Food for thought

Over the last year I have really started getting into cooking! I feel it is almost therapeutic. I have really enjoyed learning to cook new foods and learn new terms and the science of cooking. When Jamie and I first got married I struggled with making meals for us, unless it was some special occasion, mostly because I have spent the last several years just feeding myself. And those meals consisted of a lot of Oatmeal and peanut butter sandwiches. So I have really made an effort to build up my recipes and really take time to prepare delicious and healthy meals.

One thing I have noticed through this journey is how I am lacking in kitchen supplies! I never realized how annoying it is to have only two frying pans (one really small), a few good pots, and only three mixing bowls! Plus you also start to realize how nice it would be to have some of those "gadgets" that you see in the Bed Bath and Beyond catalogs! When Jamie and I got married we had a few gift cards to Bed Bath and Beyond, and I remember walking through the kitchen area, and thinking how I could go with out a lot of the stuff there. But I wasn't really cooking then, and now I would love to have many of those cool gadgets! Even if some of them aren't completely necessary. Like take a garlic press for example. Could I just cut up the garlic with a knife? Of course, but when you see how many recipes have garlic in them (and I do love garlic) you start to get sick of always smelling garlic on your hands.
Other things I dream of having... Food processor, a really nice cheese grater, Food thermometer, all those fun pampered chef things you see!

Any way I have decided that I am going to slowly start to stock up on some of these things. I just feel that if I am going to continue to cook,and enjoy it, it is going to require me to have more than one pan... and perhaps a garlic press

Christmas... Finnally!

So I have finally uploaded the pics from Christmas! I will let most of the pictures do the talking, but I will say that we had a wonderful Christmas season! My mom and older sister came to visit, we went to a Christmas party with a polar express that actually pulled us around three different yards and backyards, Julian got to meet Santa for the first time (and was a bit confused), Julian got many great present from family and friends, We had our traditional German Christmas dinner, and just relaxed and enjoyed eachother

Enjoy the pics

True Forgivness

I have always prided myself on being someone who forgives, or gives people second chances, sees the good in others. In high school and college, all my friends would tell me that I always gave people second chances, or I saw the good in them. So naturally I have felt that I was the forgiving type.

However, over the last several years, I have realized something about myself. I am a hypocrite! Sure I still give people second chances, I try to think there is something good in everyone, but the truth is, I really don't forgive people. I tell myself that I have forgiven them, but really I store all the anger and pain deep inside myself. Therefore I don't truly forgive them at all. In fact the opposite happens; I find myself alone having all these feeling of anger inside, not directed at a specific person at the time, but just the remnants of all the people who I have "forgiven"

If I sit and think about it I am still angry at high school students, I have anger towards the poor six grade boys that followed the little 3rd grade Stephanie around the playground taunting her telling her she was useless, ugly girl day after day, and the teachers who did nothing about it! I have anger for a family who didn't understand, and friends who looked the other way.

But most of all I have anger towards myself. I am angry that I didn't stand up for myself, didn't care enough for myself. I am angry that I couldn't form the words to make people understand. And I am angry that I let this cancer grow inside of me for 20 years.

A wise women told me 4 years ago that I should write this, but I didn't because I wasn't ready to let go of the anger. But today I am. From this day forward I am living a life of true forgiveness.

And it starts with me.

Stephanie you are forgiven.

Why do I feel this way

This picture couldn't sum up my life any better right now! It has been some of the hardest couple of months of my life. I feel like I am in a cloud of confusion. Jamie and I had a talk on Monday regarding the next stages in our lives, and lets just say it ended in more confusion then before! At least for me!

Jamie mentioned that he feels like he still has more work to do in Provo/Utah. I truly respect and honor Jamie's thought/impression/feelings, but hearing those words was far from what I wanted to hear. As we spoke more, every fiber of my being was fighting against what he had in mind. When I first moved to Utah, I had a four year plan. I decided day one that I was not going to stay here. Now I know I have a lot of great Utahan friends that are thinking right about now. "Whats wrong with Utah" And honestly I can say there isn't a whole bunch "wrong" with Utah, but I never wanted to make Utah a permanent home. So here I am two years past my deadline of four years, and I am itching to move on to a new stage in my life, but I feel stuck.

When I was growing up, one thing that really bothered me was that our family wasn't really close with our extended family, to this day I see cousin, aunts and uncles, maybe every 5-8 years? My friends had these huge family reunions every year, and I was so jealous of that. The thought has been creeping over and over in my mind lately, that with us in Utah, Julian will experience the same thing! ( now with our families I know it wouldn't be as distant, but still!)

Now, you might be thinking "Stephanie just because you stay a few extra years, doesn't mean you will live there forever" And your rational might be correct, but I would feel a whole heck of a lot better about it, if currently I wasn't in a ward with at least 5 family's that have said that 25 years ago they got married and were going to BYU. They had never planned on staying more than a couple years but... 25 years later here they still are!!

On another random area that has been bothering me...

I have never "officially" been diagnosed with dyslexia, but with all my research, I truly believe that I have a mild form of it. How may you ask? Well there are two things that happen to me. Sometimes I am reading out loud and I come to a word. In my head I hear the word perfectly, but when I try to say it out loud, I can't form the words. For example; Julian has this great book about different trucks ( it is his favorite book) It has bright pictures with the names of each truck. So I am reading along out loud to Julian, and I come upon the word (truck) Excavator ( you know those big ol' things that dig up dirt and stuff)Well I looked at the word, and in my mind I knew exactly what the word was, but I tried to say it, and I got stuck, I tried again, and still could not pronounce the word. I had to stop, and slowly go syllable by syllable before I could say it. And then it happened again, when I read it to him the next day! This also happens when I am simply talking. I am in the middle of a convo, when I know exactly what I want to say, but it just doesn't come out right.

So why would I be telling you this? Because it absolutely bothers me when people try to correct me! It makes me embarrassed, and makes me feel stupid. There are times when I truly do not know a word, and I will ask you what word am I thinking about, but if I don't stop and just move on like I didn't notice it, its because I know the word, but I know it wont come out correctly so I move on, hoping the person listening will too! I don't want to stop in the middle of my conversation and go syllable by syllable to correctly say the word. I often think people really just think I am not that smart, or a little slow, and it really bothers me. That's why I wanted to get it out there. Please do not correct me, unless I ask for you help. I have lived with this my whole life, I am about to graduate from college, and I am very aware of my mistakes. But I have also learned a way to cope with it, and to succeed through life, and I don't need someone correcting me every other word!

Any way, I will stop there! There is way more, but somethings don't need to be published. Sorry for the rant, I just needed to get it out there, especially since I don't have a lot of "girl" friends to rant to... that's another story. (Poor Jamie, he wants to fix it, and doesn't understand yet the purpose of woman's rant)

He just keeps going, and going, and going...

This face is the face of pure mischief! Julian is crawling around like crazy, he is super fast, and amazes me with his ability to squeeze into tight places. In this picture I had put his pack in play into the corner between our two couches, because he likes to play with the light socket and the lamp cord. I placed him in front of me with some toys while I worked on some school work. Within just a minute or two, he had disappeared. I stood up from the couch and found him just like this. He had found the smallest space between the couch and the pack and play and was just sitting there unable to move any which way!

Julian loves to hear himself, but he doesn't make noise in the traditional sense. "Da, Ba, Ma" Julian likes to hear him self yell! Not mad crying yelling, but just a plain scream while he smiles! After much drool, gnawing, and whining, he FINALLY has two teeth the have seen the light of day. This is a big deal because I swear these two teeth have been trying to break through since Julian was 3 months old!

Either way we love this little guy!