Big accomplishment!!

Hannah read her first book today all by herself! I'm so proud of her and what she's accomplishing now. She read Fun in the sun in the Bob Books series. She's an amazing little girl and I'm so lucky to be her mom. I love you Hannah!

Feeling

So I'm just going to put some of my feelings out there... This may be a downer but bear with me. I lately have been feeling overwhelmed in many areas of my life. While at the same time I've been able to accomplish a lot as well. My house is cleaner thanks to the children being in school, which in turn makes me feel great. I just can't seem to shake the previous feelings of I'm a terrible wife, mother, daughter and terrible in my church calling. I don't like the feelings of not being good enough and feeling very guilty because of them. I know where/who they come from but it's hard to shake after a life time of feeling this way. I burning out on many aspects in my life, calling, motherhood, wifehood (don't know that's a word, but it is now for me!) and I'm falling into a funk. It's not due to the time of year since it is my favorite, I love the coolness in the air, colors, HALLOWEEN! I just am having a hard time accepting me for who I am and moving on with that an gaining strength from it. I hope I'm not the only one who has felt this way and I'm pretty sure I'm not but it always is healing to put it out there instead of holding it in. Are there other ways of coping and dealing with this other than the basic Sunday answers? I sure am struggling to find my way out and know I will eventually find my way out. I just need to put my feelings out there and hope when you my reader reads this that you'll still love me in the end. I sure do love all my friends out there and miss several of them since I've moved here to Salt Lake. I do at the same time love the friends I have up here and cherish the time with them.

I hope you can gain something from my rant, and I hope I can gain strength as well.

Poached Salmon!

I made the best dinner tonight! I've been wanting salmon for quite some time since eating at Lamb's Cafe here in Salt Lake so I tried to replicate it and I got the same textured fish with a bit more flavor than theirs. I thought I'd share it with you since it was so easy and wonderful!

Since salmon fillets are on sale at Harmon's 5 for $20 I got quite a deal then came home and diced 1/2 yellow onion while melting 2 TBS butter in my pan. I sauteed the onions for a bit (1-2 min) then added a can of chicken stock. ( I would have used vegetable stock, but I didn't have any) I added some garlic powder to the stock and put the lid on the pan and let the onions cook a bit more in the stock. I cleaned the salmon and then placed it in the pot. After adding the fillets I put just a bit minced garlic in with it since I love garlic with salmon. I put the lid on and let it gently simmer for 12 minutes and viola it was done! So fast and so delicious. Then after removing the salmon I turned up the heat on the pan to a fast boil and let the sauce reduce and then spooned some over the fillets. WOW is all I can say, very tender and flaky as well as very flavorful! I highly recommend you try this as well. I would have taken a picture but I was too excited to eat.

It would be good served with some rice pilaf and asparagus. I hope you try it!

AVON

So I have officially joined the ranks of Avon. I have always loved their products and now look forward to selling it. They have great deals currently for the upcoming holidays as well as some great items on clearance as well. I have my own website you can order from and AVON will ship it to your home. Right now if you order $30.00 worth of product you can get standard shipping FREE! I think that's a great deal especially if you want stocking stuffers or something to pamper yourself. Check out my website!

Nothing new to report but I'm a little apprehensive about seeing snow already in the mountains!

I'm also hosting a Lia Sophia jewelry party at my house on Friday at 6:00pm so if you live in the Salt Lake area, let me know if you want to come and I'll email you my address. It's going to be lot's of fun with an ugliest jewelry contest. Simply show up wearing your ugliest piece and you could win jewelry from her VIP section which I hear is really good. At least come and be a body at my house and if you see something you like you can splurge on yourself. You deserve it!

Surgery...

Well it turns out I need to have surgery to fix two things. One is my cyst if it doesn't reduce or the pain doesn't stop then that will need to be operated on and I also discovered after talking to him that the main cause for my miscarriages is that they were most likely because they started out as ectopic pregnancies. Apparently when I had my tubal ligation it partly failed letting some eggs through. So, there you have it... a golf ball sized cyst that should reduce but will be operated on in two months as well as fixing my tubal ligation. What fun eh?

Well now what?

Well to my surprise I've had tons of visitors to my blog and I don't know where they came from but I do know when I hit 10,000 visitors I wanted to do a giveaway. Now seeing that's now passed I should do something else. I want to do a gift card giveaway and since I know you can get several people as a certain number on the counter on my blog I will think of something for the first 5 people that can email me a screen shot showing their visit number. It will take me a couple days to figure it out. Till then, do you have any suggestions for possible gift card prizes? It's not going to be for much but hey, anything is better than nothing right? Leave me a comment!

Monster Cookies

This is courtesy of a calendar I have and we loved the cookies... They were really easy to make as well. I also made my cookies a bit smaller than what the recipe calls for so I'd have more.

1 Pouch Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookie mix
1 Pouch Betty Croker peanut butter cookie mix
1 1/2 C. quick oats
1 C butter or margarine, softened
3 eggs
1 C M&M's

Heat oven to 375 F. In large bowl, stir all ingredients except candies until soft dough forms. Stir in candies. On ungreased cookie sheets place about 1/4 cupfuls dough about 3 inches apart. Bake 12-13 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 2 minutes, remove from cookie sheets and cool completely on cooling rack. Store at room temp. in covered container.

One hint I like to do with my cookies to keep them soft over time is to put a slice of bread inside the container with them. It also works with hard cookies also.

Fishing

So we got fishing licenses this year and have had lot's of fun trying various spots and not catching anything. We've been camping to fish as well as visiting local spots. Here's some pictures for you to enjoy! We love spending time together and this is one great way to do it.

What in the world?

I just noticed my counter was at 11,000! When did that happen????

Thank you for the visits and would love to know who's visiting. Please leave me comments! Now I suppose I need to post more eh?