A story, a muffin, and a prayer

I am so blessed. There, I said it. I feel blessed, and I *am* blessed.

I think today is as good a day as any to reflect on my past year, and look forward to the coming year. I've recently had a hard time at both school and work. Nothing big, but big enough to rattle and unnerve me. I have to pause and pray that God will settle my soul after my shake ups. And not only do I pray, but my friends pray for me. I can feel a prayer from half a country away, and that in itself amazes me. As I'm in class, having a hard day, I can text a friend and she will pray with and for me. I almost instantly feel a relief. The girls in my baking class are sweet and supportive to me, always. That is like having my friend here with me, and not states away. So yes, I am blessed.

Today I felt God's love strongly as I went to Drew's 4th grade class to (finally) read my published story to the kids. His teacher and I have been trying to coordinate this since December! I'm glad she's patient with me (and my son!)

I entered Drew's room to a class full of eager faces all sitting on "the carpet" in front of "the chair". Everyone was excited to hear what I had to say. I felt calm for the most part. I had one shot to get my message across to this class and I wanted to take full advantage of it. As shy as I am, I *can* speak publicly... quite well... when I need to. Since my story is about saying good-bye to a deploying daddy, I took the time to acknowledge everyone whose parents might be gone right now. Some children's dads just came home, some are gone, and some are leaving next month. I hope this story touched those children especially, as it's for them.

They all enjoyed hearing my story, and learning how and why I wrote it. I brought some items that had inspired me to write the story, and I think they liked that also. To me, as a writer, it's interesting to see how and why authors write what they write. I know there are budding writers in this class, because the teacher has told me so.

The coup de grâce of the day was the treat I had prepared especially for the students. Drew has been asking me to bring a homemade treat in to class, so I figured today was as good a day as any. I am hesitant to bring anything in to class because there is a child with egg and peanut/tree nut allergies. I know her, and I know what she can and can't have, but I hate leaving her out of things. Drew asked me to make muffins, so I chose to make blueberry muffins. However, I tinkered with my recipe and ended up making blueberry banana muffins with blueberry cream cheese drizzle on top. Let's just say... *everyone* loved them! Well, except for my food allergy friend, she loved the rice crispie treat I brought for her. It happened to be her birthday, so she enjoyed sharing an eggless cupcake with me. I *am* currently researching eggless baked goods, as well as some other food allergen free goodies, so I'm glad she shared her treat with me. I told her as much, and she was proud of herself.

As I left the class, I felt such a swelling in my heart. I'm proud of my middle man and how far he has come in his schooling. We've had such a long road with him, and he's finally comfortable and secure in a classroom of kids who like him, and a teacher who adores him. A teacher, who, by the way, told the principal of the school that Drew is hands down light years smarter than any other child she's ever met. Yep.

I will share my muffin recipe... just because I love you all so much. But please, don't tell anyone because it's my own family secret. Deal?

Blueberry Banana Muffin with Blueberry Cream Cheese Drizzle

Ingredients for muffin:
2 cups Heart Healthy Bisquick (no, it's not cheating!)
3/4 cup sugar (but please feel free to use less, or experiment because they are sweet!)
1 cup Light N Fit Vanilla Yogurt (you don't have to use name brands, I'm just showing the name brands I used)
2 eggs
1 very ripe banana, smashed
1 cup frozen or fresh blueberries

Directions:
The "Muffin Method" of mixing is to mix dry ingredients together and wet ingredients together, then combine. So if you want to make up your own muffin, this is key to remember. In this recipe you combine the Bisquick and sugar together in one bowl, and the eggs and yogurt in another. Once you have each mixture combined separately, you mix them together. You do not want to over beat muffins. That is a common mistake. You can mix by hand to avoid over mixing, or just watch your mixer so that you mix only until moist. Mix in the smashed bananas until just combined, then fold in the blueberries.
This makes 12 muffins, so prepare a muffin pan with 12 liners that are sprayed with cooking spray. Spoon muffin batter in to the pan, and bake at 375 (F) for 20 minutes. Let cool before drizzling with topping.

Ingredients for topping:
1/2 Package Philadelphia Neufchatel Cheese (or cream cheese)
1/2 cup powdered sugar (play with amount to get consistency you want)
1/2 cup pureed blueberries

Directions:
To puree the blueberries, I thawed them, then stuck them in the blender until smooth.
I mixed all the ingredients together until smooth and creamy, and then piped the topping on to the cooled muffins. You can use the topping any way you want, spread it on, make cute little stars or decorations... whatever. When you make these, they'll be your muffins!

