String the Heart

Lately I have been in a very crafty mood which has been great since it was a birthday filled month. For a while now I have seen where you get a thin piece of wood, hammer nails to make a boarder, nail a shape or point in the middle, and get string and wrap it from the boarder to the center until filled. It was my cousins birthday and I thought that would be a cute gift so I made it. I thought it ended up being pretty cute. The one I made was smaller than all the ones I have seen, not everyone has room for a big piece of wood in there room. I gave it to her Friday and she loved it... thank goodness! hahaha Here is a picture of it. 

Abundant Blessings

Today has been an amazing day. Everybody made my birthday so incredibly special. I started off with waking up to presents... one of them being a chromebook (this is my first blog post using it hehehe). Following that my mom took me out to a delicious breakfast. The waitress brought me a scoop of delicious ice cream... who said you can't have ice cream for breakfast?!... and she and practically everyone in the restaurant sang me happy birthday. I must admit I got a little red because I did not expect all of that. After, we went shopping and I got some super cute clothes. Normally I do not like to shop but we were not there long so it was perfect. Then we headed to the charter theater near our house and saw The Other Woman. OH MY we got some good laughs! Such a funny movie, would not mind owning that one. Once that was over we went home and relaxed before we met some of my wonderful friends and family at The Old Spaghetti Factory. I had only been to one once before but it was in another state 4 years ago, so I was really excited to go. It was very yummy! I had a lot fun with everyone... there was 15 of us. My grandma made and brought me a cake and people brought me awesome gifts that I love. Also, throughout the day I would get birthday texts and messages on Facebook from friends and family that were unable to celebrate my birthday with me in person. All of this made me feel so loved, special, and extremely blessed. I have such wonderful people in my life and I am so grateful. 

So here is what I picked for today-

Here is a picture of one of my best friends and me from tonight-

Me      &     Jamie

Appreciate Everything

Today I have been pre-celebrating my 17th birthday. Started the day with cousin time while we went whale watching. It ended with a nice dinner with my mom. I am so greatful for the wonderful family that I have. There is so much in the world that I appreciate but there also many things I don't even know I am not appreciating. After seeing all the beauty in the world today, I am going to try to appreciate everything.

Unfolding of Your Wings

Tonight I went to Farrells Ice Cream Parlor for the first time for dinner. We went for my early 17th birthday celebration. The person I went with gave me an amazing present. It was the children's book Everything I Need to Know I learned From a Little Golden Book by Diane Muldrow. I love it because it tells you many things to help you in your life. I know I know it sounds crazy but I'm serious! This book is perfect for everyone of all ages. When I am having a bad day I am going to be able to randomly pick a page to help me. At the end of the book my friend wrote me a letter. She included a quote from C Joybell C.

This quote can be applied to so many different situations for people. For me, I am applying it to my life going through my illness. 

God's Plan

God is great. I feel like this verse says enough for today.

Blueberry Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

MMMM... the smell of fresh baked muffins is roaming around my house. Tonight I made blueberry lemon poppyseed muffins and oh my oh my they are delicious! We had a lot of blueberries in the fridge and I don't like to eat blueberries by themselves. The texture of blueberries just gets me. I went on pinterest to see what I could make with them and I saw that you can combine blueberry muffins with lemon poppyseed muffins. Those two are my favorite! Once I saw the recipe I knew I had to make it. Let me just say that I now have a new favorite muffin :) Here are some pictures I took before and after I put them in the oven. Sorry that the pics are kind of blurry... my camera phone likes to make me frustrated. 

Here is the recipe: http://www.garnishwithlemon.com/blueberry-lemon-poppy-seed-muffins/

Instead of using a cupcake pan and making twelve muffins, I used a muffin pan and made six amazing muffins. If you make them the way I did remember to bake them a little longer. Do the toothpick test to find out when they are ready.

The Courage to Let Go

Yesterday I was supposed to get a heart monitor put on for the next month but didn't due to them not having the equipment! We went there and everything... it was all quite frustrating. What made it all worse though is not feeling well at all. I was super sleeping, my muscles hurt, my vision was going blurry, and my chest was feeling funny. Then I read this quote:

I read it and thought that there is nothing I can do besides let go of all the frustration. So I did. After doing so, I felt stronger. Maybe not physically but mentally. I know that I can't change what is going on with me. I also know that God wouldn't give me anything I can't handle. Now, I am going to try my best to have courage getting through this journey and trust the Lord. 

Baked Garlic Brown Sugar Chicken

Tonight I thought I'd help my mom out with dinner... well really that was an excuse to try a new recipe :p This recipe has been something I've been wanting to try since it looked so easy and delicious and finally I remembered to make it. It was baked garlic brown sugar chicken and it was super yummy! Here is a picture (this is not mine, I got it from the website with the recipe http://www.daydreamkitchen.com/2012/08/baked-garlic-brown-sugar-chicken/)

On the side I made asparagus and microwaved a potato. It was all incredibly easy and our tummies are very happy. I urge everyone to make it! You will not regret it. 

Breath of Life

Today I was searching for a quote that would fit for my day and life but I just couldn't find one that I liked. Later my sister  sent me this one. 

