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Rest day

Today was a rest day for me. I had planned to go with the Mayor and Hubby to Daytona for hockey today, but my stomach was quite disagreeable. The last place you want to be when your stomach is questionable is in a car for four hours. Consequently, the puppies and I are at home chilling and enjoying our rest day.

I started sourdough loaves this morning. It’s a bit cool outside, so the dough is taking longer to rise today. Hopefully, the dough is ready for the fridge by the time I’m ready to go to bed. The loaves have a second rise that takes place overnight and in the fridge. Then tomorrow morning, the loaves will be ready for the oven. I fed the starter this evening, so I can start more loaves tomorrow if needed.

My active rest day has been productive. I got a lot of work done around the house. My to-do list was shelved over the holidays as I wasn’t feeling great. Today, while my stomach isn’t great, I feel pretty good otherwise. I checked a lot of items off my to-do list this afternoon, which felt great. The capstone to my night was a trip to Target for a few items. When I left the store the sun was setting the sky was magnificent. It looked like the sky had been painted.

2025 Goal Tracker:

  • Run a 5K: in training
  • Complete Kayla Itsines program: in progress
  • No afternoon Starbucks (except for travel/vacations): 4 days in and I haven’t buckled!
  • Top performer at work: it’s been two days, but so far so good
  • Travel: working on it
  • Eat to lower inflammation: in progress
  • Read daily: in progress. I started reading Armadale by Wilkie Collins – so good.
  • Get out of debt: in progress
  • Financial independence: in progress

What is the greatest gift someone could give you?

The greatest gift someone could ever give me was their love and their time.

Today’s music video:

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Two Days

We’re now two days away from the big day. I’ve spent most of the day fending off a tension/migraine headache, which is so lame. Hopefully, it will be gone by tomorrow. In the meantime, I’ve been alternating between cold and heat to loosen up my neck and shoulders. Fortunately, I’ve still managed to be somewhat productive. I got the pictures ready for the rehearsal dinner and wedding. And I got the cookies under control. I’ll be baking a double or triple batch of butter cookies tonight.

I binge-watched Netflix’s Decameron as I alternated between the heat and ice. The Decameron, by Nicholas Boccaccio, is one of my favorite books. It follows a group of friends who leave Florence for the countryside to try and avoid the plague. While in the countryside, they spend their time telling short stories daily. The stories are amazing. It’s said that the Decameron inspired Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. The limited series on Netflix doesn’t follow the book per se but follows nobles taking refuge in the countryside. I have quite enjoyed it.

Tonight I’ll have all three boys under one roof. What a gift! They’ll be playing video games and eating their favorite snacks. The Hubby is making jerk chicken with black beans and rice. One of Jake’s, and all of ours’, favorite meals. While they play video games, I’ll be mixing up more cookies and binge-watching a different show. Poor Ani will have to sleep in his cage tonight since he can’t be trusted with visitors. Before I forget, I have to say thanks to my dear coworker Sherry for the beautiful happy hanky. Two Days!

What’s the story behind your nickname?

My great great Grandfather’s name was Andreas. He was born at the Trandem farm in Romskog, Norway. We were lucky to visit the place where our ancestors were born in 2017. The doctors thought I was going to be a boy, but I surprised them all. My folks named me Andrea and my nickname became Andie because they thought I was going to be a boy.

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Five Days

Five days until the nuptials and we’re roasting. We are roasting since our air conditioner gave up the ghost yesterday. The South Florida heat was too much for it to handle. It has served us well over these last eighteen years, but its timing couldn’t be any worse. As if we don’t have enough to do or enough things to pay for this week, why not add a new air conditioner to the list? We may have to go a bit hillbilly and Jerry-right an air conditioner for the upstairs.

My hubby helped me out big time today by taking the food ordering out of my hands. It was nice to have one less thing to worry about. He ordered a plethora of food for Friday’s party. We’re finally all set with the food. Melly’s mom volunteered to bring a salad, which is amazing. First of all, she makes the best salads. Second of all, I’m glad someone else wanted vegetables at the party. Five days to go!

