Something Special

Emily and I had a good day together. We played at home this morning then ran some errands and ate lunch and then went to the grocery store. When we came home, Emily didn't want to take a nap but she played on her bed (in the dark) for a long time. Seriously .. a long time. I was able to get a lot of things done while she was in her bed.

For supper tonight, I made something special. We had fried fish, french fries, and hushpuppies. In case you were wondering, a light cornmeal coating is the only way to go. And fry the fish until it floats!

For dessert, I made some homemade brownies. This recipe makes the best brownies. They are so tasty. I heart brownies.

Yield: 12 pieces Author: Jennifer Smith 

Rich, Fudgy Brownies

These brownies are so rich and fudgy that they don't require any frosting. And they are easy to make in one bowl, no mixer required. How much easier can you get?

prep time: 10 MINScook time: 30 MINStotal time: 40 mins

ingredients:

• 6 T. cocoa powder + 1 T. oil
• 1 c. (2 sticks) margarine
• 2 c. sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 c. flour
• 1 t. baking powder
• 1 t. salt
• 2 t. vanilla
• 1 c. chopped nuts

instructions

1. Mix cocoa and oil. Add margarine and melt in microwave.
2. Cool slightly. Add sugar and eggs, mix well.
3. Add flour, baking powder, and salt to the chocolate mixture.
4. Stir in nuts and vanilla.
5. Pour batter into a greased 13 X 9 inch pan.
6. Bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes.

http://www.gracelikerainblog.com/2009/03/something-special.html

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Whew!

This week, we have a break from Cubbies due to spring break. To tell you the truth, I'm really glad for this break. I really needed one. I love being a Cubbies leader, but sometimes it's nice to get a break and enjoy a nice evening at home.


I'm sure the Cubbies will have all kinds of stories to tell next week though. They normally do have a lot to say. The other week, one of them told us that her mommy was trying to get her a baby sister. Whoops!


I know that Emily is missing Cubbies this week too. Any time I ask her if she knows what we're going to do today, she'll say "Go to Cubbies?"


I hope all the Cubbies are having a good week off and are hopping and happy to come back next week.


Double Whew!


We got our yard sprayed for weeds today. I hope it's perfect timing because it's supposed to rain a bit over the next few days. I was glad they didn't spray any of my flowers. I will admit that I was a bit worried about that. I'm glad they came out and sprayed because I was afraid the weeds were going to take over. Whew! Thanks John!



Triple Whew!


I'm on vacation the rest of the week! Emily and I are going to hang out and play tomorrow. Then on Friday, we're all going to go down to Magnolia to visit my parents. I'm really excited about this. I'm excited about visiting with my parents, but we're also going to go fishing! It's been soooooooo long since I've been fishing and I'm really looking forward to it.

Emily is pretty excited about our trip too. She's been talking about it all week. Every day she asks "Are we going to Grandmother's house TODAY?" No, not today. On FRIDAY. I guess Friday can't get here soon enough.

I hope we have some really nice weather for our trip. That would just be the icing on the cake. Did someone say "icing on the cake"? That reminds me ... I need to remember to take my mom the fluffy white icing for the angel food cake. I bought several boxes for her back at Christmas time because she can't find it in stores around her. Someone remind me before we leave! (By the way, I use Betty Crocker Home Style Fluffy White Frosting.)

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Does it work? Ebates.com

A few months ago, I told you about Ebates.com, but ... does it work?

Well, I received a $10 Target giftcard from Ebates.com a few weeks ago and I currently have over $40 cash pending! Ebates recently sent out its quarterly cash back checks. Mike got a check for about $15. My mom got an Ebates check. My sister-in-law got an Ebates check. Did you get your Ebates check? If so, post a comment and let everyone know.

Not signed up? Click here and sign up now! Besides just the cash back, they also have tons of coupon codes at many of your favorite online retailers. You name it, it's on there ..

• JcPenney
• Disney Store online
• Cheaptickets.com
• Priceline
• The Gap
• Magazines.com
• Toys 'R Us/Babies 'R Us
• Ebay!
• More and more and more ...

Final Result: Yes! Ebates.com works!

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What's Playing on my iPod

Last week, I downloaded a few new songs for my iPod. One of my favorites is a song called "I will Rise". It's from Chris Tomlin's "Hello Love" CD. KLove (Hi Jon and Sherry!) has been playing it on the radio a lot recently and it just really speaks to me.



Listen to this song and see if you just can't help but lift up your hands in praise to the Almighty God.



And I hear the voice of many angels sing,

"Worthy is the Lamb"

And I hear the cry of every longing heart,

"Worthy is the Lamb"






If you liked this song, you should really check out the "Hello Love" CD from Chris Tomlin. It has several really good songs like "Jesus Messiah", "God of This City" (also sung by Bluetree) and "Sing Sing Sing".



What songs are you really digging these days?

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Not Me! Monday

.t

Well I suppose I'll join Not Me! Monday, hosted by MckMama over at My Charming Kids this week.

