Wordless Wednesday

Some days you just have to put on your mean girl face. Today was definitely one of them! 

A Child Called It

I recently got through reading the first three books written by David Pelzer: A Child Called It, The Lost Boy and A Man Named Dave. The books were published a in the 90's and they were always referenced in class throughout graduate school. I kept a running list of books mentioned by various professors to read when time allowed. Two and half years after graduating with my master's degree, I just got around to this series!

The first book focuses on the experiences David Pelzer had as a child, growing up in a home with two alcoholic parents and the extreme abuse he endured. There were times I felt nauseous reading the book due to the abuse his mother inflicted upon him.

 The second book, The Lost Boy, focuses on David's rescue and his subsequent experiences in the foster care system in California in the 1970's: how he tries to fit in and make sense of his experiences.  The last book, A Man Named Dave, is about Dave as an adult and how his experiences with his mother carry over into adulthood and reflects how he views himself.

I worked as a therapist in the world of child protection for about 6 months. I worked with families were Child Protective Services had legal sufficient to remove the children from the home. We were the last resort before the children were removed and placed in foster care. Because of my experiences, I feel I am overly cautious whenever I suspect any maltreatment. With that being said, I CAN NOT fathom the extent of the abuse ensured by the author and the fact that it was considered normal discipline in that time. I guess I never realized the slow progression of the development of what we now know as the Child Protective Service System.

I think I enjoyed the last book, A Man Named Dave, the most. He struggles to connect with people due to his lack of proper attachment as a child.  Even though he struggled to feel worthy and still wanted his mother's acceptance, He was able to overcome his circumstances. Never did he use his experiences as a child as an excuse or a crutch. He used that as a turning point from where he strength grew. I feel that too often we view our experiences as road blocks instead of speed bumps. It is a reality check for me to read someone who endured so much and remains an optimist. Even though he lacked a model of what a parent should be like, he was able to pull himself together when he became a father. Experiencing abuse as a child is a risk factor in how one will interact and discipline their own children and whether or not that abuse will be reenacted. David again defied the odds and showed nothing but love to his son.

I now  work with Adults with Severe and Persistent Mental Illness. They often have experienced traumatic events in their lives, often times in the form of physical or sexual abuse they endured as children. While those experiences certainly shape us and influence us, they do not dictate who we are or what we can become. I wish I could make all my client's read this book to help them realize that are not defined by what happens to use and we have the ability to overcome negative experiences.

Clearly these are not "feel good" books. Regardless, I highly recommend them, therapist or not :)

To Garden or Not to Garden

Lately, I have been "pinning" lots of garden ideas on Pinterest. I really have the desire to plant a small vegetable garden in the back yard. But to be honest, when I ready a lot of the blogs I start to feel overwhelmed(pH, Fertilizing, row spacing, specifics times to plant, etc). So this year, I decided to start with some herbs. I picked up 2 mountable planters at Big Lots for $10 each. I thought they would look nice under the two small windows on the back of our house. Then I picked up 6 herb plants at Lowe's with a gift card I had on hand. I opted for Basil, Thyme, Rosemary, Chives, Sage and Dill. While they have been planted, We just got around to mounting them this past weekend. Nothing beats cooking with fresh herbs! 

Seeing them mounted made me realized that that ground below them would be the PERFECT place for a vegetable garden. I even stated to shop around for different garden bed options. Even though Aldi has almost the identical bed for $10 cheaper, this Sam's Club version is a much better quality. I was so tempted to buy it on the spot but decided to come home and measure it out first. It's a bit large but would fit the space well. After chatting with Tim and my mom, they made me realize that this might night be the best idea. Lily, our newest dachshund, is only 8 months old and is still very much into everything! She can easily jump over two stacked paving stones to rummage through the existing plants and steal a piece of mulch! I am positive she would try to eat anything I was actually able to grow. So I ended up putting this on the back burner. 

Yesterday when the ads came in the mail, I noticed Lowe's is having a sale on their potted vegetables in honor of Earth Day ( Sunday April 22nd). They are on sale 2 for $3. A really good deal considering I paid $3.79 for each of my potted herbs. Now the desire to start the garden has been rekindled. Anyone have any advice for keeping 6.5 pound dachshund out of garden beds? I should mention she is FAST! :) 

Recipe FAIL!

