Food Network, HGTV, A&E, TLC...

I'm addicted! So that would mean I should be on a TLC show or an A&E show about addictions. With as much as I watch the food network channel, I should be a wonderful cook and be able to whip out an entire meal in 30 minutes and make it be nutritious and look amazing, yet I'm more the type to make things that are semi-homemade, especially since I only want to spend a few minutes in the kitchen. But isn't the kitchen my favorite room in the house? I love kitchen gadgets too, the more the merrier in my book. I have used all of my toys too, so that's not the issue.

I watch the cooking shows hoping something will click and I will turn into Rachel Ray or Paula Dean. They make everything look so easy. I love the good ole home cooking types of foods.

I guess it's harder for me to get into cooking more when the sit down family dinners are few and far between with my family and the kids' activities right at dinner time. My family has had sit down meals for as long as we've been a family, it's so routine for us, but these darn schedules! I miss the dinners, my family truly appreciates when I cook for them. Now we eat in shifts, not fun in my book so it makes me not want to cook.

I have to say, I have become more comfortable winging it with recipes and making them my own. I just hope today's recipe turns out good, my poor family, they are my guinea pigs.

Now, onto HGTV. My house should look like a showcase home but it doesn't. I would love for it to look like those I see on tv, but I just can't get my brain to work that way. I could hire someone to do it, but I feel like I should do it myself, it's easy, right? Heck no. I'm not a 'do it yourself' type of person. I've even fantasized about being on one of the shows, but seriously, those shows don't come out to Nebraska, why the heck not?? I think they would be surprised if they came out my way.

The two channels my hubby doesn't like, but I just love, A&E and TLC, especially with the addiction shows, 'Hoarders' and 'Intervention'. What do I get from watching these shows? Probably reinforces to myself that these are the type of people I don't want to be or become. I make a great armchair psychologist, just ask my hubby.

I guess my addictions could be worse though, right?

I Should Start Planning

Since I am the family's travel coordinator along with everything else. I need to start planning our trip to Sweden and Norway, my husband's Motherland Tour. I'm just not sure where to begin, where do I look, where to go when in Sweden and Norway? Where do we stay? Where do we eat? I'm at a loss, therefore, the reason I am stalling. But before I know it, the time will arrive and I'm not even close to starting!! The panic button is around here somewhere...

Is Cheerleading Really a Sport?

I hear this controversy all the time, so does my daughter and boy does she get hot under the collar. I don't blame her, she would know if it is s sport or not since she is a cheerleader. Not 'just' a cheerleader, but a competitive cheerleader. There is where I think is the difference.

Last weekend, we were in Indianapolis for a cheerleading competition. 500 teams were there to compete! Imagine the crowd for that! It is non-stop cheering, cheerleaders, parents, siblings, judges and so on. It is two crazy days of this too. My daughter's team had some tough competition at her level and division, it was made me nervous for her team. They had only competed in two competitions so far with no other teams to compete against so this was the first competition for them. Three of the teams they were up against have been annual world champions, cah-razy!!

My daughter's team ended up placing in last place the first day, the girls were so disappointed, as were the parents. The second day came and the girls were pumped and boy did it show on the competition floor! They did awesome, had awesome energy and nailed it! Their hard work paid off. At the awards ceremony, they announced sixth place, not her team, YES they were no longer in last place! 5th place, still not them! I was so happy for them that they could get fourth place, but NO, they weren't in fourth place either! WOW! Third place was awesome! BUT NOOOO! They got 2nd place!! I was so happy for them and they were so happy and cheered loudly and jumped up and down on the stage. I think the first place team was drowned out by our team! And that was quite the 'win' too, coming in 2nd to the annual world champions!

So watch the video and you be the judge, is cheerleading a sport?

When and Where We Landed

A sample of what I would like to do with adoptee's referral pictures:

Kimberly Anderson Hanson

Traveled to the United States on September 2, 1971

Currently lives in Nebraska:

Kora Hanson

Traveled to the United States on October 16, 1998

Currently lives in Nebraska:

Tami Holm Kraske

Traveled to the United States on May 19, 1959

Currently lives in Oregon:

Nancy Miller(right) and her sister, Kim(left)

Traveled to the United States on April 12, 1962

Currently lives in Nebraska and Kim lives in Colorado:

Brainstorming

As I always do right before I fall asleep. Some of my best ideas have been discovered during these times.