 

After reading this I thought how amazing it is. We keep all the stress, chaos, and heartache in our life bottled up inside of instead of letting it out. Does it help you?... I know it definitely doesn't help me. There is so much more in life to breathe in like love, joy, and peace. For some reason we let all the negative in our life take over all the good. So now when I think of a breath I think of letting out all the bad and inviting all the good in. Try it, hopefully it will help you on a chaotic day.

The Richness in Life

Hey everyone! Sorry about skipping "Take a Second" yesterday. It was my grandma's 80th birthday and we joined her and some of my other family at a nail salon. My grandma's sister and niece- whom live out of state- surprised her with a visit. It was really nice to be able to visit with them. Later, I got to spend some quality time with my second cousin. We realized that we have quite a bit in common :) After having nice family time yesterday I came to the conclusion that family is the most important thing in my life and always will be. Let me just say that I do NOT have a small family, so there is a lot of family to fill my life. I was having a hard time finding a quote for today until I remembered how much I feel blessed to have such a wonderful family. That then made me think of how much I value them. So here is today's quote: 

 I love this. I hope you guys do too.

Strength

For today's "Take a Second" I am continuing from yesterday's quote, but with a little difference. Throughout your life you go through different struggles and each one requires you to have strength to get through it. The thing is, strength is very hard to have when you keep getting pushed down. So here is today's quote:

 While reading this I thought to myself how true it must be. I have gone through more struggles than I would like. Without learning and getting through the past struggles I probably wouldn't have been able to get through the ones following. So I am trying to think that I will get stronger from each struggle instead of feeling like it is only making me weaker... it is a lot easier said than done though.

Life and Loss

Last night my mom told me that my orthodontist died. He was a really nice guy who was very knowledgeable. So to think now that I will never see this person that I saw pretty much every week for about five months now was gone is sad. At first it just sounded really weird and as the night went on it became real for me. The orthodontist office is really close to my house so we drive by it quite often. We drove by it three times last night and each time made me have a strange feeling.
After hearing and thinking about life and death made me realize that you never know how much time you have. Also, you are put through many trials throughout your life and yes they may be hard but each one adds to your life. Today's quote is about life. I feel like this is something great to always think about, even on the hardest of days.

Have A Cream Puff... Or Two.

Some Tuesday nights I join my mom and her friends for dinner, dessert, and sometimes a craft. We make something new each week. This something could be a dinner, or a tasty new dessert, or even a craft or project. Going to this ever so often has been really nice. All the ladies there are super sweet. I am happy to call them my family now. These Tuesday nights have been my adventure outside from being stuck inside all day and sometimes daysssss. So this week we decided to make a dessert and craft together. Well it was my job to figure out what dessert we should make and immediately I thought CREAM PUFFS! Who doesn't love cream puffs?! I made them before for mothers day this year and it wasn't too hard... for me at least. I decided that I would make the pastry puff at home before we go over and we can make the cream together then fill all the puffs. Let's just say that there were hardly any left. :) I got some pictures of our creation process... here they are:
                                                             This is just the puff-

 

Here is the cream filling-

And here is the end result-

Last time I made them I covered some in melted semi-sweet chocolate... SO YUMMY

End of the School Year

It is the end of this school year for many students right now. Today, I went to my little cousin's promotion to high school ceremony. It was very nice... and not too long. LOL. To hear all the positive speeches from some of the students was very inspiring. These student went through probably some of the cruelest years of their student lives and yet they still had good things to say. School is hard. Not just because of trying to get good grades but because you have to put up with so much drama with other kids. I have to say that I will not forget some of the awful things that happened in junior high. After seeing all the students today celebrating their achievement made me realize that this is just a little part of our journey to our dreams. So today's quote is about how you dream big and don't give up no matter what because you will still go somewhere great.

Family Quote

For the past couple of months my sister and I have been doing a quote of the day. We find them mostly on pinterest and apply the quote in our life for the day. It seems to be helping us each day for things that are going on in our life. So I want you guys to be able to experience these helpful quotes too. I thought today would be a great day for a family quote. Yesterday was father's day and many of us celebrated our fathers or father figures in our life. Something I've noticed is that we don't always appreciate everyone in our family everyday, instead we just think of someone a certain day. Here is the quote my sister and I have been reminding ourselves about today.

Grandma's Handmade Gift

It is my Grandma's 80th birthday on Friday, so I decided that I wanted to make her something special. I was looking on pinterest and other blogs to get ideas. Finally I found something that I knew I had to make. It was a family tree put in a frame. Well of course I didn't want to do it exactly like that so I switched it up a bit. I went to Michaels and walked around until I saw a wooden shadow box and a wooden "Family". When I got home I painted them purple- Grandma's favorite color- and glued the "Family" on top of the shadow box. Then, I printed out a tree on a piece of tan cardstock. For the names, I just typed them all up with some space in between and printed it out on a piece of green cardstock. After, I put double sided taped that had on side covered behind each of the names and cut them into leaves. Once all of that was done, I glued all the names of my grandma's children and their children. Handmade gifts are always the best to give to a grandparent because you know that they'll just love it.

The Beginning Bit

Hey everybody! This blog is a bit of me and hopefully it will help you find a bit of you someday. I am excited to be able to share recipes, crafts, quotes to get you through the day, and tell you what is going on with me. While typing this I know that this is the beginning of finding more surprising bits of me and you all will be a part of it. :)