were some leftover bits of cocoa powder in the mixture.  It wasn't bad, even though it was a total accident.  Also, I decided to experiment this morning and use cooled brewed coffee in place of milk for my chocolate glaze.  It was pretty tasty as well.

Heat the oil to between 350-375 degrees.  Once the doughnuts are risen, fry the doughnuts in the oil for 1-2 minutes on each side (until they are golden brown).  Be sure and turn them quickly.  If they fry too long on one side, they get heavy and tend to keep flipping onto the heavy side.  This is especially important for the doughnut holes.




Once the doughnuts are fried, I let them cool on a cooling rack sitting on a cookie sheet.  Then, I dip them into the glaze of choice and put them back on the cooling rack.







Deputy D and Little Man agreed that this is the best recipe I have tried so far.  Deputy D would like the dough itself a little sweeter, so if anyone has any ideas on how to tweak this recipe to make it a sweeter dough, please let me know!