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.