Please, enjoy :)

St. Valentine's Day

Yesterday, Valentine's Day. Not really sure what to do with it. It's not a religious holiday unless you celebrate the Feast Day of Patron Saint Valentine (of which there were several), nor is it anti-religious like Halloween. It's just... sorta... there. Not as insignificant as President's Day, but not as important as Easter. Many people call it a "Hallmark Holiday". I tend to agree. Husband and I don't do much for the big V-day. We say "Happy Valentine's Day" to eachother, and I call him "my Valentine". Sometimes I get some chocolates, or maybe a card, though most years it's not in the monthly budget so I don't worry about it. Since my birthday is also in February, I'd much rather him spend our "fun money" on my birthday! :-)

This is how I spent my Valentine's Day... and coincidentally the same exact way I spent my birthday this year. (With the exception of the rice crispie treat fiasco.)

~Woke up extra early to make rice crispie treats for one of the boys' classroom parties. I had made one batch Sunday night, and wanted to make another batch so both boys could take treats to school. I used the pink strawberry flavored marshmallows. Drew has a girl in his class with several food allergies, so he is very concious about taking treats she can eat. She's allergic to egg and peanut and that makes a lot of treats out of the question.
I mixed up the melted marshmallows and rice crispies, then molded them in to a mini-muffin pan so I could have individual bite sized servings. (Learning about equal, individual servings in baking class.) I kept coming across these big lumps of hard white stuff. I had no clue what it was, but it was frustrating me. I used pink marshmallows, so it's not like it was unmelted marshmallow. I finished putting the mixture in the muffin pan and had some leftover that I was going to put in a small pan for the kids to eat after school. That's when I noticed my spatula! It was completely melted away! The hot marshmallow melted my spatula! That's what the big white chunks were. And I had eaten some of it. yuck. I threw everything away and went to wake the boys. I told them what happened, but I had a solution. I had bought a bag of conversation hearts for my gymnastics students, so I let the boys choose who took the candy and who took the rice crispies for their parties. Luckily there was no issue as Hunter was excited to take the candy instead.

~Baking class went very well. I made a cinnamon swirl raisin bread. It was tiring, though. Being in a cooking/baking class for 5 hours three days a week, then going to work afterwards is tiring. But it's no more than full-time working moms do.
There was an incident where a girl stormed out of class because she found something she's not naturally good at. I'm not good at a LOT of things. I'm lucky that I found a talent in baking, and a love for it. I hope I get to do it for a living some day. However, I'd like to think that if I wasn't good at it, I wouldn't storm out in tears every time something didn't go right for me.

~After class I had to go shopping. I had 45 minutes to get it done, get out of there, and get home. I got home at the very last possible minute. Just enough time to change and get to work. I felt bad because the boys had their Valentine's out and were waiting to show me what they got. I would have loved nothing more than to sit and look at their cards, make them dinner, play with them, and spend a nice Valentine's evening at home. But... that's not where I am at this point in my life. So off to work I went!

~I have four gymnastics classes on Monday nights. I'm the only teacher at my gym because it's a small YMCA and there isn't need for a large gymnastics program. I had Valentine candy for my students, and several of my kids had brought me boxes of chocolates. I love this job! Sometimes it's frustrating, but the kids make it so rewarding. I feel blessed that I get to do nothing but work with children. I was, however, very happy when no one showed up for my 7:00 class! (It was "icing" out, so not very drivable weather.) I got to go home a little early to see my munchkins.
Louisa had made the boys dinner for me. I finally taught her how to use the oven, or rather she had a crash course in it because she was babysitting one day (for other kids) and their mom had left a frozen pizza for Louisa to make them. She didn't want to tell the mom she didn't know how, so she called me! At the store I found DiGiorno Pizza & Cookies! So cool! Louisa was excited to make it.

~When I got home I was greeted with, "MOM!! Come here! I have a surprise for you!" Drew made me a scavenger hunt. I had to read each note and follow the clues to find the next note. At the end of the scavenger hunt I found a card. The card says:

Dear Mom, I am writing you a poem
I hope that we are both always in a nice warm home
I wish you a very, very happy Valentine's Day
I don't just love you on your Birthday.

Now *that* is just what I needed to end a long day.

Wait.... one more thing! Did I mention that my "Valentine" wasn't home? He's on a trip out of state. So the last thing I really needed? To finally sit and talk with him on the phone.
Ahh..... now that I've done that, I have everything I needed to end my long day.

