February Blooms.

I enjoyed the most wonderful evening with my "sissy", Jody. We became artists, well at least I did. Jody is already a talented artist...that B. We took a painting class at Glazed Expressions. This 3-hour tour included sipping on a little red wine that the instructor so graciously allowed.  I thought this was going to be some kind of paint by number kind of evening. I mean, who could possibly learn to be a painter in 3 hours!

Well, you can imagine the intimidation when we arrived and stared at our blank canvases. I'm thinking, I didn't bring enough wine. Our instructor, Eric was wonderful. He immediately made us feel at ease by saying it didn't need to be exact or perfect. We followed his lead and he cast his magic art spell.

We were careful not to dip the paint brush in our wine glasses. It didn't take us long to get into the art groove and begin creating our masterpieces. I looked around at one point and Jody and I were the only people standing while we painted. Almost dancing. We laughed, we envied each others paintings in progress. We added more color, we sat back. Added more color. The class was all leaving and the two of us were still finishing up the special last touches.

Happy Birthday again, Jody! We want to do this again!! Who's in?

I can add something to my growth chart this year.
I am a painter.
Happy is.

January Growth Chart.

 A few things have grown in this house in the first month of 2013. Some better than others....

1. It's been a crazy competitive year for the family and their amaryliss game. My plant was named "irtsie" after my mother's nickname in high school. A name she didn't like so much. I don't know why, what a beauty this gal named Irtsie is.
2. My goal for the year is to get in better shape. Like most of America. My bootcamp instructor, Jen has given us a challenge since November to complete a daily challenge above and beyond normal workout. I have nearly finished January, just a few squat jump presses to go. I think the Feb challenge needs to be lifting weights because my efforts in the gym don't seem to be dissolving the tummy at all!! What up? Don't say it. AGE...
3. Our debt is about to grow in 2013 with a home remodel of the kitchen which leads to the family room which leads to the bathroom which leads to our master bedroom to house the washer and dryer which leads to our master bathroom#bankrupt! Stay tuned.
4. Hannah has had a growth in knowledge this month. Finals ended well. ACT classes are in full force. She got a job and she has received her first two college inquiries!
5. Elie grew in swimming this month, qualifiying in 3 events for state swim meet. 100 back, 200 back and 100 fly! She's going after 3 more this weekend. Go Elie:)
6. Baby Katy. Not such a baby anymore. She recently took the ITBS tests in school.. my little one is pulling the wool over me.. she acts like she's young and helpless at home. My 3rd grader is reading like a 6th grader at school! And is advanced in every subject (and I still dress her for school in the morning:) 
7. Hannah's car is growing old. A new ignition later, and we're good to go.
8. Gut check. Still not shrinking. Afraid that a real diet is in our future.
9. The month was really about organizing life and getting back to a routine after the holidays. Lots of drawers and closets to go through. Lots of appointments to make...ie. I was so busy traveling to countries last year that I'm 18 months past due on visiting a dentist!!! crazy. Blink and life flies by.
10. Cooking. I leave this for last. I have really hit the wall in this department. It's been really hard to go back to normal everyday. I have to think about meals free-hand. No country to guide me. It's funny, everyone thought is was so hard to go from country to country. It was actually easier because it gave me a rule to follow, a decision to be made. No wishy washy. Plus, when you're cooking with certain flavors, it's easier to share ingredients throughout the week vs. switching from bbq to italian to mexican.

So, cheers to the 1st month behind us. February is going to be fun. We are diving into the kitchen and home remodel pretty hard. Andy will be the demolition guy come March. Never a dull moment in the Gillaspey house. I just need to focus on this new person I am in the kitchen without a country to lean on....

GROW.

An innocent little girl named Katy has inspired the upcoming year of blogging. She was sitting at the kitchen table a few weeks before Christmas, tinkering around with a very small container of Play-Dough. The kind you get as a party favor. Not much to work with. I was of course telling her to hurry up, put it away as we were racing out on a Christmas errand. I wasn't really paying attention to what she was doing. My focus was the clock. I paused. She had taken all the clay she had to work with and created the most beautiful message. So simple. I marveled at the art before me. She had taken a concept which I'm sure started out as a flower and ended up with this. I wished at that moment to be a kid again.

