It's been a hot minute since I've been able to sit down and write. We put our house up on the market last week, then left for vacation, so it's been a busy few weeks! Which has seriously been cutting into my bucket list items. And let's just be real, there were several (many) days thrown in there where I literally did nothing and stayed in pjs all day. Sometimes we just need those days, right? Right. (just agree with me and let's move on...) ANYWAY. Vacation. We went down to Orange Beach, AL with my side of the family for a week. It. Was. Hot. I mean I'm not sure what I was expecting, it's July in the South. We had a really great time, spent most of our time in the pool and eating too much food. Our last full day, which was also Danny's 29th birthday, we decided, what the heck, let's go parasailing. I've always wanted to try something like this, we're here, why not?? OH MAN. Let me preface by saying that it had been SO windy the entire week. It seemed to have died down a little that morning, so we set it up and went on our way. Got all our paper work filled out, the "your family can't sue us if you fall out of your harness and a shark eats you" type of paperwork. Got our life jackets on (Fun fact: this picture of Danny and I was the only picture I actually took during this whole adventure) We got on the boat, started toward the Gulf from the bay, the boat driver says "Does anyone get seasick?" I have gotten seasick before (not to mention I basically spent my entire pregnancy with Lola feeling seasick all.the.time.) Everyone said no so of course I wasn't going to be a big baby so I said no too. Then he responded with "well, today would be the day to get seasick." Apparently in my plan to go parasailing, I completely disregarded the whole getting out into the actual water thing, that I didn't even think that it was probably going to be really choppy with how windy it had been. YALL. The second we got out on the Gulf, I thought, this was it for me. I was flopping through the boat holding on for dear life. It was miserable. The deck hand said that in the five years he's been doing this, it was probably the second roughest water he had ever seen. Awesome. So glad I'm here to experience that with you, guy. We were third in line to go up and I was just praying to sweet Jesus I wouldn't throw up off the side of the boat. Finally it's our turn to go up, I'm pumped because everyone before had said how smooth and nice it was up there, which sounds incredible at this point with all the previous flopping through the boat. We got up in the air, I think he said it was about 600 feet, and it is beautiful. Seriously really beautiful. I was expecting to see a whole bunch of sharks, but surprisingly I didn't see any! It was windy but still not as bad as being in that boat, so I wasn't complaining. But then a huge gust of wind hit us and I swear it felt like we were about to get dumped face first into the Gulf of Mexico. From 600 friggin feet. No thank you. I looked at Danny and said "I literally never want to do this ever again." to which he responded "Yeah no never again." We spent roughly 8-10 minutes in the air, got dunked about waist high into the water, and then got back on the boat. This is where things turned south quickly. One more group had to go up, so we had probably 20 more minutes till it was over. That's when it hit me. That "Oh my goodness this is going to happen with all these strangers staring at me" feeling. I tapped Danny on the shoulder, while getting pounded in the face by huge waves of water, and he quickly realized I was about to lose it. He asked if I could sit in the lower spot at the back of the boat, apparently sitting lower helps? Yeah whatever. I did what I prayed wouldn't happen. I was THAT GIRL who threw up off the side of the boat. I knew in writing this blog and challenging myself to a bunch of new experiences that there was sure to be a few that I didn't like. That's the whole point, right? I guess I just didn't expect it to happen on challenge two. I basically hated everything about parasailing, but to be fair, if the water hadn't been so choppy (red flags - high hazard) and it hadn't been so windy, I'm sure my experience would have been MUCH different. I am so glad I did it, to have that once in a lifetime experience, to share this crazy story with you guys, to laugh about it now. But yes, never ever ever going to do that ever ever again -K
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Pausing a moment from my personal challenges (I mean, I've done one so far, probably need to get moving on that) to set a challenge for all of us.
This week has been HELL. The state of our country, the state of our world, is heart breaking and unspeakable. I'm sitting here with my two baby girls, listening to Thomas the Train play on TV, holding back tears because WHAT IS HAPPENING?? What will it be like when they are my age? What will the state of the world be like for them? I can't go there. My husband Danny said something once about who we are as a family, and it stuck with me, it grew roots in my heart - Love is our culture. That's it. That's who we are. That's what we teach our girls, it's something I fail at often but strive for always. To be love. To show love. To give love. SO my challenge to you, to me...show some extra love today. Go out of your way. Not just in your circle (but yes of course, love on your friends and family too!) Smile at a stranger. Buy them coffee. Let people over in traffic. Talk to someone and learn their story. Show joy and kindness even when you're feeling grumpy. We aren't that different. Hate, indifference, it will never ever solve anything. Make your world a little bigger. We don't have to agree on one dang thing. But I will absolutely treat you with kindness and respect. Love will always be the answer. -K Let me start this first post by saying that we're potty training. What better way to celebrate our freedom than to lock ourselves up in the house and potty train our stubborn, strong willed 3 year old. It's not going as bad as I was expecting, but it does make this mama realllll tired and reallll punchy (feeling way better now that I'm sipping a margarita). We had one accident and two successes, Praise the good Lord for that! BUT in the midst of saying "go sit on your potty Olive" more than a hundred times today, I got hungry and wanted a treat. We recently went to the 12th South Peach Festival and got a lot of yummy produce and a big bag of The Peach Truck peaches! They are so good, and I've been wanting to bake a sweet something with them..which turned into challenge number one - Make something new with only things I find in my pantry. I found my peaches, some blueberries, a roll of pizza dough, sugar, and vanilla extract, and decided to try out blueberry peach hand pies. I've made pies in the past, but my biggest challenge in the kitchen is getting overwhelmed with tons of ingredients, so I figured this would be great, only a few ingredients and I mean, how hard is it to mess up some pre-made dough, some fruit, and some sugar.. I measured out about a half cup of blueberries, cut up two peaches (and then realized I only needed one, so Danny used the rest for a yummy corn, peach, tomato, basil salad, thanks babe!) some sugar, and a roll of pizza dough. If you're feeling extra inspired, these pies would probably be even better with homemade dough (but we're potty training, so who even has time for that??) I rolled the dough out and cut it with a wide mouth mason jar and filled the pies with a little bit of each fruit and a sprinkle of sugar. Then I topped them with an egg wash mixed with a little more sugar (about 2 tsp for the 8 pies) and a bit of vanilla extract. Popped those babies in the oven on 390 for about 15 minutes. I realize this is not your normal blog recipe post, but I was absolutely winging it with what I had, so these are rough estimates! I really love how they turned out (and we all know that I was praying that at least one would look pretty enough to snap a photo of, luckily I got three, ha!) Baking stresses me OUT. Well, cooking, in general, gives me anxiety. You'll learn that pretty quickly if you continue to read on. I get overwhelmed with the process, get real frustrated if things look different or it doesn't work the way it says it's supposed to. And also, who really has tapioca flour or xanthan gum just lying around?? I sure don't. BUT I'm realizing that for one, things don't have to be super complicated to be awesome (I mean there were five ingredients in these hand pies). And two, learning to be patient in the process is half the battle. Patience is not my strong suit (another thing you'll learn pretty quickly!) SO basically what I'm saying is that if you can make blueberry peach hand pies on a whim, you're probably capable of potty training your toddler! Be right back, going to eat all of them right now.
-K |
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