We also got some very sad news yesterday morning. I didn’t include it in the blog because I wasn’t sure everyone that needed to be told had been told. Sadly, my dad’s sister Sheila passed away yesterday from cancer. We were all hoping and praying that she’d make it to August to see the birth of her first grandchild. The fact that she didn’t make it to August adds salt to a very open wound. My aunt Sheila was an absolute doll. She was generous, kind and supportive of all her nieces and nephews. I’ll always cherish our walks up to the Dairy Store along with many other happy memories. It’s hard to be 1,500 miles away when things like this happen. I’d like to thank my cousin Holly for always keeping me in the loop. The updates were so appreciated.

What would you change about modern society?

I’d change how we interact with each other. The internet has empowered a lot of folks to be the worst version of themselves. Unfortunately, keyboard warriors are quite brave when they can hide behind the keyboard. They’ll bully and troll someone mercilessly, but would never have the guts to say any of it to their face.

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Six More Days

Six more days until Jake and Melly get married! This morning I crossed a couple more things off my list, which felt good. We needed a few things for the bar and then photos for the in-memoriam table. Tomorrow I’ll pick up the photos and frames for the table. I still have a few more items to go. Honestly, the list seems never-ending just like it did when I was preparing to get married. Nonetheless, it will be here sooner rather than later and I can’t wait.

Yesterday I baked mini chocolate chip cookies with great success. Today I attempted sugar cookies with cookie cutters in the shape of birds and Daschunds. Unfortunately, the sugar cookies were an unmitigated disaster. The birds look like overcooked blobs, while the Daschunds look like dicks. Perhaps if you were hallucinating, you could see they’re birds or dogs, but probably not. They were so bad I threw them all away. I’ll be making the sugar cookies for Friday in their regular, boring, circular shape. Oh well, there was no harm in trying. Six more days!

What do you listen to while you work?

I like to listen to heavy metal between calls at work. If it’s not super busy, I’ll watch a live Wild Life Safari filmed in South Africa instead of listening to music. While on a call, I mute the safari but keep the closed captioning on so I can still watch it live. It’s amazing!

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Bundle of Nerves

Boy oh boy am I a bundle of nerves today. You would think my boys were playing tonight and not the big boys. The Panthers must win one more game to raise Lord Stanley’s Cup. It would be infinitely cooler if they could do that tonight at home. Also, it would bring a lot of emotional relief for stressed-out hockey fans. Unfortunately, it also brings the end of hockey season, so I’m not sure what we’ll watch on TV now.

Luckily, the hubby and Mayor are headed to the game tonight. I wonder who will be beating the drum to open the game? Game one was the Dolphins head coach and Game two was Alonzo Mourning. It will be interesting to see who they bring out tonight. While my guys enjoy the amazing atmosphere of Amerant Arena, I’ll be baking my nerves away. Most likely, I’ll be making some more sugar cookies. They’re easy to bake even when distracted by hockey games.

What countries do you want to visit?

Where does one even start with this question? There are so many places that I’d like to visit. If I listed them all I’d be blogging for days. The shortlist would be Norway, the UK, Denmark, Italy, France, Finland, Peru and Iceland. Now back to being a bundle of nerves!

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Father’s Day Weekend

Father’s Day weekend was busy around these parts. It was a good weekend. Although it would have been better if the Panthers had won Saturday night instead of embarrassing themselves, but oh well. The Mayor and Hubby are going to game five tomorrow, so they’re not upset about the loss. My superstitious ass will be home wearing the same sandals and shirt I wore the last time they won.

We had a barbecue on Saturday and Sunday at our friend’s house. Saturday for the game and Sunday for Father’s Day. While the guys discussed the hockey game both before and after, I played dollies with Ava. I think it’s been over 35 years since I’ve played with dollies. She was so excited to show me the new bunkbeds she got for Rapunzel and Elsa. It was a nice change of pace from what I am used to with my boys.

