Random Post

This is just a boring post today. Nothing really great to share.

I am still having the pelvic pain, at times it's better, however today it seems worse, maybe because I am not at work, Thus, I am thinking about it/noticing it more...?

I am not sure if i have shared the good news you all. But Ryans CT's, which were done the first week of this month, came back clear! So, no sign of anymore cancer!! Yippie!

Luke is saying new words that's a little fun.
I will tell you some and give you a guessing game I suppose. Its been awhile since I've done that.

"Byche"-- Bryce his cousin

"po-pen"-- open

"mowmee"--monkey

Here is your guessing ones:

"bwew-sips"-- Hints: one word and its a food item?

"oo-baw"-- Hints: one word, and its a sport?

"ow-we-all"-- Hints: one word, a lot shorter than he pronounces it, and also a food item?

Have a good day!!
:)

Cindy

Shift gears back and head back to the starting gate

I didn't think today I would be relieved to hear that my pregnancy test was negative. Its the only thing I have wanted since we found out Ryan had cancer in April. However, when you hear that if you are pregnant it is a tubal pregnancy, your mind shifts gears, and that's what mine did today.

The pain was just like it was when I was carrying Luke. I also had a cyst when I got pregnant with Luke, so I knew the feeling, but the negative PT results were throwing me for a loop.

Luckily I was able to get an appointment with Dr. J. Wonderful man he is. He delivered Luke and I was blessed to have him today. He did an ultrasound and it showed a cyst and some free fluid in my abdomen. He also had me do a serum PT to r/o pregnancy, thus r/o a tubal pregnancy. That is why I was relieve to hear "the test came back negative."

The plan: wait it out. Most cysts go away by 10-12 weeks without problems. If I have increased pain, I have to go back. Otherwise I will see him again next month when he will do another US.

So I am not crazy! Good news to me. I was beginning to think all my symptoms were just made up because I wanted to be pregnant SO badly.

So I guess until next round of things I am going to be calm and happy. Thanks for the prays and concern.

I'm Baaack....

Third post in 1 hour. That's a little extreme most likely. I just wanted to post that my unsettled feelings I have been having are all going to be spilled out in front of me again this morning.

I am going to the doctor. So, I will be sure to find out how crazy I am there! Yippee! I am praying that my worst fears are not true, and that I am pleasantly surprised. I have this deep down feeling that I will most likely be told. "There is NOTHING wrong with you. Just take it easy for a couple of days."

Then why do I hurt, why is my brain filled with emotions of whys and ifs and hopes and nightmares?

Sorry this was a big bite for me to take. I wasn't ready to let it go yet. After today I will have a professional answer and hopefully some peace. Praying like crazy that it is all good stuff I find out.

Pray with me please. I will let you know when I know something.

Plagued with emotion again.
Cindy

Food.... yummy.

Last nights recipe for the week was spaghetti squash. It was easy enough to make. I didn't care for it too much. I didn't take any pictures either. So all I have is my past photos I need to post. So here you are:

Ryan's birthday cake the Turtle cheesecake. So delicious!

Pumpkin Cheesecake. Also quite yummy!!

Definitely being made for holiday dessert at the Tullis house!

Apple Cake with Apple Cider syrup.

I am pretty sure I have included in previous post where I got the recipes. But if I didn't please ask and I will give you the recipe.

I am still VERY interested in any of your recipes that you wouldn't mind letting me try!!! So please e-mail me or leave me a comment! I appreciate it greatly!!!!

Cindy

Photo Fun

Yesterday I had planned on taking a bunch of photos and posting them. Kind of like "A day in my life in photos," post. I was doing rather well, I had some taken and was importing them into the computer until Luke decided it was time to play with him, and shut the computer off. So that whole idea didn't work yesterday. So I am posting late for my yesterday life... :)


We had a terrible snow/rain storm come through the day and night before. I thought this pumpkin looked really neat with the snow on it though.

The wind was very strong and destroyed most of our tree out front.

There is the computer man. See I was getting ready to blog, hee hee...

There is my little man. I love him SO much!

That was my yesterday in photos. I am also going to post some food pics that I have been negligent at posting.