I stayed home from work today because my allergies were really bothering me (like eyes swollen shut bothering me). I decided to make something easy for dinner and decided to make Buffalo Chicken Garbage Bread. There are recipes for this all over google but I followed this one I found on Pinterest.

Typically, I would make my own whole wheat dough but for convenience sake, tonight I opted for a pre-made pizza dough from the Publix bakery. I followed the recipe down to the letter, only I added some raw onions before rolling up the dough.

Raw bread, rolled up and ready for the oven.

The recipe said to cook on 425 for 20-25 mins. This is where the FAIL comes in. The bottom of my bread was BLACK after 20 minutes. I took it out to find the middle dough still raw. I tried cooking it longer but since the outside was fully cooked, things were cooking very un-proportionally!

We were able to eat it so it wasn't a completed waste (we just ate the outer layer). The flavor was good the cooking method just needs some adjustments! This would also be AWESOME to make with BBQ chicken and cheddar/colby combo!

And Love Like Crazy

I have always loved the song Love Like Crazy by Lee Brice. So when I came across this Landee's shop on Etsy, I knew I had to order one of her boards. I love the idea of having these as "Family Rules" for our house (and future kiddos!)

Since our house is a split plan, there is a small hallway with the two spare bedrooms, a bathroom, and two closets. Honestly, we NEVER use this side of the house. I have been looking for something for the wall space there for a while now. I even picked up this from Joann's awhile back. I brought it home, hung it on the wall and Tim and I both declared we hated it. I like it just not for this space or my house....if that makes sense!
Anyway, I decided this "Love Like Crazy" Board would be the perfect solution. Its right off the dining room so Hauser Green was the pick since our dining room is a similar color. (Initially, I LOVED the teal and considered hanging it in another room).

Now comes the interesting part of the story. I order the board back around March 23rd. Landee was super prompt and got the package out to me quickly. Sadly, it came with a broken corner from shipping. I contacted her to let her know and she was super accommodating! She had insured the package so I went to file a claim at the post office and she sent me another board. It came last Friday (6th) and again a corner was broken. She again sent me another board, no questions asked. It arrived yesterday and I LOVE it. I convinced Tim to hang it up for me tonight.

It looks crooked in the photo but I assure you, its level! 

I love it and in my opinion, it was worth the wait!

Pavers make it all better

When we moved in, the left side of our house looked like this:

ROUGH! One of our biggest investments was replacing the fence as soon as we moved in. I am SO glad I splurged for white vinyl when I look back on these pictures!

In the middle of the lawn renovations last year, our neighbors helped clean up the area by removing all the weeds and rocks along both sides of our house. That left things looking like this:

Aside from laying down a layer of weed guard, this is how it has sat for the past 7 months! There were a couple of reasons for this: 1) We had some drainage issues on this side of the house which limited what we could put here and 2) we uncovered a large area of cement run off at the stop of the 20 ft walkway into the backyard. This meant we could not add mulch here ( as we did along the 20 ft walk way on the right side of the house) because with enough rain, it would be "floating". I was against adding rock. Pavers seemed to be the only way to go. On a side note, we could ONLY add mulch on the right side of our house as our sprinkler system runs to the front along here. Busted pipe + Pavers = pulling up pavers. Not my cup of tea.

We got a couple of estimates before deciding on a contractor. Due to the cost of a pallet and the area being so small, the estimates ended up being more than anticipated. The original area was 5 ft wide by 20 feet long. It ended up only costing $100 more to have an additional 20 feet of pavers installed creating a walk way to the edge of our deck into the backyard.

We selected a stone on Tuesday and the installers showed up Friday morning (about 2 weeks ago) to install the pavers, which we loved.

However, there is one thing we didn't love. See the small space between the fence and the pavers in the above picture? Well apparently my fence line runs off as you walk past the gate into the backyard. Meaning we had 8 inches of space between the fence and the pavers in the backyard, like in the picture below,

That's a huge gap! And I was not a happy camper. I called our installer who explained how the line ran off and how it is customary to start from the house. He could add another row of pavers to the back but then would have to stop randomly as there was not enough space to run another row all the way to the front. He suggested we add stone. I wasn't happy with this solution as I had envisioned pavers to the fence line and I did NOT want to have to weed. HELLO, that was part of the reason behind the pavers!