We also played duck, duck goose both nights. First of all, where we grew up, it was duck, duck gray duck. There was none of this goose nonsense. Apparently, this gray duck thing is uniquely Minnesotan. It’s also very hard to play with only two people, but who is going to argue with an adorable four-year-old. Not me! We did try to recruit the dogs, but they were having none of it. Saturday night we had much better participation. Ava was giggling through the entire game. Oh to be four and carefree again.

As for baking, I baked a key lime pie Saturday and some cheese bread Sunday. I used a new recipe for the crust, which I didn’t love. The actual recipe for the filling was amazing. Fortunately, the limes I bought at Target were fresh and extra juicy. As for the cheese bread, I ended up with jumbo flat biscuits instead of nice round ones. Unfortunately, I don’t think the recipe’s proportion of liquid to flour was right. Although I’m sure the humidity didn’t help. Next time I’ll try a different recipe. The flat cheese bread, however, was very tasty.

My favorite thing about myself is that I’m resilient and persistent. I don’t give up on my goals and I always keep fighting no matter what.

What’s your favorite thing about yourself?

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Experimenting

I did some experimenting in the kitchen over the weekend. My first experiment was homemade cream cheese wontons. I made pork wontons last weekend, so I wanted to expand my wontons experience a bit. Plus what’s not to love about fried dough and cheese? While I was busy experimenting with the wontons, the hubby whipped up some amazing chicken fried rice to accompany the wontons. It was a great division of the housework.

The wonton recipe was quite simple: cream cheese, wonton wrappers, scallions, garlic powder, green onions and some sugar. I found the wrappers from Target were a bit thinner than those HelloFresh had provided. Consequently, they leaked when being fried. Next time, I’ll use two wrappers instead of one. Also, I’ll fold them into little rectangles as those wontons didn’t leak at all.

Saturday I went back to experimenting in the kitchen. This time I decided to try a new lime cheesecake recipe. I find baking cheesecake infinitely easier in Florida due to the humidity. By contrast, the moisture can complicate a bread recipe. Honestly, it’s hard to bake a dry cheesecake here. This recipe was pretty straightforward except for the mousse topping. It wasn’t that the mousse topping was difficult, but I haven’t baked with gelatin a lot.

Baking the cheesecake went well and it was super tasty. The recipe was pretty easy to follow. It’s a recipe I’ll make again. However, next time I bake it, I’ll cut back the amount of gelatin. The mousse tasted great, but the texture was too stiff for my taste. Next time I’ll cut it down by 1/2 tbsp and see how it goes. It’s not like the cheesecake tasted bad, so none of us will mind testing all of my cheesecake experiments. I’ll put up the recipes for both the wontons and cheesecake tomorrow.

Do you remember your favorite book from childhood?

My favorite book as a child was Super Fudge by Judy Blume. I’m just here patiently waiting for them to make it into a movie. My other favorite was C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

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Bridal Shower

Yesterday we celebrated Melly at her bridal shower. Her aunt Cathy threw the shower and it was magnificent. I felt a little bit older as the shower progressed. It feels like just yesterday I was celebrating at my bridal shower. It’s almost incomprehensible that my son is now the oldest to be marrying the woman of his dreams. She’s also the kind woman that we hoped and prayed our boys would marry.

For the shower, they served brunch, which I love. I baked some caramel rolls, especially for the occasion. They were so decadent and tasty. I can’t make those too often or everyone I know would be diabetic. Meanwhile, Cathy and Kylie had prepared a buffet of incredible brunch food to accompany the rolls. Both also served as brewmasters mixing up a signature strawberry Bellini cocktail for the event. It was mighty tasty and mighty strong.