Cindy

Settling

Clearly I am feeding into my own problems. So I am going to try to relax and forget the time schedule and the "planning" of things and just let myself be happy with life and understand that things are not on my time schedule. They are on His, and work on realizing that, and when a miracle shows up, I will be all the more grateful to receive it.

I am very blessed right now anyways. I have a healthy wonderful husband, and a beautiful adventurous little boy to keep me busy. We are coming along nicely on our house and so soon I should be able to have friends and family over more often, which should be lots of fun. I also have an upcoming play that I will be directing... Plenty to keep me busy.

I am just trying to fill my head with things that I need to do anyways, rather than contemplating what my body is doing next and what it supposedly means.

There you have it. I am going to try to cut back on the nonsense. Phew... I hope its not a bigger bite than I can chew. You will have to excuse me if I revert back to the anxious unsettled stewing again.

Focused,
Cindy

Questions

Alright, so I have a few questions I need to figure out right now. I am confused, and anxious. I am doubting my feelings and that's probably a good thing, because as of lately my feelings have been very misleading. So there you have my pile of wish-washy-wondering. Now you can wonder right with me... What the heck is she talking about?


I also feel compelled to share with you that I have a sinus/cold congestion stuff going on, and it feels like someone hit me in the face with a bat. Okay, I have never had someone actually hit me in the face with a bat, but I still hurt none the less.

Ryan and I are starting a diet tomorrow. I hope I can stay on it for a while and start working out!! All three of us went for a walk to the State park and back. It was a beautiful day, and it helped me get my mind off of things, so it was very nice.

We also have almost all of the necessary trim up that is needed before the carpet get put in which will be in about a week!! We also cleaned the house up. Sigh... It's nice to have a clean house.

I shot my father-in-laws gun this weekend, getting me pumped for deer season. I hit the gong, 3 out of 4 times. The gong is approx. 130 yards.

Well, this summarized what going on in our lives right now. I will post more, hopefully by Wednesday.

Goodnight!

Cindy

Turtle Cheesecake

This was Ryan's Birthday cake he wanted. So delicious. Ryan thinks this is good enough for restaurants!! It was very easy!!!! Here is the recipe, or you can just go to the Nestle website and search for it.

I changed it a little. Our little town grocery store didn't have all the ingredients so I used chocolate cookie crumbs for the crust and I topped the cake with chocolate shavings (instead of the mini morsels). Which, by the way, was very easy to do. I just used a Hershey chocolate bar and shaved it with a carrot peeler. Be careful: Sharp objects and fingers don't mix!!! I didn't have any trouble but I just thought I would put that warning out there.
It was so good!!! Definitely making it again! You should try it too!!! I will post pics of mine a little later.

Turtle Cheesecake Estimated Times: Preparation - 40 min Cooking - 1 hrs 10 min Cooling Time - 3 hrs refrigerating Yields - 14 servings

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups chocolate graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup butter or margarine, melted
3 (8 oz. each) cream cheese, softened
1 can (14 oz.) NESTLÉ® CARNATION® Sweetened Condensed Milk
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
3 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups (9 oz.) NESTLÉ TOLL HOUSE Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
2 tablespoons Chocolate Flavor Syrup
2 tablespoons caramel syrup or ice cream topping
1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
1/4 cupNESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Mini Morsels

Directions:PREHEAT oven to 300° F. Grease 9-inch springform pan.

FOR CRUST:COMBINE crumbs and butter in medium bowl. Press onto bottom and 1 inch up side of prepared pan.

FOR FILLING:BEAT cream cheese and sweetened condensed milk in large mixer bowl until smooth. Add sugar, eggs, lime juice and vanilla extract; beat until combined. MICROWAVE 1 1/2 cups morsels in medium, uncovered, microwave-safe bowl on HIGH (100%) power for 1 minute; STIR. The morsels may retain some of their shape. If necessary, microwave at additional 10- to 15-second intervals, stirring just until morsels are melted. Stir 2 cups of cheesecake batter into melted morsels; mix well. Alternately spoon batters into crust, beginning and ending with yellow batter.