• I did not get a haircut that nobody noticed this week. If I'm going to pay good money to get my hair cut, I'm going to get it cut enough so that someone will notice. Otherwise, what's the point?

• I also did not dig up a small tree and then re-plant it in another spot. After I did not dig up and re-planted a tree, I did not cut off all the limbs except for one so that maybe the tree would survive the transplant.

• And I did not plant daffodils under my new irises. Who would plant one bulb directly underneath another one? No plant can grow like that, right?

• I did not spend a lot of time changing the background on my blog and making it three columns. I have more important things to do than spend a bunch of time on my blog. (In my own defense, I was watching TV at the same time. Multitasking makes everything okay, right? Right? Hello? Anybody there?)

What did you NOT do this week? You know you wanna share.

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Space Bags - Final Update

Note: This is Part 5 of "Does it work? Space Bags". Click here for all related posts.

I hope you all are sitting down because this one is a shocker ...

No, not really ... the lone Space Bag was full of air again this morning.

I didn't even bother trying it again. I just put it back under the bed next to the other two. Even though it's full of air, the little girl clothes are still contained and stowed under the bed.

So ...

Final Result: Yes, Space Bags work ... if you're lucky.

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Space Bags Update - Day 3

Note: This is Part 4 of "Does it work? Space Bags". Click here for Part 1 or Part 2 or Part 3.

The un-cooperative Space Bag was full of air again this morning. The other two are holding strong.

I unzipped the top of the air-filled Space Bag and re-zipped it being careful to match the sides evenly. Then I sucked all the air out with the vacuum cleaner.

If this doesn't work, all hope may be lost on this one. Has anyone else had a similar experience with a Space Bag?

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Silly Sister

"Sweet Face"

"The Eyes Have It"

*Smooch*

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Space Bags Update - Day 2

Note: This is Part 3 of "Does it work? Space Bags". Click here for Part 1 or Part 2.

I checked my Space Bags this morning to see whether any of them were still compressed. As you may recall, two of the three bags were full of air yesterday morning. Well, this morning only one of the bags was full of air.

See the one on the right full of air and the other two compressed.

I noticed that the bag said I could "roll out the air" instead of using the vacuum cleaner so I tried this with the bag that has yet to stay compressed. I started at the zip top and rolled the bag down. The air did leave the bag although I am not sure how it was getting out. Very strange indeed.

The Space Bag on the right was compressed using the "rolled out" method.

I can hardly wait to check the bags in the morning to see if rolling the air out really works. If not, do you have any suggestions?

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Hey, hey Mr. Policeman

Last night, we stopped by our favorite Mexican restaurant before Cubbies. Emily and I shared the chicken fajitas. As usual, she was playing with her food and being a little loud and dropping things on the floor. Nothing too bad, just constant "put that down", "don't do that", "turn around right".

So we're almost finished eating and a policeman walked in and sat down at the table right next to us! Emily immediately stopped talking and sat up in her chair. She wanted to hold my hand and leaned over and said "I love you, Mom." Mike and I were trying not to laugh out loud about her immediate change of attitude.

Mike told her that she better eat and she immediately picked up her fork and began eating. Who knew that something like that was such a good motivator?

Now ... how can I carry a policeman with me wherever we go?

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Space Bags Update - Day 1

So I checked on my three Space Bags this morning. Only one of the three bags was still compressed. The others were full of air and back to normal size.

The picture below shows the compressed Space Bag on the right and the two non-compressed bags on the left.

Tonight, I opened the two bags on the left and re-sealed the tops. Then I removed the air from the bags using the vacuum cleaner. This time, I didn't suck out the air quite as much. I'm going with a theory that maybe there could be too much of a good thing.

The three bags are back under the bed tonight. Hopefully they'll stay compressed this time.

Until tomorrow ....

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Spring, Oh Where Did You Go?

It's amazing how we can go from almost 80 degrees one day down to about 40 degrees the next day. The temperature change yesterday took me by surprise. I send Emily off to Nanny's in capri's and a short sleeved shirt and it turned out to be a 40-something degree day. When she was getting dressed, she said "Mama, why are you putting short sleeves on me?" How did she get so smart?

I hear we might be in for a bit of snow later this week ...

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Does it work? Space Bags

This evening, I worked on organizing Emily's closet. I filled three LARGE Space Bags with some of her clothes that she's outgrown. Then I used the vacuum cleaner hose to suck all the air out of the bags.

The first bag, I heard some air whistling out as soon as I finished it. I pushed the plastic plug more firmly into the sucker hole part thingie. (I have no idea what that part is called, really!) The whistling stopped so I moved on to the next bag.

The second bag, I immediately heard some air whistling out of it as well. The plug seemed to be solid so I checked the zip top on the bag and one of the corners seemed to be leaking air. I opened the bag up and then re-zipped the top then re-sucked the air. The whistling stopped so I moved on to the third bag.

The third bag, I sucked the air out and heard nothing. Success at last!