Me According to the Chaos Kids

There's this thing called Facebook, and I recently joined because I kept getting all these invitations from people. I figure, if all these other people are there, it can't be too bad. All these social networking sites are basically the same with a few differences. Some things I like about Cafemom that I don't like about Myspace, or some things I like about Facebook that I don't like about Cafemom.
Anyway, here's a little something I posted on Facebook. I just wrote down the very first thing the kids said. I told Hunter he could have some popcorn as soon as he answered a few questions for me!

1. What is something mom always says to you?
Hunter (3-years-old): yes I can have popcorn
Drew (7-years-old): clean the house
Louisa (11-years-old): I don't know... turn the TV down?

2. What makes mom happy?
Hunter: popcorn
Drew: hugs and kisses
Louisa: umm.... i'm going to say.... the computer

3. What makes mom sad?
Hunter: a bowl
Drew: no hugs and kisses
Louisa: uhhh.... don't write that! (giggle giggle) SpongeBob

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
Hunter: hahahaha
Drew: tickling
Louisa: when she writes exactly what I'm saying like that! (giggle giggle)

5. What was your mom like as a child?
Hunter: a tree
Drew: little
Louisa: both good and bad

6. How old is your mom?
Hunter: bird
Drew: 31
Louisa: 31

7. How tall is your mom?
Hunter: hmm..... HUGE!
Drew: a yard long (that's his "estimate")
Louisa: 5 feet, well, like a little more than 5 feet

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
Hunter: clean up
Drew: sleep
Louisa: play on the computer

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
Hunter: ride in the car
Drew: go to playgroup
Louisa: go to playgroup

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
Hunter: peanut butter
Drew: 9 million dollars
Louisa: writing a book

11. What is your mom really good at?
Hunter: watching TV
Drew: sleeping
Louisa: playing on the computer

12. What is your mom not very good at?
Hunter: your hair
Drew: fishing
Louisa: um... um... going to walmart because she spends money

13. What does your mom do for her job?
Hunter: um... car!
Drew: talk to people online
Louisa: take care of kids... you don't get paid for it, but it's a job

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
Hunter: pizza
Drew: sugar
Louisa: you have a lot of favorite foods

15. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Hunter: orange
Drew: Betty Boop (or the "Bippity Bop girl")
Louisa: Garfield

16. What do you and your mom do together?
Hunter: clean up
Drew: play games
Louisa: um... um... um.... (giggle giggle) we read together? I don't know

17. How are you and your mom the same?
Hunter: Hunter and mommy
Drew: we're both mammals
Louisa: we're both girls

18. How are you and your mom different?
Hunter: mommy has glasses
Drew: our gender, you're a girl I'm a boy
Louisa: you have red hair and I have brown hair

19. How do you know your mom loves you?
Hunter: mmmm, say "love you" (in soft voice)
Drew: she's nice to me
Louisa: because she makes me laugh

20. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
Hunter: house
Drew: walmart
Louisa: playgroup

Homecoming Sweet Homecoming

It's been a week and a half and, lawd I haven't said a word about it. (Yes, I'm slowing and stubbornly turning southern. I apologize.) Saturday January 10th was the day. Kind of. The kids and I spent all day cleaning and running errands and being very excited and all the normal things we do and feel when Husband's on his way home. After the 11 hour delay, we were certain there would be no more delays or blips or glitches.

Wrong.

The eagle was due to land at about 11:00 pm, turn in weapons at the airport, load buses, and make the hour trip home. He was supposed to be in the gym here on post at about midnight., so the kids and I showed up at 11:15 because sitting around the house was doing us no good. Hunter got very excited when we arrived because he thought we were actually going to 'Raq to see Daddy. He was jumping up and down asking when we were going to get on the plane!

At 11:45 we got word the guys hadn't even loaded the buses yet. At 12:30 am we were told the guys had loaded buses and were finally on their way.

A whole hour longer to wait! It 'bout near killed me, I swear. Drew and Hunter spent the time running all over the gym. In the front of the gym they had rows of flags set up, along with two projection screens that had videos of the guys when they were in Iraq. Several times Hunter came very close to knocking something over. I could just imagine the rows of flags going over like dominoes. Thank goodness he petered out before anything actually did happen.

The gym was packed with family and friends waiting to see their loved ones. It really was something great to be a part of. I've had friends tell me how awful it is and what a horrible wait it is, and I have a few friends who don't even go when their husbands come home. I wouldn't miss something that like for the world! I didn't get to do a big ceremony like that when Husband came home from Afghanistan, so this was very special. There was so much energy and electricity in the air. Even when they told us about the last delay, we were just still so excited to finally be at that point. Our men (and women) were THAT close to us!!

