The Birds have flown and papers have landed!

It was a sad day Monday as I watched my Grandparents drive away. I loved having them here. We were going to go out on Mother’s Day for dinner, but the weather had gotten so bad that we decided to stay in and I made a quick decision to make chicken noodle soup. It was delicious!! My Gramma made the comment that they might have to give up a certain canned soup! lol It was most definitely an awesome visit.

My classes started while they were here and they got to see how hard I throw myself into my education. I’m seriously excited to have started! We are only in to the frist week of my two online classes and I am already having so much fun! So far I have turned almost every assignment in a day early, there has only been two that have been on time and that’s because I had to wait on the class discussions and comments on my work. I am loving this!

A couple of weeks later…

Sorry to have disappeared on you all like that lol I got really busy with classes, and the hubby, and now the daughter is out of school for summer break. Yikes! So much going on right now! I am now in the THIRD week of my classes and doing really well. I still have A’s in both classes and I have to say that I love my Management and Supervision and Career Developement Class, but my Nutrition Science class is kicking my butt!! I’ve never been very good at math and a lot of the nutrition class is math, so its more difficult for me to grasp. I think I might find a tutor for nutrition just in case. Either way I am still LOVING being in school. It makes me feel loads better about being able to contribute to my family.

Since I have started these classes my family has made some changes in their lives too! We have decided that we are going to start going to a Whole Foods Market to get our groceries, they have less of a selection of the less Healthy foods and therefore less temptations. They have many things that I would love for my daughter to beg me for lol I have also found that the hubby likes the dried fruit in trail mix and at The Whole Foods Market you can make your own trail mix, so I am going to throw a few things together so that I can get him some of the fruits that his body needs! The only problem that I have with this grocery store is the meat is so expensive! That’s going to make it pretty hard on us for a few months while we get used to it and wait for a certain promotion that’s just around the corner.

Either way the Hubby, Daughter, and I went out the other day and did recon on the Market. It seems like a nice, clean place. I’m going to have to get used to not having my regular brands around the house, but I think that this is the right  move for my family and the Hubby agrees. We both know that we need to get healthier and we know that this makes it easier on me (the one who does the shopping and most of the cooking ) to make healthier meals.

So I hope that has caught you up a little with whats going on here. School is fun and my family is wonderful! Very few things could make this life better! Talk to you soon!!

“You are what you eat, so cook happy!” – Niki

Birds and Other fantastic things!

First off I have amazing and wonderful news!!! A few weeks ago I wrote about how I had applied for a need based scholarship through “Military Families United”. Well I received a phone call on Monday May 1st that I WON!!! I am the proud recipient of a 25k scholarship to go to the International Culinary School at the Art Institute in Denver Colorado!!!!! WAHOOOOOO!!!!! I don’t think I have been this excited since I won that trip to see the Country Music Awards a couple years ago! (I took my Granpa and we spent four days in Nashville Tennessee and had the time of our life!! I’ll never forget it and I loved every second of it!) Anyway, back to my exciting news!! I don’t have a car yet, or even have my license fixed, but my Admissions Counselor has made it so that I can do the on-line classes for now!! I am so excited!! The only down side is that I actually start school on May 10th!! That I was NOT expecting and I am stressing really hard about starting so soon! I’m know that I can handle this though and I am so excited that I can barely breath when I think about it. It was a national scholarship opportunity and there were only four recipients, and I was one of them!! Its almost unbelievable!!

The next wonderful and fantastic news is that my Granpa and Gramma are here for a visit and I am able to make all of my wonderful recipes for them! Their first night I made my creamy chicken casserole. Now my Gramma doesn’t eat a lot and when she does its always pretty small portions we tend to say that she “eats like a bird”. She’d rather have lots of smaller things throughout the day than have three big meals a day. I was hardly able to conceal the glee and joy on my face as I watched my Gramma help herself to another portion. I was so pleased and proud that I had made something that she liked so much! The next night I made my Pot Roast. While it was in the oven the smells were causing all of us to sniff the air in happy expectation. I served the Roast family style and watched as everyone dug in. Again barely hiding my excitement as Gramma helped herself to another serving of the veggies and potatoes! Now last night was their anniversary and I wanted to make something really special, so I made salmon (my Gramma loves fish!), my potato and carrot casserole and some challah bread (you can find the recipe in the Betty Crocker cookbook under “Rich Egg Bread” then you braid the dough, brush with butter and sprinkle poppy and sesame seeds on top. Let it rise and pop it in the oven for 25 to 30 minutes at 375. Its delicious!!). My Gramma loved the salmon and ate almost her whole piece and then couldn’t stop picking at the bread! We’re having the potatoes and carrots again tonight with my BBQ Country Style Pork Ribs because no one really wanted to have some after the huge pieces of salmon! The country style pork ribs are already marinating in the special BBQ sauce that I mix together. We’ll see if it receives the same seal of approval! I’ll keep you posted, maybe when I come off of my happy clouds!!!