Life Is A Blog

Life is a blog, life is something that you can spill upon the lines of a page, when you cannot truly be honest with yourself. It is much easier to witness who you are in writing than to accept the fact that you are simply (Human). Humans make mistakes, make the wrong choices in life and only if they are strong enough will they learn from there mistakes and build a stronger foundation (Life). If we could live our lives the way we blog we would have all the answers, and yet we do. We know what is best for our life yet, we feel more empowered if we just write it in a blog. Our blog gives us the courage to say what we need to say without actually uttering the words. 

Bloggers are empowered by simple things that we call words. In blogs we can ease our pain or the pain of others. In our blogs we can leave a smile and make others smile with us, we can touch someones heart and have our heart touched in return. We can share a recipe handed down from generations or a poem we wrote to our first love, Words are powerful tools to express ourselves and define who we truly are or what we wish to accomplish in life.  

We can learn a great deal about ourselves by going back to past blogs to see where we once were, and where we are in the present time. We as bloggers may have been in a bad place last year and this year things are not as bad as they seem compared to what we lived through the year before. Blogs give us hope, inspiration and map out where we once were, where we are now and where we are headed. 

KEEP ON BLOGGING

When I believe Jodi Arias is Lying?

1. When her mouth is moving.

2.When she blames everyone but herself.

3. When I see her talk with her hands and there is no crooked finger or she crooks the wrong finger.

4. When all her answers can never be yes or no, but she must explain and there is always something derogatory said about Travis. Either he is mad at her, abusing her, or having sex with her in positions that she does not like. Yet, she seems to always return to him from 1000's of miles away and end up in bed with the very same man that makes her feel dirty or like a used piece of toilet tissue.

5. The fact that when she is cross examined by the defense or jurors she is as calm as a cucumber, but let the prosecution ask her a question and she either becomes a hostel witness or cops a superior attitude with Mr. Martinez. This is when she hangs her head and cries under her hair so no one can see they are crocodile tears.

6.  When she talks about the day of the murder of Travis showing no fear or tears when explaining how she had to defend her life against him. Battered women or someone that truly cares about human life would be moved to tears in there explanation in having to relive this situation in there mind again on the witness stand. (Yet there are is no visible shaking or tears while explaining this day again. Only I was in a fog defense,a battered woman or Travis Alexander was just mean to me defense.   It is my opinion if Jodi had any remorse in her action of taking the life of another human being that it would show in her demeanor on the stand.

7. The fact that she would break up with Darrell Brewer within days of meeting Travis shows that she does not have the one boyfriend at a time philosophy as she states. Also the fact that she is with yet another guy just hours after killing a man. In my mind how could she function and act as if nothing was wrong while trying to yet again lure in another Mormon man.

8. The gas cans she was caught in a lie in front of the jury as to the 3rd gas can she purchased and then claims to had taken it back on the same day when receipts add up to another purchase for gas when she claims there were only 2 gas cans.

9. Her journal entries show nothing happened when she claims she was attacked by Travis the first time.


10. Let's face it everything was about sex. The sex she enjoyed with Travis.

As a last note Jodi is a narcissist. She cares nothing for anyone but Jodi.   

I Choose To Live

Where do I start? What do I say? Do I say something yet again with negativity about someone I was starting to care for? 

I think not.  

I think about the laws of attraction about putting negative thoughts out into the universe that will come back to bite you in the ass later. 

I truly want to be fair to people and give them the benefit of the doubt. 

I choose to live.

Love Still Lingers

I sit and listen to the radio, every tune makes me think of you,

the day when we first met is one I shall never forget. It was the 

the first day of middle school second period English and Miss Ross 

was calling the roll and I heard your voice and turned around to

look you right in the eyes and our eyes met to both our surprise.

The rest was history

A short history, but a history all the same   

I am awake, I cannot sleep, so talk to me 

I Love You 4-Ever & a Day!