A part of my blog mantra this year is going to focus on Growth. As I mentioned in my last post, it's time to challenge ourselves. Learn new things. Life is too short to think there's always going to be a tomorrow. It's time to drink up every moment that life has to offer. The good, the bad and the ugly. I read an article recently that suggested that you need to create a jar that you put your happy moments and accomplishments into throughout the year. And at the end of the year on New Years Eve, you reach into the jar and read what made you happy. What made you grow. In the same vain, I'm going to add another jar for the thorns thrown our way.  Because by the end of the year, it will be interesting to see how we resolved them — demonstrating what made us grow.

Example: Hannah finished finals and walked away with a B in Math and Chemistry. Maybe not an A, but a real accomplishment for the girl that doesn't have the math-science brain! Her thorn... we;; yesterday she cam home and told Andy that her Debit Card quit working. She said she had used it in the morning and then when she tried again, it didn't work. His response: "you ran out of money". Yes it's true, our working girl finally depleted her summer savings from being a lifeguard. Life lesson. Kind of thorny... well, she immediately applied for a job and has an interview on Monday!

Here's to the jars of life!
Happy is.

Happy New Year!

Wow, what a whirlwind the last few weeks have been. I sort of went off the social grid in order to live in the realities of life at home. We survived the snow storm and the Christmas and the New Year. We kind of aborted the last two weeks of countries due to the craze. I can assure you that the kitchen was working overtime, baking up a storm. Here's the top 11 list of what was made (in no favored order):

Buckeyes

Oreo Truffles

Pecan Tassies

Haystacks

Dipped Pretzels

Pretzel Wreaths

Almond Bars

Spritz

Christmas Cut-outs

Sweet Cereal Mix
Peanut butter Chocolate Sandwiches

It's now a New Year. Everyone is asking what I'm going to do with my blog. Am I going to keep traveling in the kitchen? My immediate answer is NO. Dad is taking back his duties in the kitchen:) Andy had a great idea. We are going to revisit our favorite meal from each country this year. It sounds easy. The recipe is already there. I now need to rename every blog entry with the recipe title. I guess I wasn't thinking ahead...so you can see, it's a late start. It's now the 2nd week in January and we have moved into our 2nd week of travels to Italy. Completely missed Japan, though we DID make our Asian Chili on 12/28 while celebrating Ugly Christmas Sweater moment with my sissies and kin. So that counts!

So still the question, what's my blog path this year? I'm actually kind of lost in the kitchen right now. Meal planning is hard. I know longer have an assignment, a challenge. It's funny how motivated you are when you are directed or assigned something. Sort of like the gym. I do better when someone is telling me what to do. Elie even mentioned that she hates swimming a workout on her own without a coach telling her what to do. What if we all challenged each other to do something this year? I can imagine the success and accomplishment. Maybe that's it. Maybe I'll come up with a weekly challenge for all of you. 

Stay tuned. I promise for something entertaining!

Happy is.

Home.

That is where we will be as we finish out the year. The events that occurred on Friday leave me with emptiness. I have no energy to focus on anything new. I want normal. I want comfort. Comfort for the families who have lost their babies. It's such a senseless tragedy. The only sense I can make of it is proving that life is meant to be cherished. Procrastination must end for the old saying, "there's always tomorrow" takes on a whole new meaning. You might not be so lucky to have your tomorrow. America needs a wake-up call. We need to start acting like humans again, going back to the simple things we learned in Kindergarten. Where have we lost compassion for another person's life? There isn't one thing we can point to for blame. It's our society that has created a perfect storm. Guns are bad. Doesn't anyone get that? Violent replications of killing on video games must immediately be banned. Really? Hours and hours of watching people get blown up has to have a desensitized reaction to the brain after a while. Especially for brains that can't separate reality from fiction. I have no answers. God will sort this out and guide us along the way. We must keep the faith.

This week is the cookie countdown. Sunday, the girls spent hours over at their Uncle "Bs'" house, baking cookies and frosting them. Katy had the most fun. She took a nutcracker and made it a Frankenstein! Andy has the baking schedule organized. Monday he whipped up our famous Sweet Cereal Mix while Elie churned out a pretzel wreath (this needs a more clever name). I'm gaining weight as we speak... Looking forward to the blizzard to tuck into our home so we can dance and sing and bake cookies in our jammies. Ok, so I'm dreaming. The kids may not have school tomorrow but us working folk will battle the roads in the cold.

