Mommy plus Five

Thanks for the memories July.

August...please be gentle.  And not so hot!

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Love,

My 365...


Happy Last Day of July!

This has been an amazing month. My family is whole again plus three which is remarkable. Amber, baby Cooper and Kori are very important and very loved members of our family circle. Brandon being home again has made me so very happy. I had missed his company, his personality, his smart alec "quips and his strength. Brandon is an amazing loving young man and I am so proud and blessed to have him in my life.

Amber brings a light spirited and loving aura to this family. She fits right in and we love her. Baby Cooper is the sunshine of our family! Kori being back in Garrett's life is wonderful, she is funny and smart and kind and I love her so much. The chemistry is perfect and it works. The best part...if we have a problem or misunderstanding we will work it out. I have learned from past experience that if you truly sincerely care about someone, you will not let conflict interfere.  You will work it out, and I have made a promise to everyone that I will do just that.  It is part of growing up and being an adult in life. I will never ever take them for granted, and I will never EVER allow any negativity from the outside world influence our karma in any way.  Mama bear on duty...beware.  Rawrrrr.  :)

So often people I know would rather "take their toys and run away" rather than build upon and improve relationships with important people in their lives. The end result is isolation and no "true" connections.  On the surface they appear connected and involved with other people in their life, but on shaky ground at best.  It is an illusion, and illusions fade. Illusions will not be there for you when you really truly need them.  I am no illusion.

This morning...erhmmm...afternoon (yes I over slept!) I woke up to find Brandon, Amber, Casey and Blake engaged in an Android game we found in the market yesterday.  I downloaded it to my Android tablet and they were taking turns playing it together.  They were having that much fun!  I then handed my cell phone over to Casey so he could play it on the cell phone.  I realized that I would probably never see my tablet and cell phone again!  So what is a mom to do?  Google!

I found a program for PC that lets you run Android APK's on your PC.  I figured it out and quickly installed it on two PC's and will be sure and install it on the rest of the computers in the house so mama can have her toys back.  lol  I am such a geek!

Garrett and Kori are coming for dinner this evening.  Amber is making French Dip sandwiches.  Yumm!

French Dip Sammies!!
My photos of the day...

With a little assistance from her apprentice Blake, Amber made her amazing Basil Lemon Blueberry Cupcakes.
 Cooling on the rack.
 Filled with lemon curd and blueberry.


Each cake filled with her special lemon creamy goodness and a blueberry.  The icing made with basil blueberry butter cream. I never dreamed in a million years you could use basil in a desert, the flavor is unbelievably amazing.



I can honestly say I have never had a more delicious cupcake experience in my life!  There are no adequate adjectives to describe the flavors and how they work together.  Yummy!

Then she asks me "What are you feeling for dinner Veronica?"  Are you kidding me!  I will just enjoy my cupcake...who needs any dinner?

Thank you Amber.  :)

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Love,

My 365...

Thanks to Amber, Blake has taken a real interest in cooking and baking.  He is loving spending time in the kitchen with Amber, and she is incredibly patient with him.  She is an amazing teacher.

Last night before bed he made me a surprise desert.

A lovely chocolate covered banana topped with fresh blueberries.  He is so cute.

This afternoon they are baking some homemade Lemon Basil Blueberry cupcakes!  I will be sure to post pictures of the finished product.  The kitchen smells amazing.  :)

We are enjoying a nice restful Saturday together.  I know I keep saying this over and over, but I am really enjoying having Brandon, Amber and Cooper here with me.  I hope they never leave!!  <3


Music I am listening to today...Bon Jovi

Random Link of the Day...The original Angry Bird?

Until next time..."The woman who follows the crowd, will usually go no further than the crowd.  The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before." ~Albert Einstein

Hope your weekend is amazing.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Love,

The cutest boys in the world.  :)


Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Love,

My 365...

Special delivery!  Look what arrived for grandma today...Cooper!  :)

Happy Friday everyone.  I hope you have a perfectly wonderful weekend wherever you are.



Music I am listening to today...Seal.

Random Link of the Day...<3

Until next time..."What the world needs is a new kind of army, the army of kind." ~Cleveland Armory.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Love,

My 365...

Good day today.  Cooper was excited to see me this morning and that always makes me happy.  His sweet smile is an awesome way to start the day!  Amber had a good meeting with her future employer and feels positive about it.  Yay!  I am so proud of her.  This will be an excellent opportunity.

Brandon is not so happy, his computer decided to stop functioning.  He is brilliant though, I am sure he will get it up and running again.  It's always something!  :*(

No news on my test results yet.  Waiting is hard, but I did get good news on another project and will start training on it soon.

