Missing Sean

So as some of you may know Sean has been gone for about a week now. No, it has nothing to do with the army!
Background: Back in March Sean saw an ad on craigs list for a temporary security job to work during the potential upcoming teamsters strike with waste management. The guys doing the hiring liked Sean's resume so he was selected to go work. This required him to move into a hotel downtown - kinda sucks! Well after almost a week of having a full staffed ready to go security team and no strike waste management sent most of the guys back home and put them on stand-by.
This brings me to last week when the teamsters decided to go on strike. This meant Sean got called up. This time he was sent to the Woodinville area, which is good since that's closer. The teamsters did not stay strike for very long (about a day). When we first heard the strike ended we thought they'd be sending Sean home - no such luck! The guys are being kept on (at least for now)
Poor Sean has been working a 4PM-4AM shift since last Wednesday - YUCK!
The job will be some good experience for him and will look great on his resume, especially while trying to get hired on at police departments. The PD's love things like army, and security guard experience!!!
Kinda sucks not having him around, at least it's not like when he was in Iraq!!! He was actually able to make it up to Lilly's T-ball game on Saturday which of course made her day (and mine!)
I've decided that Sean and I have a really strong relationship we've been through soooooo much over the span of many years and at the end of the day we know that our relationship is great and to hell with what anyone else thinks!

Peanut Butter Pie

 

PIE!

It's been awhile since I've posted a yummy recipe that I love, so today's the day for a new one!

Today's recipe comes from my amazing grandmother! This recipe is one of the ones that I can already taste in my mouth at the mere mention of it - trust me it's that good. Another plus side of this recipe is it's really easy to make! I have only made on slight variation to this recipe, which I'll explain in a sec.

Using the ingredients pictured above (as you can see I like to use the Fred Meyer brand products because on top of making yummy things I like to save myself some money :-) ) The first thing you'll want to do is make the crust, and this is my variation. My grandmother's version calls for a graham cracker crust, but I decided to alter that and do an Oreo (or Kidd-o crust if you shop at Fred's) because it my opinion there is no better combination that chocolate and peanute butter! Making the crust is really very simple whether you use the crackers or the cookies - you crush them up (if doing the coookies no need to scrape the cream filling out) then you melt some butter or margarine and mix the crushed ingredient with the melted butter until you have a thick paste texture. Once you have the right consistency you simply place into the pie pan, you have to use your hands!!!! Next you take the rest of the ingredients and mix together, but you don't want to use all the whipped topping because you'll want to save that to serve on top of the pie! After everything is mixed together you put it in the pie pan and then let chill for a few hours so it sets!

As you can tell from my pictures I has my favorite assistant chef helping me!

Marriage

Marriage........according to wikipedia it's a social union or legal contract between individuals that creates kinship. Sounds so formal right? The truth is marriage can mean many different thingss to many different people. Individuals even get married for different reasons, but here in the US the most common reason is of course love.
Love, that is the reason I wanted to get married, it took me some time to find the right man to spend the rest of my life with, but once I found him he was worth the wait. I know that I got lucky with Sean, that may sound corny to you, but believe me it's the truth.
In relationships past I had found myself changing who I was and even having differing opinions just because of the person I was with, I don't have to do that with Sean. He loves me for who I am and I don't have to change a thing about myself to be with him and that's so important. I've seen this happen to some of my friends and it really just breaks my heart why should we have to change who we are as a person just to find love, I honestly feel that if someone loves you you shouldn't have to change who you are as the relationship progresses.
Now love and acceptance is all good and fine but it takes more than that to make a marriage work. Couples have to decide what works for them and balance all the aspects of their lives. Comprimise is VERY important when it comes to a partnership. People of all ages can give you advice until they are blue in the face and sometimes it's good and sometimes it sounds insane, but at the end of the day it's what works best for you.
It has taken Sean & I a little longer than most newly married couples, but that was because he was gone just about our entire second year of marriage being a brave soldier! Once he returned home we were all in for some serious adjustment because we had all gotten used to doing our own thing. I would foget to tell him about plans we had made, and he would forget to tell me something important simply because for the previous year we really hadn't had to do that.
None of our close friends had really experienced this, and as a result they don't fully understand how hard it was not only to spend the time apart, but also to reconnect and live life together again. Sure they were sympathetic while Sean was gone and checked in with me to see how Lilly & I were holding up, but once he was home it was assumed that all was fine. I didn't talk about a lot of this to my friends because quite a few of them were going through their own things and my issues seemed pretty insignificant in comparision. Looking back maybe I should have, maybe now they would understand and not pass judgement on things they don't understand.
We spend time doing different things now than when before he left, Lilly's older now so we do different activities and with different people. I wish that the people who we don't see anymore or as much as we would like to could simply take a minute to see past the initial perception and grasp what is really going on because what you see isn't what you get and if you're not around you don't know all that is going on and all that has happened.
Presently Sean & I have re-adjusted to life as a married couple under the same roof. We each have our responsibilites and our jobs and it works out well. Even though Sean got laid off he still has a "job" he does his job hunting everyday and I still take care of all the fun stuff on the home front. Our life is a happy one and in the long run that is what matters.

Crafty Strikes Again

It's spring here in WA and that means a lot of rain, and sometimes as it turn outs snow!

Spring also marks the return of baseball, softball, and T-ball! While Spring & Ball go hand-in-hand the rain that accompanies the spring does nothing in preserving clothes worn to T-ball practice :-)

While strolling through Joann Fabrics the other day I noticed the solid T-shirts (in kid sizes) were on sale 3 shirts for $9.00 - SWEET!

Most people might stop there thinking 3 plain T-shirts for practice is peachy, but not me! In the same aisle as the T-shirts was a new product by Color Artz - A fabric airbrusher for only $28.00 (less 40% because I had a coupon).

Instantly the wheels started turning. Since Lilly's T-ball team is named after a pro-team (The Mets) I could find a design and use the airbrush on the shirts and she'd have some super cute shirts.

So I grabbed 3 shrits (royal blue, orange, & grey), the airbrush (which coincidentally came with royal blue & orange paint), and an package of silver paint and headed to the check-out.

My first task upon my return home was to find a logo or design I liked. I settled on the 2-tone written Mets logo.

Next was cutting out my stencils, I made 2, one for the actual words and the second for the shadowing. This was a little time consuming, but I wanted to make sure it looked right.

My shirts, stencils, and I were then ready to head out to the garage for some airbrushing. There was a real learning curve associated with this because the excess spray of the airbrusher went a lot farther than I thought it would so the first 2 shirts ended up with some rouge spray (which I then covered up by giving the shirts an all over tye-dyed look.

Once I got the hang of the airbrusher it was awesome! I can't wait to find more stuff to decorate with it!!!