In 2006, I went to Korea with 22 other adult adoptees. I was able to visit my orphanage during this trip. This was the first time I saw my admittance paper. Something I never thought I would see.

Then in 2009, I went back to Korea with my entire family. I was able to have my husband go with me to my orphanage. He was so great with questions I never thought of prior when I was by myself and in total shock that I was even there.

As we began looking at my admittance paper, I got to see the book that I was listed in. I was amazed that this book also contained other kids that were adopted, just as I was. My husband and I saw one paper only because the adoptee had stapled his business card to his page. How interesting. He had flown to his country of adoption the same month I had flown to mine.

This got me thinking about when and where other adoptees traveled and their whereabouts. I wanted to know others that were in my orphanage and traveled to their adoptive families at the same time I did. How cool would it be to see their travel dates and compare and maybe even connect.

So this has lead me to my idea. Collect adoptees' referral pictures, document when and where we traveled. Compile all of this into one book. Could it be possible? Yes, of course. It's a huge project, but what an interesting one.

'Spanx'-a lot

Friday was trash pick up day and it was very windy=my worst nightmare. I had my son and daughter set it out prior to them leaving for school. Three trash cans and a couple of cardboard boxes. The wind was whipping and as my son carried the cardboard, one piece blew away and as he ran to catch it, he slipped on ice and landed right on his bum. He was ok. I had told the kids to line up the cans against the light post and secure the cardboard between two cans.

About two hours later, the cardboard was no where to be seen and one can had blown over, great. About an hour later, two cans had blown over so I went out to pick them up and set them against one another again. Trash is blowing everywhere, I am freezing my patooty off, trying desperately to keep my hat from blowing off and also trying not to blow away myself.

I do this again two more times and decided the third time around, I would just bring in the trash because this would be going on all day and trash was blowing everwhere. As I'm picking up the second can, I could feel my lower back muscle pull, great. Trust me, that made it worse trying to pull the cans into the garage as I am walking against the wind.

I stayed in bed the rest of the day with heating pad and took some medicine. As the day wore on, I was doing ok. I made sure not to do too much. By Saturday, my back was much better.

Then Sunday morning came...getting ready to head to church and as I pull on my Spanx, ouch, there went that same back muscle! Really? Right now? I took in a couple of breaths and continued to pull the rest up and that is a challenge even without a pulled muscle. These fun Spanx go all the way up to the bottom of my bra line. I know, I know, why? Because they don't roll down as the other ones do and end up as a donut around my waist with one movement. What I won't do to avoid panty lines.

Snip-its of Our Cancun Shopping Day

As we boarded the bus, Kora and I sat in the very first seat.

Erika and Todd were right behind us so I wanted to take a picture of them.

Erika said no way:

Then both Erika and Todd said no way!

So then I decided to take the whole group pic, as Sistah Amy would do:

The reason for going to a different hotel was because the spa

at our hotel was booked. So our idea was to go to this hotel,

the girls would do the spa and the boys would swim.

Afterwards, we would walk to the shopping area that was a 15 minute walk..

regretted that idea immediately with the humidity and the

amount of traffic along the way.

Here's some of the scenery along the way:

As I posted previously about this shopping mall, I was

disappointed. But I thought this was funny, a Cancun Hooters:

'nuf said.

What Goes thru My Mind..

As I ride the exercise bike and watch tv.

First, thank goodness for my tv as I am riding the exercise bike. It does make the time go by so much faster.

Watching the commercials:

The Ove Glove: Never bought one, but my thoughts:

*Good idea, but the glove should cover the forearm too. How many times has a person burned their forearms on the oven rack, upper and sides of the oven?

*Does the Ove Glove come in a small size to fit women's hands? I think of this when I use my plain old oven mitt. Why isn't smaller to fit MY hand? Most are women that use the oven mitts, right? I feel the same about the silicone oven mitts, too. I have one, but goodness gracious, why can't it be smaller to fit my hand? I can't use it, it's way too big and I can't grip anything let alone a searing, burning pan of goodness.