It has been a delightfully drama free day.  :)

Photo of the day...

My Scentsy warmer that Garrett and Kori got me for Mother's Day is doing a great job with my new Scentsy cubes.  I will say they smell amazing, but do not last as long as I had hoped they would.  Not sure they are worth all that money.  


Music I am listening to today...Silver Starling.

Random Link of the Day...Leaf Art.

Until next time..."I think every week should have one day in it when boys give presents to girls."  ~Lucy Van Pelt

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Love,

My 365...

Wow, I can't believe July is almost over!  This is a good thing though because it means only one more month of heat until I can enjoy my favorite season of all time...Fall!  Autumn in Boise is spectacular.

This also means school will be back in session as well and it is time for me to organize next year's study guides.  Blake has still not decided if he wants to home school or traditional school.  I am going to proceed as if he wants to home school so at least my brain will be in gear when the time comes.

Today I completed testing for a new work project and it literally took most of the day to prepare and the test itself was for just over 2 hours.  I am pretty sure I did great...I hope I did anyway.  We shall see!

My photos of the day...

How gorgeous are these two little guys?



 They are so precious, and they make me so happy.  Cooper is growing ridiculously fast and is without question the most brilliant little boy in the world.  Grandma can say that ya know.  :)

For dinner I threw together a quick tray of cheese enchiladas, and now we are settling down for a nice relaxing evening.  Life is good.  No, life is amazing.  <3



Music I am listening to today...Devendra Banhart

Random Link of the Day...Nerdgasm.

Until next time..."You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where you backbone oughta be."

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Love,

I am really disappointed in me today.  I woke up feeling heavy and sad and generally not happy with life.  Why?

I allowed my sisters to drag me back into a world I had abandoned a long time ago.  That world was the world of my family.  I am not saying that I had a bad family, because that would imply that I had bad parents...and my parents were amazing.  My mom dedicated her entire life to us.  She worked full time, she cared for her mother in her last years, she cared for us, she cared for her husband and she lived the last 30 or so years of her life battling disease and doing so with grace and courage.  And mom never complained.  She accepted and celebrated everything God sent her way.

Daddy was different.  He was charming and generous to people who knew him.  He could be impatient and scary to me, but I loved him.  He was not perfect, in many ways his actions could be cruel and selfish, but as I have grown older I have come to the realization that despite all of that, he loved mom and he loved my sisters and I more than anything else in his world.  I also realized that daddy carried a lot of depression in his mind and in his heart and he did the best with what he had.

I moved away from Texas in 1996, and have never been back and will more than likely never go back.  Every family has skeletons in the closet, and when I crossed the border of Texas...I left all that heaviness and sadness behind with no intention of ever letting it into my life again.  I haven't and I never will.  Those feelings left behind were dark and heavy and sad and I never wanted to experience life that way again.  I would not be defined by my past, I would create my own family and live my life my way.  After all, isn't that what we all set out to do?

I kept my family in my life from a comfortable distance.  I tried to talk on the phone daily to my mom and dad, and every now and then with my sisters, but I was not in that same bubble of control that I felt in Texas.  I could breathe freely, and it has been great.

No one is perfect.  Certainly I do not claim to be perfect.  But I know I am a good person and there is nothing about my life that shames me.  Not one thing.  Since living here in Idaho I have dealt with some sadness and some stress, but they have been MY stresses to work out on my own.  And I have done that and continue to do that today.  My stress on my terms with my solutions.  No external factors or people to dictate to me how to be or not to be in my own life.  Isn't that what we all strive for?

So why the heaviness and sadness today?  I have two sisters who are very different from myself.  I love them both dearly, but I do not like the person they are.  We have nothing in common.  Every now and then they fling open that door to the past and attempt to pull me back in but I refuse to go there.  So today I nail that door shut!  I nail it shut because neither one of them wants to work with me to deal with the skeletons.  All they want to do is cast blame and hurt and when I get caught up in that game I change who I am in order to stay afloat, and I start to do the same thing.  I do not like being that person.  I am not that person.  Being angry and vindictive and cruel is not part of my makeup. So enough!  Enough.  Exit stage left, Veronica is done.  I will leave the drama to the professionals.

Mom and dad are in MY heart the way I remember them to be period.  I loved them, and they loved me and I will love them forever.  Our life was not perfect, but it was "our" life.  My mom was, still is and will always be my hero.  And my daddy was, still is and will always be my daddy.  <3  If my sisters chose to cut me from their lives, so be it.  I am now and will always be their sister...but I am Veronica first, last and always.  I forgive and forget all that was not right in my world then and now and move on.  Amen!