Waking up to be entertained

Today I woke up and laughed in sheer delight as Cara was startled from sleep and barked as if someone had  messed with her and it was just me getting up. I woke before the alarm so this caught her by surprise lol. I am having so much fun with these two precious iggy pups. They really make and complete my day. We are all still missing Bentley, but healing gradually.

                                                             Bentley & I 

Time to rush to get ready so today will be short and sweet. When your pet does something funny it is like parents that brag about there children. I love having them in my life and enjoy every moment that we are together.

Life Without Regret

My life finally feels as though it is on track  not so much that I am dating, but I am finally getting out of the house and living life to the fullest. No wondering what I am going to do with myself on my days off, since I already have something planned. To enjoy someone's company, and they yours matters more than we think could possibly think when we are sitting home alone. I am still a hopeless romantic, that believes in the power of love and the happily ever after (some call bull shit.) I know this will not happen to me all at once, but when two people finally decide they cannot live without each other. I believe there is someone out there that I could make happy, and they would to feel as though they could not breathe without me in there life. They to would want nothing more than to make me happy. Life doesn't always work out as we wished it would, but I feel if we are patient and wait God will send us our soul mate in his time.

Life is good for me now, I am happy and content with the knowledge that all the bad things in my life are in the past now.(Where I needed to put them years ago). There can be nothing left for me but blue skies and sunshine now. I love feeling this way, something I have not felt in years. I am eager to wake up and start my day after finally sleeping eight hours.(Something unheard of for me since I only slept three to four hours a night). I am focused and precise in my work and my colleagues are noting a difference in my work, appearance and demeanor. I was always spreading smiles and sunshine at work, but for several months I had truly lost my bright and perky demeanor.These are the things people love about me, and that I can keep  them laughing,but my light went out for a little while. But, it's back now.  

Life is too short to hide under a rock waiting for the right moment to emerge. Life is meant to be lived. Life is meant to me lived to the fullest. If we happened to hide under a rock we will eventually stay there never to emerge and claim the precious life given to us.Believe me it is hard to trust again, but I must to live a happy productive life regardless of the past. Hindsight is 20/20 so easy to see the mistakes that we ourselves made along the way. We can blame others since they hurt us and our pride, yet we were the fool for believing in a dream, but truly for believing in them. You have to trust people you can see, you know, and never dream of what might be. I learned the hard way, but really we must learn to forgive those who despitefully use us. This is baggage we cannot hold on to. This is baggage that we must let God deal with for we are weak in the flesh. On a more positive note: I forgive you!

I now seek out happiness in all things under the sun. I know that where my past is now= In the past where it belongs. There are people that I shall never forget in my life, most of them made me the person I am today. I learned very valuable lessons that shall follow me all the days of my life. I learned that when life throws you off you have to get back on the horse and ride. I learned that each step in our lives are stepping stones and it how we react to losses, or lost love that will finally ground us and place our foot firmly on the rock. I climbed out of that valley victorious through Jesus Christ our Lord.  

I have no regrets. I regret nothing about the persons I loved and lost. If it was suppose to be so then God would had intervened and made it so. I carried around regrets for years, but I know there was nothing else I could do. To those I loved I did the best I possibly could for you, and I loved you with every fiber of my being. It is time for me to live again. I cannot change the way things worked out, if I could I would had. I can only let go until I see you again.

"GOD BLESS " 

My Gingerbread House

This year I had a little time and Christmas just isn't Christmas without a "Gingerbread" house.

Making a Gingerbread house is a family tradition, even my daddy can do it. haha

We would start the week of Christmas and start baking process and then start building our master piece.

This year I wanted to make several houses to take to the hospital for the kids, but as you can see my Gingerbread house looks like a log cabin instead ..so sad. 

I started not to show it but I found the pictures and photo shop them so they would fit into the blog. 

I know my house could use the show "Home Improvements" on the job, but believe me it could have been worse. 

Making a gingerbread house is no simple task (unless of course you get one of those pre-fab houses, in which case these notes will be of little help). This house took several days, one day to make the dough and the pattern pieces, another to roll out the dough and bake the pieces, one to assemble the pieces, and another to decorate. The joy is really in the making, of the coming together to work on all the steps that are required to build a gingerbread house from scratch.