At 1:35 am Hunter finally crashed and burned. He layed down on the floor and was out. Poor little guy! I picked him up and tried so hard to wake him up again. Around that time the guys who were running the "show" stopped playing the slideshow of pictures from Iraq, and started showing video of our troops getting off the plane just a few hours earlier. I didn't actually see Husband get off the plane, but that didn't matter because I realized the video was just a distraction.... those tricksters! They didn't want us to see our guys (and women) lining up outside the gym. Right there, that close to me, was my husband. Just a door separating us. Someone was peaking through a window and she shouted "they're all lined up!!" Screams of excitement and sounds of joy came from all over the gym.

I can't tell you what song was playing when they started to file in, all I can say is my heart hasn't beat that fast in a long time. I had no tears. I wasn't scared. I just wanted to see his face and make sure he could see mine. They filed in in a single line. One after the other. Walking down, standing at attention, eagerly searching the crowd for their loved ones. Soldier after soldier walking past, the crowd cheering, pictures flashing. I didn't see him walk in and I was so worried he'd already passed by me and I didn't notice. My friends saw their husbands and waved. I pointed out a few guys here and there to someone who had just come to take pictures for us.

287 soldiers walked past me before I finally saw mine. I know that because there were 288 total, and mine was the last one in the door. He caught my eyes right away and again, there were no tears. Just smiles bigger than I think I've ever smiled. He saw Hunter fast asleep on my shoulder and gave me a quick little smile/giggle.

The post commander stood up and gave the briefest speech I've ever heard, followed by these four beautiful words, "Soldiers, you are released."

The song "At Last" by Etta James blasted over the speakers and I was finally in his arms again. Still no tears, just the greatest flood of relief you can imagine. He hugged Drew and Louisa, and we tried to wake Hunter up. Hunter, who'd been waiting *so long* for that moment, would not be woken.

We had to go outside to find his rucksack, and then headed to the truck to take our hero home. (He doesn't like being called that, by the way.) Once we were at the truck Hunter opens his eyes and says, "Oh HI, Daddy!!" He gave Daddy a big hug and asked if he was home now. We buckled him in his carseat and he says, "Daddy, can we go home and go to sleep now?" hehe.

A week and a half later and we are well adjusted. Friday is a big re-deployment ceremony, and then he's on leave for 30 days. We get to sit around the house and be bums and relax. He's earned it.

We've both had an incredible amount of support during this deployment. Family, friends, and even strangers have given to us more than we feel we deserve. We don't feel we do anything special by living this life, but we thank everyone who recognizes what hard work it is. God has blessed us in many ways and we are so grateful for everyone who's helped us. God couldn't have given us a better extended family than all of you who prayed, sent cards and packages, gave love and support, and let me lean on them when I needed it. God gives us all our obstacles, but He also gives us support when we feel we can't get through.

I know you all know this song....

Times have changed and times are strange
Here I come , But I ain't the same
Mama, I'm Coming Home ......
I've seen your face a hundered times
Everyday we've been apart
I don't care about the sunshine, yeah
'Cause Mama, Mama, I'm Coming Home
I'm Coming Home

There are no sweeter words to my ears right now than, Mama, I'm coming home! Ok, he doesn't actually call me "Mama", more like "Sweetie", or "Honey", or mostly "Baby", but I don't care cause, Baby... He's coming home!!!!
Oh ya, you hear me right! He's getting on a plane tomorrow and and as the great Wizard of Oz says, He's coming home!
Husband called on Sunday after a long two and a half weeks of going dark and he said that he might get a two week leave at the end of the month. So I'm thinking, cool, he'll come home around Halloween.
Then he called this morning to say that he's getting on a plane tomorrow to fly home for his leave. I was like, HUH??!!!! Seriously?! I just didn't realize he was coming NOW!!!
And the place is a mess, and I have to put my cat down tomorrow (a whole other post) and I'm just not ready, yet, Baby! But I don't really have a choice, and he doesn't care about the place being a mess. He just wants his bed, and home cooked meals, and play with the kids.... and me!
YIPEE!!!!!!! Oh ya, Baby's Coming Home!
After that we'll worry about if his tour is extended or not. For now, we'll celebrate the fact that he'll be home soon. In my arms, playing with the kids.... leaving his dirty socks all over for me to pick up!

I Found It!!!

I FOUND MY RING!!!!

Ok, that is all!