BAKE for 70 to 75 minutes or until edge is set and center moves slightly. Cool in pan on wire rack for 10 minutes; run knife around edge of cheesecake. Cool completely. Drizzle chocolate syrup and caramel syrup over cheesecake. Sprinkle with nuts and mini morsels. Refrigerate for several hours or overnight. Remove side of pan.

Yummy!

Cindy

Sick Day

Wow. I believe the worst feeling in the world is seeing your baby sick. Physically getting sick, it tore my heart up. Luke has caught a stomach virus and has been sick all night. Got sick twice this morning too. I hate seeing that. Although its disgusting and I hate seeing him get sick, he is so cute. After he threw up he looked at me like "whoa Mom what just happened?" looks back down at the vomit and says,
"Ucky?"

"Yes baby, its ucky. Lets get you cleaned up. "

My sweet little Boy.

I am not feeling to spunky myself. I hope I am not catching the stomach virus, and if I am I pray that Luke is tolerant of a sick Momma... Argh.

Well I am going to make another post about Ryan Birthday (which was yesterday) which wasn't a typical birthday.

Cindy

Impatience

A heaping pile of impatience. Sigh...

Four tries. Unsuccessful. I know it will happen. But I'm impatient.
2 years is a long time.
Why must I be so anxious?
Why can't I just be happy with what I have.
I am luckier than most, yet I am disgustedly not satisfied. I need to be calm......


Cindy

Try it!

Hello all,

I am a novice cook and even more novice baker. I am messy in the kitchen and I LIKE IT! Ryan doesn't however. Ryan is a wonderful baker-- he makes half a dozen loaves of bread in and evening and is very clean and efficient. I admire his talent. I want to become a better cook/baker also, so I can feed my family good food too. So, I made it a personal goal to try to make something out of Ryan's mothers cookbook, or something completely new I have never even considered making. Doing this at least once a week on my days off-- if I am home. Last week we were gone so that didn't pan out well, but other than that I have tried to make quite a few things already, and most of them I was completely and pleasantly surprised at the turnout. Here are the things I have tried:

The Cheesecake Nibbles-- which you can get the recipe in an earlier post here.

Apple Cake with Apple syrup- Yum!

I tried Holly's pot roast in our convection oven, I thought its was --okay. I had picked a tough piece of meat to try, but the convection oven made it much more tender, the veggies didn't cook very well and had to stick them in the microwave.... its was okay though. I will have to try again sometime.

Stir fry made with tofu. I have never done anything with or even ate tofu (knowingly) before. It actually turned out great. The Woman's Day magazine also gave some great sauces to make with it and different ideas for add ins. I have made it twice now with a different sauce and different veggies. The sweet and sour sauce was excellent, last night we tried the peanut sauce-- I liked it at first but after some time the sauce made me want to vomit in my mouth a little. Ryan wants to have it again however. Ryan doesn't like peppers or mushrooms, so that limits some of my options, but I realized there are a lot more veggies out there that would work great. We'll see what we try next time.

Banana Bread-- I have tried this twice now with our convection oven and it is not turning out right. It still tastes good, but either the sides are close to burnt or the inside is gooey.... Maybe the third time will be a charm. I am going to try it in normal bake mode and not convection mode. See if that helps.

Pumpkin Cheesecake-- We went Olive Garden when we went to Omaha this last weekend . It's a must-stop anytime we are near one on our travels. We ate way too much food and couldn't get dessert-- which was a delectable Pumpkin Cheesecake. So, Ryan mentioned that that could be my food project this week. So currently it is sitting in the fridge chilling. That was the only complaint so far, I can't taste it after its done baking... Grrrrr.. (that was my stomach growling by the way). Ryan is even more disappointed, he was wanting to dive into it last night, I had to hold him back! I will hopefully post a pic of my newest project, and if its worth it, I will include the recipe.

Oh yeah I got Way to much pumpkin puree so i am also making pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting tonight.

I am enjoying this baking stuff SO much. I never cared for it before, I love it with this plan that I have to try something new. That way you don't get stuck in a rut of the same food and you find new favorites to try more often. I encourage you all to try this sometime, I love getting a random magazine and trying one recipe, my favorite magazine right now is Woman's Day, I have gotten 3 recipes out of already. Good stuff!

I would love to try one of your favorite recipes too. Just leave the recipe in a comment!!!

Cindy