The following are instructions I used with many gingerbread houses.If you plan on making a gingerbread house yourself, I hope you find them useful.


INGREDIENTS
6 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
4 teaspoons ground ginger
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves or allspice
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks (12 Tbsp) butter, softened
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup dark molasses
1 Tbsp water


METHOD
Make the Gingerbread Dough
1 Whisk together the dry ingredients in a large bowl, set aside.

2 Using an electric mixer, beat on medium speed the butter and brown sugar until fluffy and well blended. Beat in the eggs, molasses and water until well combined.

3 Beat half of the flour mixture into the molasses mixture until well blended and smooth. Stir in the remaining flour. Knead (or use your mixer's dough hook) until well blended. If dough is too soft, add a little more flour.

4 Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least two hours, preferably overnight. You can make it up to 3 days ahead of time. Let sit at room temperature for at least 10 minutes before rolling out.


Create and Cut Out Pattern Pieces
Create a gingerbread house pattern by cutting out pieces of stiff paper (like that of a manila folder) or cardboard. I like cardboard because it's almost as thick as the gingerbread house pieces will be, and you can create a house model easily using the pieces.(1 inch on the pattern = 1 inch in real life), but if not, the dimensions are also given on the pattern so you can use a ruler and create your own.

Make the Gingerbread House Pieces

1 Preheat oven to 350°F, with the oven rack in the middle. Have several flat cookie sheets ready, preferably ones that you know will not warp in the oven heat.

2 Divide the dough in two. Spread parchment paper or wax paper on a large flat surface for rolling. Dust the paper lightly with flour. Working with one portion of the dough at a time, use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to an even thickness of 1/4-inch. Add a little flour to the surface of the dough, and check for sticking as you roll it out. If it sticks to either your rolling pin or the rolling surface, dust with more flour. If the rolled out dough is very soft, you may want to freeze it for an hour before cutting out the patterns.

3 Rub a little flour over the surface of the dough. Place the pattern pieces on the dough, as many pattern pieces as will fit on the dough. Use a small sharp knife to cut out the pattern pieces from the dough, wiping the knife surface clean frequently. Depending on how soft the dough is, you may need to use scissors to cut the wax paper or parchment paper. You can cut out the patterns through the dough and parchment paper, placing the dough pieces with the paper directly on the cookie sheets. If you are not using parchment paper or wax paper, you may need to use a large metal spatula to transfer the dough pieces to a greased cookie sheet. Space the pieces on the cookie sheet an inch apart from each other. If dough pieces stretch during the transfer process, push them back into shape.

You can cut out a door and window(s) at this point, or you can wait until after baking, soon after the pieces have come out of the oven while the cookies are still warm.

4 Bake in a 350°F oven until the edges are just beginning to darken, 11-15 minutes for the large pieces, 6-8 minutes for the small pieces. Rotate the cookie sheets half way through the baking for more even browning. Remove the sheets to racks to cool, about 15 minutes.

While the pieces are still slightly warm, lay the pattern pieces over them and use a large straight chef's knife to trim off any parts of the pieces that have through cooking spread beyond the pattern.

Remove pieces to cool directly on racks to cool completely.

Make Royal Icing
Royal icing is not only used for decorating, but it is the mortar that holds the gingerbread pieces together to form the house. The following proportions should make enough icing for both the mortaring step and for decorating for one gingerbread house.

2 large egg whites
2 2/3 cup powdered sugar, divided
1 Whisk together until smooth the egg whites and 1 1/3 cups of the powdered sugar.

2 If you are planning to eat your gingerbread house, and are concerned about the safety of raw eggs, you can microwave the egg white powdered sugar mixture for several seconds (30-40) until the mixture reaches a temperature of 160 degrees, but not higher than 175°F. You can also use pasteurized dried or liquid egg whites.