The Pajama Jeans:

*Really?? Great concept, as I have been in search of great jeans all my life, but the way the pajama jeans make the women's butts look on the commercial, NO thank you!

The Finishing Touch Trimmer:

*Can you say 'GROSS' when the lady on the tv trims her 'mustache' and a mondo amount of fuzz is left on the trimmer, really? ewwwww.

(Ok, so I have one of these, but there is never that amount of hair on my trimmer!)

Depil Silk:

*Spray on hair remover: Great concept but it really does sound too good to be true. And really, the amount of hair left on the cloth after the LADY wipes her leg...OMG.

The Chef Basket:

*Now this is one I would like to have. I have the old school vegetable steamer basket, but it is so hard to get it out of the pot without getting burned from the steam. I may have to order this one, just maybe.

After the Holidays, these are the types of commercials that run rampant during shows. They do make me laugh, maybe it's the quality of the commercials.

Also, as I am riding my exercise bike, I think how nice it would be to have an exercise buddy, as I stare at the empty eliptical machine next me. But then again, it is a small exercise room, I can't stand having the door closed even when I am the only on in there sweating. I guess I will just carry on and watch these funny commercials.

How Tragic

That a school shooting would happen right in my backyard. What a shock when I was watching tv and the news crawler at the bottom says there's been a shooting at one of our high schools, the same school district as my kids' schools. And it happened at the school that my nephew attends. I texted him immediately! Luckily, he was home already, talk about relief!!

All the schools in our school district were in lockdown mode and code red mode. I texted my son at his high school. He confirmed that they were in code red mode. Even though they had already discovered the shooter had shot himself in his car, it was still scary to think this was happening here.

We see this happening everywhere, but you never think it will happen where you live, doesn't matter the neighborhood, city, town, population, economic status, it happens everywhere. I'm still in shock.

Such tragic events. So much terror for the students at the school. The shooter was a senior at the school, had been suspended this morning for something, came back in the afternoon with a gun and got into the school thru a back door. He shot the principle and an assistant principle, then drove away and shot himself in his car. Such a loss for his family. The shooter's father is a police detective in the area.

So why does this happen? What was so bad that he felt he needed to do such a horrific thing? He grew up attending schools in another city up until November then came here. I can understand trying to fit in in the midst of your senior year, I would not have liked it myself. All he knew was his environment he had grown up in from kindergarten up to the beginning of his senior year. Acceptance, especially so late in the game in school, it's very hard to come by. Everyone is already established with their friends, graduation is around the corner and plans have been made, how do you get into such a group, any group?

It's just sad and tragic. A huge loss for everyone. Students will now attend school frightened and unsure, their innocence taken away, who do they trust now? At young ages, our kids shouldn't have to face these types of tragedies, adults have difficulties dealing with emotions during times like this, how do we expect our kids to be able to handle it?

All we can do is pray, pray for the victims, pray for their families, pray for the shooter's families, pray for the students, pray for the faculty and all that have been touched by this tragedy in our community. Pray that we all gain our strength to move forward, find peace, and one day, find forgiveness.

***Post Note: The assistant principle died of her injuries last night. Prayers to her family. Continued prayers for the principle, still in the hospital.

A New Year

And still no resolutions. I haven't made resolutions for years now. I look at resolutions as I look at dieting, I just don't do it. It's so restricting, so negative. I'm not saying those that make resolutions are wrong, you do what's right for you, I do what's right for me. New Year's Eve was very different for me, first time ever as an adult that I can remember I didn't stay up and ring in the New Year. I went to bed at 9:30 because I was simply tired from traveling. I didn't feel guilty for not staying up. I now do things the way I want to and if going to bed at 9:30 on New Year's Eve happens, then that's better for everyone because I was rested the next day and a happy camper.

Life is way too busy so adding in the pressure of keeping some restriction adds to the stress. Yes, I do know some resolutions can be positive ones, but the majority are not. I look at living my life as just that, live the life that is in front of me, not looking back at what was. I do look at what my future may hold for me, but the majority of the time, I only look at what the day has in store for me. This makes for less stress, hopefully.

2011 is upon me, I look forward to it, the good, the bad, the ugly. I will do my best as I always do.