So I stored all three bags flat under the bed with the plug facing up. What are the chances that the bags will still be flattened and sealed in the morning?

Have you ever used Space Bags? If so, what was your experience?

See my follow-ups to this story:

Space Bags Update - Day 1

Space Bags Update - Day 2

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Spring Has Sprung in Oklahoma

Bradford Pear trees in full bloom

Daylilys (and weeds)

Irises and periwinkle (and weeds)

Peach blossoms

Daffodils and a beauty

Lets swing!

Get out of the way before the swing hits you, Mom!

Mom's favorite pic

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A Beautiful Weekend

It was a gorgeous weekend weather-wise. The days were warm. Saturday was windy, but Sunday was mild and sunny. We even broke out our summery clothes.

We worked on a lot of projects around the house, did some shopping, went to gymnastics.

Today for lunch, we went to Texas Roadhouse and had some really good food. We caught Emily eating "buttered peanuts" and "ranch-covered peanuts". Yuck!



If you notice, she sat in the booth by her dad today. That's VERY unusual for us. She normally sits by me. I asked her if she wanted to sit by Dad and she agreed!

That's what I call "Progress."

We worked in the yard quite a bit this weekend. I bought some Preen weed preventer and put that down in my flowerbeds. I used this last year and it worked well. Now if I could just find something that would get rid of all the grass in my flowerbed!

We also bought an electric string trimmer. It's lightweight and a lot easier for me to manage than the old gas-powered weedeater. I used it quite a bit and it works well. I still have lots more to do though.

I'm just wishing that I could stay home from work tomorrow to get more accomplished at home!

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Lovely Ladies

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Have you heard about Swagbucks?

I signed up for swagbucks.com a few weeks ago. All you have to do is use swagbucks.com for all your web searches and you win swagbucks (points) for searching. What's cool about it is that swagbucks uses the google and ask.com search engines. And you can redeem your swagbucks for prizes and giftcards to some of your favorite stores.

I think I'm going to redeem my swagbucks for giftcards. You can get a $5 giftcard from Amazon.com for just 45 swagbucks. Giftcards from different companies may be redeemed for a different amount of giftcards. For example, a $10 Starbucks giftcard is yours for 130 swagbucks, but a $10 Barnes & Nobles giftcard costs 115 swagbucks.

I've only been using swagbucks for a few weeks, but I've already won 57 swagbucks just by searching. Sometimes it may take a few searches to win some swagbucks, but I do get them fairly often.

So what are you waiting for?? Sign up for swagbucks today!

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I can't watch

I don't think I can watch Part 2 of The Bachelor After the Final Rose tonight. Last night's show was just brutal and I felt like some of it was unrealistic and not genuine.

I did want to clarify that I am not upset with who Jason Mesnick ultimately picked. I liked Melissa just fine, but I like Mollie too. Now .. let me just say .. that I don't believe for a second that they were "just talking" in the tent that night and I think that's really wrong. But other than some things like that, they seem like nice girls. I liked Jillian too. I think they will bring her back as the next Bachelorette.

Again, I'm not upset with who Jason picked, but I am upset with the way some things were handled on the After the Final Rose show last night. I appreciate the fact that ABC got rid of the audience, but I truly feel that a painful breakup like that should not have been televised. And I don't think Jason and Mollie should have been making out just a few minutes after he broke up with Melissa.

I feel bad for Melissa. She seems like a nice girl and I hope she finds a good Christian guy who makes her happy. After all that she has been through with this show, I hope she finds her happily ever after.

I feel bad for Jason Mesnick. I think he's searching for something that's missing in his life. And I don't think he's going to find it in any girl that he meets. Only God can fill that void. Can I get an AMEN?

Well, I must say that it's a bit sad that I've had to resort to blogging about reality television. I like so many of the reality shows .... Big Brother, Dancing With the Stars, The Apprentice, Amazing Race. Some of them are like a bad train wreck, but it's so hard to turn away. And so I watch ... but in my own defense, there are only one or two shows that I try not to miss. Most of the shows I'll watch if I'm home and the TV's available. But there are a couple that I make a point to be home and I'll "schedule" TV time to watch the shows.

Do you watch reality TV shows? Which ones are your favorites?

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I'm so happy and I'm so mad!

Happy

I'm happy about my 7th wedding anniversary with Mike. We had a great evening out to dinner with the family. I did take some pictures, but I haven't had a chance to upload them yet because ..... tonight is the season finale of The Bachelor!

Mad

I'm so mad about how The Bachelor ended. I just think it's a disgusting thing to do to someone. I really can't believe it. And if ABC set this whole thing up, then that's even worse. Shame on Jason Mesnick. Shame on ABC.

What do you think about the ending? Am I the only one who's blown away by this?

Thanks, Kerri, for the insider tips! If I was sitting here watching this without a clue, I would be just furious! Funny how TV can bring out such emotions, isn't it?

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Happy Anniversary, Mike!

7 years! Can you believe it?

I love you!

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