3 Add the remaining 1 1/3 cup of powdered sugar to the sugar egg mixture. Using an electric mixer, beat on high speed until the icing holds stiff peaks. If it doesn't form stiff peaks, add more powdered sugar.

4 Place a dampened clean towel over the bowl of royal icing. Keep this towel over the icing to prevent it from drying out while you work with it.

5 When you are ready to mortar or decorate, fill a pastry bag with the icing. If you don't have a pastry bag, you can make your own with a re-sealable plastic freezer bag, just cut off the tip (a small cut) of one of the corners of the bag. Plastic or metal piping tips are available in supermarkets which you can also use with a freezer bag, for more controlled piping.


Construct the Basic House, Mortaring the Pieces Together with Royal Icing
This is where it really helps to have more than two hands working on a house, and why making a gingerbread house is so much more fun with company than alone. If you are working on this alone, it may help to grab some canned goods from the pantry and use the cans to help prop up the pieces while the icing mortar is drying.

1 Pick a solid base for your gingerbread house - either a flat cookie sheet, or a thick, sturdy piece of cardboard. If you want, line the base with aluminum foil or wax paper.


2 Pipe a thick line of icing along a short end of one of the side pieces. Press the iced side piece against the edge of either the front or back pieces. Hold in place for a few minutes until the icing is partially set. Repeat with the other side piece. Prop up with cans if necessary. Repeat with the other short edges of the side pieces and the remaining front/back piece. Pipe icing along the seams, inside and outside of the house, to fill in any gaps and to add extra stability. Pipe icing along the edges of the house where it meets the base. Let set for at least an hour before attempting to add the roof pieces.

If any of the gingerbread house pattern pieces breaks, as can happen easily when working with what are essentially cookies, most likely you can repair them. On my house I forgot to cut out the door and window until the front piece had almost completely cooled. When I went to make the cuts, the piece broke. Fortunately, it was easy to mortar back together with royal icing. We even created a "splint" out of cardboard and used royal icing to hold the splint to the piece. Let harden completely before using the piece for the house construction. When it comes time to decorate, you can pipe icing right over the broken seam and no one will be the wiser.

3 Once the royal icing has dried enough so that the base structure is solid, you can go to work on the roof. Pipe icing all along the top edges of the structure, front and back and two sides. The roof pieces are a rectangular shaped. Place the roof pieces so that the long ends of the rectangle are running along the top of the house. It helps if you have two people working together to place the roof pieces on the house at the same time so that they meet easily at the top center, and extend out a little bit, forming an overhang at each end. Gently hold the roof pieces in place for a few minutes until they are set enough so they don't slide off when you remove your hands. Pipe the top seam of the house with extra icing. Let the house stand for at least an hour, and preferably 8 hours before decorating.

Note: If you have pets in your house, keep them away from the gingerbread house during all phases of construction and decorating. Non-gingerbread-house-building-participating adults and children should be informed to keep their hands off the house as well.

4 The chimney. The dimensions of the chimney can be a bit tricky because of the angle of the roof. Although you may have cut your chimney out of a pattern, these small pieces likely have spread a bit through cooking, and you may have to use a chef's knife to cut the pieces and adjust the angles of the pieces so they align better with the roof. It's easiest to assemble the chimney first upside down, separate from the house. Pipe the pieces together with royal icing and let set until stable. Then, turn the chimney right-side-up and attach it to the roof using piped royal icing. You can do this either right after the house has initially set (1 hour after assembly) or later, during the decorating process.

Decorate the Gingerbread House

This step requires a trip to the candy section of your local grocery store. You can decorate your house with whatever types of candy pleases you. Be careful taking kids along to the store however, as you will invariably buy more candy than you actually need (though they do have the best ideas of what candies would be good for various decorative effects). Red hots are really practical, as are small gumdrops, and candy canes. Audrey used a whole bag of chocolate truffles for the stone wall around her house, and some type of waffle-patterned cookies for roof tiles.

Pipe royal icing to make decorative designs around the walls of the house and roof. Use royal icing to "glue" pieces of candy to the house.