"No one can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

Okay...back to the real world...Amber made some hot fresh scones for breakfast, and I have testing for a new project today.  It is going to be an amazing day!!

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Love,

Amber prepared a delicious Cesar salad with chicken and tortellini.  So good!

Thank you Amber :)


Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Love,

My 365...

Something magical happens when you turn 50, and it is an amazing and welcomed change.

You stop caring about the things that don't matter.  Am I thin enough?  Do I look good in this outfit?  Am I wearing enough makeup?  I can't leave the house unless my hair is all did...lol

Instead you worry about things that matter.  Is this a healthy choice for dinner, I need to wear my sunscreen, pony tail or hat?  I prefer sweet smelling soap and shampoo...to more hair spray and Channel No. 5.  I like my face just the way it is.  No need to apply 20 pounds of makeup, botox or expensive wrinkle creams.  I celebrate my tiny lines. Now does that mean I don't like to dress up and look pretty amazing from time to time?  No, it just means I think I am pretty just being me.  However, we do have to moisturize ladies!

I am not saying at 50 we all start looking like grandmas in house coats and "chanklas", but for me it is more about looking kind and welcoming rather than made up and distant.

Another great transition is mental maturity and calm.  When someone attacks me verbally I don't think of a great comeback and attack back.  Instead I sit, take a deep breath, then express my feeling with more than a word or two, and offer advice on how to make it better or ask what I can do to help?

I have always been honest, but now everything that comes out of my mouth is how it really is.  I am 50 years into this ride, I do not need to pretend. It is not important to impress anyone other than myself.  I am settled into the person that I have become and I like me.

I have to tell you, it is the most amazing way to be.  There is no room for anger, bitterness or hate in my heart,  nor is there room for any regret because there is an overload of love and happiness and wonder to fill every single empty space.

The truth is, life does begin at 50, and it can be remarkable and so freaking comfortable!  :)

My photos of the day...

Spending a quiet moment with my grandson Cooper.



"Mama?  Have I been replaced by the little human?"

Music I am listening to today... Emily Haines & the Soft Skeleton  

Random Link of the Day...29 ways to stay creative.  

Until next time..."At the worst, a house unkempt cannot be so distressing as a life unlived."  ~Rose Macaulay


Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Love,

My 365...


I am too busy being a mom, to worry about you.

I am too busy loving my life, to worry about you.

Perhaps if you took the time to see how amazing being a mother is, you would not have time...to worry about me.

Perhaps if you took the time to celebrate your children, there would be no time for bitterness or anger.

Life is a gift.  It is here one moment and gone the next.  No one knows what happens at the end when the light fades.

I want to live while the light is still shinning bright.

Sharing the magic of that light with the people I love.

Cast your shadow in another direction.

We will not have it in our world.

Life is good.  :)

Use your time wisely...live it.

And that my friends...is that.

My photo of the day...

I decided to work in my room today as it is much cooler and quiet back here.  Sometimes quiet is a good thing.

But who was I kidding?  I am never alone....





Music I am listening to today...India Arie.

Random link of the day...Cloud covered valley in Italy.

Until next time..."I am so thankful for the life God gave me, and the beautiful children he left in my care."


Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Love,

My 365...

Family Sunday, that is what we are having today.  And it has been a delightful day thus far.  :)

Garrett and Kori stopped by craving some macaroni and cheese.  I was out of cheese so they went to the store and got a big block of cheddar cheese and I made two batches of impromptu home made Mac-N-Cheese and it tasted pretty darn good if I should say so myself.  Oh wait...I just did.

Then the mama-razzi pulled out her camera and became her usual obnoxious photographer self....lol



 Grandpa having a conversation with baby Cooper.
 Baby Cooper having a conversation with his daddy.  <3
It was a great day.

I woke up feeling really upset because some negative karma had come crashing into my world in the form of a random email from my sister.  It took me several hours to come to terms with what was going on, but I have and I am all better now.  I will never quite understand the obsession with my life that they seem to have, and why the need to be so critical and mean, but it is what it is and what it is not...is me.  I am not part of that world anymore.

Having all my babies here today is all the world I need.  <3



Music I am listening to today...the loud wonderful sounds of a small house full of people.  :)

Random Link of the Day... The Inspiration Tree.

Until next time..."The only person that can ever truly make you happy is yourself. Stop depending on everyone else."


Have a wonderful Monday.


Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Love,