Running out of time to post last night's baking. Stay tuned.

Where's the Beef?

S-T-E-L-L-A......From the famous movie scene in a Streetcar Named Desire (1951), comes the story of yesterday. I'm not saying I was a raging animal at the hands of savage like Stanley Kowalsky but lets just say "Calgon" wasn't going to help me. Well, maybe if I had time!  My plan was solid. Crockpot, how could anything go wrong?

Well well, it all started after I carefully fried up the bacon, sliced the onion real thin and was reaching into the refrigerator for the meat. Where's the beef? I searched high and low. Even made a trip out to the garage fridge. Even checked the freezer thinking I had tossed it in there. No beef. Really? I failed to pick up the beef at the grocery store this week. It was on the list of ingredients I didn't buy at Target on Sunday. I was going to pick it up. It would have been easy. I think I've been to the store at least twice since my Target trip. Andy even asked if we needed anything else the night before when he was going to the store...so you see, I'm really trying to keep it together. I told the girls we were having bacon and onion for dinner....

Between this highly stressed out time of the holiday prep and my work schedule being the busiest its ever been in the last three years, I'm ready to snap. Vice-gripping headaches and all. My Boot camp leader announced that if life was too stressed, that we should skip class to get that extra sleep... the gym is the only thing keeping me SANE. So sorry, Jen, only illness will keep me from attending.  On the bright side, Andy and I are road tripping to KC on Saturday without the girls. Shopping and great dining, a little R&R to get us through the next two weeks.

I've heard so many wonderful things about Belgium cuisine and feel we have been robbed of enjoying this country this week. Oh well, there's always next year. We did finally eat the meat and it was comfort. Though, Elie chimed in that it really had no flavor. Hmmm.. all that work to feed the family. I hope they don't starve while we're gone.

Flemish Carbonades
Ingredients:
2-3 lbs. of boneless beef chuck, cut into 1-inch cubes
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 tsp. brown sugar
1 clove garlic, minced
1 (12 oz.) beer
2 bacon slices, cooked and crumbled
3 Tbl. corn starch
1/4 cup water
Cooked Noodles

Directions:
In a slow cooker, combine meat, onion, slt, pepper, brown sugar, garlic, beer and bacon. Cover an cook on LOW 5-7 hours or until meat is tender. Turn control to HIGH. Dissolve cornstarch in water. Stir into meat mixture. Cover and cook on HIGH 20 to 30 minutes or until slightly thickened. Server over noodles.
Recipe from Mable Hoffman's crockery cookbook.

p.s. ok, maybe the blandness came in because I forgot to add the salt. The power of a tsp...wow. Who knew?

Belgium Waffles.

How can you go wrong with serving breakfast for dinner. The girls really got a kick out of this notion. They kept asking me what was for dinner, starting with Monday night. It continued. I knew they had heard me the 1st time. They either wanted me to slip or they needed to be reinforced that yes, we would be eating breakfast for dinner. I even caught myself saying "breakfast" at dinner. Funny. Even funnier at the family attempt to throw it down in 20 minutes, bacon and all!

I had a Hair Dr. appointment which threw timing off a hair (ha). I needed to stop and buy bacon. Meanwhile, home was calling. I screamed out orders. Unstack the dishwasher... "uh, dad is doing that". Ok, I screamed, start making the waffle batter. And Elie took charge and whipped up the mix. Ok, we're in Belgium, but we're taking shortcuts. We're Americans, people! Whipped up a few "to-go" orders and the girls were on their way to Southeast Polk for swim practice....if only my night were now going to relax a bit....I indulged on a waffle myself. I even added a little crunchy peanut butter to take me back to my childhood where my mom served us breakfast for dinner on occasion. What a great memory I have of eating waffles for dinner. Comfort at its best.

Well, it wasn't quite time for a "Calgon" moment. I took off for Valley High School to volunteer in concessions. So the buzz when I arrived was that the sophomore game had gone over their normal play time. Which pushed the girls varsity back. Which pushed the boys varsity back. Which pushed my 8:30 completion into 10:00 pm. Overtime. I left before the game was over. Valley won! Tuesday. Crazy. I wish Saturday was going to greet me in the morning.

Let us not forget that Christmas is two weeks away...no worries...eat waffles...Happy is.