After sulking for a week, Tim and I went to Lowe's to see what our options were. We took home two different stones but ultimately we both agreed on Lava Rock, as it brought out a lot of the red color in the pavers. We also have red bark mulch running around most of our property so this seemed to blend the best.

I realized as we were adding the Lava Rock, that the cement went almost to the fence. Hopefully, this will block the majority of the weeds from growing under our fence from our neighbor's yard. While at Lowe's, they had a sale on Solar Lights (3 for $10) so we picked up 8 oil rubbed bronze lights to match the rest of our outdoor lighting. We spaced them evenly before added the rock.

Then we added 8 bags of Lava Rock along the fence, leaving us with this:

Although, I was not happy with having to add the rock along the side, I am satisfied with the results. I mean it looks 100 times better than when we moved it. Look at this side by side comparison.

Wordless Wednesday: I am not ashamed

For the Fusion :)

Shed Project Phase 2

Once our shed was assembled, we realized we needed to address the landscaping. There is about a foot and half between the shed and our fence on two sides. As I mentioned here, I ran weed guard along both sides before the walls went up on the shed. We knew we would likely just end up throwing mulch down in these areas. 

We had a bunch of left over Old Castle stones from previous backyard projects that we planned to use to frame out the shed. We started by laying it out. Due to the fact that the paving stones were curved, this took quite a few tries to get it how we wanted it. 

After deciding on a layout, Tim set to work removing the grass and making sure the bricks were level. 

Then it was my turn to lay weed guard in these areas.Tim hates laying this so it is always my default project. Then it was a trip to Lowe's to pick out plants. We couldn't decide on anything we both liked so we headed to Home Depot. We both loved the Eugenia Topiary we planted in the front of the house so we couldn't resist a smaller version for the back. 

Oh and the price tag on the smaller version was more reasonable at $20/each. 


And we picked up some inexpensive Liriope (4 @ $1.98 each), 3 outdoor solar lights (3 for $10) to match our existing landscaping, and a few bags of red bark mulch. 

This left the shed looking like this:

The grass was looking a little rough in this picture but it has since recovered! 

Its slowly coming along! Phase three is to add a window to the front door, run the electric and add two lights above the Eugenia. I may also add a window box to the side window...if the husband will let me! 


Phase 2 Budget- $70 as we already had the stones on hand. 


OH...and Lily (who is still a puppy) had a blast stealing Tim's gloves whenever he took a break.

Sensational Sunday (in pictures)

Last week was VERY stressful at work. I was so looking forward to the weekend. We got into a house project yesterday so I really needed today to be productive. Let's just say I haven't been this prepared for the start of a week in a while.

I was at Publix at 9am doing my weekly grocery shopping. I also had to make a quick trip up to the Natural Food Store to pick up Chia seeds for one of my afternoon experiments. I was home by 11 and then spent the next 3 hours in the kitchen! 

Oh and I had a little "help" from Lily with putting away the groceries....

First up was a pot of homemade sauce and sausage. I let it cook ALL day. It makes the house smell AMAZING. 

I struggle with breakfast during the week. I always have intention of making oatmeal but never have time to sit down and eat it ( My Blackberry usually starts around 6:30-7 am). So I usually end up eating a 100 cal English Muffin and then I am hungry by 10. So when I saw this on Pinterest I decided to give it a go. 

I made 3 Vanilla Strawberry and 3 Apple Cinnamon. I am counting points on Weight Watchers again and these are 5 points plus and I am hoping they will be more filling. I guess we will find out in the morning. 

Next up, Homemade yogurt. I make this every few months when I go on one of my "no artificial sweetener" kicks. It is still cooking as we speak. 

I have also been OBSESSED with raw kale salads lately. I could eat it everyday. I try to make it only every 2 weeks or so. I don't want to get sick of it. I got the idea from Roni over at Greenlitebites but I adapt it to what suits me. So we have four salads already dished out for lunches this week. 

I also washed and chopped all the fruit in the house for easy snacking. 

I know watermelon is not in season but it is surprisingly good!

And made Tim's lunch...everyday, a ham sandwich! Our tastes couldn't be more different!

We just ate dinner, the laundry is done, and  I have been doing some work stuff. Now its time to relax. Even with a productive Sunday, I still find myself asking "How is the weekend over already"?