It was a lot of fun celebrating Melody. I was so excited to be able to give her a shower gift finally. I bought her and Jake matching bride and groom aprons. Additionally, I made her a family cookbook with pictures of them and our family together, it was my favorite gift. It’s very similar to the cookbook I made for my family earlier in the year. I plan to customize a cookbook for each of the kids and my nieces and nephews when they get married. This way, we will preserve our family baking traditions.

The bridal shower was the marquis event of the weekend, but there was something else we had to celebrate. The Panthers are going back to the Stanley Cup!!!! Hopefully, the boys can get it down this year and bring Lord Stanley home to Sunrise. The cup starts on Saturday. I’d love to go, but the fees on these tickets are utterly ridiculous. The actual ticket prices are reasonable, I think, but the fees are something else.

List three books that have had an impact on you. Why?

Three books that impacted me are The Alchemist, by Paolo Coelho, Resurrection, by Leo Tolstoy and Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. I found each of these books inspired me to by my best, to choose forgiveness, and live without regret.

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Nervous Baking

A couple of months ago, I introduced you to rage baking and now let me introduce you to nervous baking. Since the Panthers have lost every game I’ve watched at our friends’ house, I decided to stay home like I did in game one since they won that game. Consequently, I decided to put my nervous energy to work by baking some cookies.

My go-to cookie lately has been the sugar cookie. It’s quick and easy to make. Also, they have fewer calories than a chocolate chip cookie. By the time the cookies came out, the Panthers were already down a goal. It was time to feed the dogs and head to bed. I read my book for a while before falling asleep in it. I woke up around 11:30 and saw the hubby on his phone. I was happy to learn that both the Panthers and Timberwolves had won their games. Consequently, I’ll be nervous baking for game five on Thursday.

What jobs have you had?

I’ve had several jobs over the years none as big as being a mom. I really couldn’t care less about the jobs I’ve had as I don’t derive joy from employment. I’d prefer to retire like yesterday.

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Easter

I hope all who celebrate had a wonderful Easter. I know we sure did. Unusually, we were able to sleep in on Easter morning. No longer were there kids begging us to get up, so they could find their baskets and their hidden eggs. Since only Goalielocks was home, we didn’t even get their baskets out of the attic. We put the candy out on the island for all to enjoy. When Goalielocks goes back to school, I’m sending it with him. Lord knows I don’t need that stuff in my house.

We met the Burrage’s at church for Easter Service, which was fantastic. Goalielocks ran into someone that he graduated with from West Boca. Now he was the class joker and a pretty popular guy in high school. Goalielocks pretty much knew everyone and everyone knew him. Elijah, who is autistic, shared an English class with Goalielocks. Elijah was so excited to see Goalielocks and show him off to everyone.

It was a really sweet interaction. Moreover, it gave me insight into how my son treated people in high school. I mentioned this to him and he said “What did you expect? How did you think I treated him?” All while looking at me like I’m a fool. The questions he asked made me happy. Our children may not be perfect, but you hope they go into the world and treat people with kindness and love no matter what.

Anyway, I digress. After church, we headed to Melly’s folks’ house for brunch. We had a very tasty quiche. I mean eggs, cheese, cream, and vegetables what isn’t to love? In addition, there was some tasty spiral ham, which paired perfectly with the rustic Italian loaf I had baked. Naturally, there were also fruits and a salad on the table, but I was too full from the quiche to enjoy them. A girl had to have priorities and yesterday it was quiche.

The rest of the day was spent chilling at home with the puppies watching Euphoria and going for a run. We popped a pizza in for a quick dinner, which hit the spot. I spent most of the night trying to avoid eating the jelly beans and Cadbury eggs I had set out for the boys. That was definitely easier said than done.

What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?

My morning ritual always starts with walking the dogs one at a time. They’re far too strong for me to walk them together. After I walk the dogs, I give them their donut. Once the dogs have had their treat, I fill up the bird feeders out front. Once the dogs and birds are fed, I sit down with my coffee and watch the Great British Bake Off until it’s time to work.