A face update and some pumpkin carving.

The face woes continue.  Before I tell you of my latest woe, I need to update you on the red goatee. 

It is no longer beet red but the skin around my upper lip and chin is EXTREMELY dry.   It's so dry and rough that none of my thick old lady face creams are even touching it.  I guess only time will heal this issue.  I'm hoping in a couple of days everything will be back to normal.  And probably just in time for the peach fuzz to start growing back in.

Today, I went for my 4th follow-up from the skin cancer I had removed from the side of my nose.  The scar was a hot mess.  The top of the scar was fine.  It was a very thin, very pale scar.  The bottom part of the scar however was a big bulge of scar tissue.

The last three times I've gone, he has injected it (yes, needle into my nose - good times) with a steroid and I've been sent home with instructions to massage it daily.  Massage as I may, the scar tissue didn't budge. 

Today I decided just to have it removed.  I got  SIX lovely shots of anesthesia in and around the scar tissue  (more good times) and then he removed it.  After the SIX shots, I didn't feel a thing but I could hear some scraping and that was a little disconcerting.  And then I could feel tugging when he was stitching it up. 

I have some lovely little not-quite flesh colored band-aids on my nose, a bit of a black eye forming, AND a dry scaly goatee.  I guess I don't need a Halloween costume this year.  My face is scary enough on it's own!

Last night we carved our pumpkin.  We had never gotten around to it and after dinner Sarah asked if we could do it.  Dan is always be up for carving a pumpkin and I was excited that the kids actually wanted to do it. 

So after we did the dishes, we got to carving.  We always do a basic jack-o-lantern.   I'm always so impressed with all the carving skills I see on social media and every year I think that next year will be the year we do something different.  But if the kids like a basic jack-o-lantern and don't want to change,who am I to get in the way of tradition?!

A little brother/sister selfie.

When the 15 and 11/12 year old say's "Mom, let's take a selfie." you take a selfie!

The 14-year-old always wants to take a selfie with mom and I'm okay with that!

From peach fuzz to red goatee!

Remember how back in the early days of my blog (2008 to be exact), I lamented about my chin hairs?  Well, apparently over those last ten years, I started growing peach fuzz in addition to the stray chin hairs.  I'm not sure when it started.  Maybe it's always been there or maybe it's just another lovely middle-aged old lady thing I can add to my list, but I feel like I've been noticing it for at least a couple of years.

Typically I see it when I'm putting on my makeup and the morning sun is flooding the bathroom.  I actually look like a prepubescent teen who is pondering his new hair growth in the mirror and wondering where it came from and what it all means.

There are some mornings I barely notice it and some mornings where it looks like I have a legit blonde beard.  Does anyone remember Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag?  I vaguely remember watching a very bad reality show many years ago with them in it. Dan and I were always freaked out by his blonde beard.

Is this Spencer Pratt?  Or is it me with my blonde beard? The jury is still out.

Anyway, about two years ago, I decided to rid myself of my fuzzy blonde friend and I purchased this:

It's a Finishing Touch Flawless Hair Remover.  I picked it up on a whim from the As Seen On TV section at Walmart. As soon as I got home with it I tried it out and nothing.  Nada.  It didn't remove anything.  Not one chin hair. Not one small section of peach fuzz.  Nothing.

And in my embarrassment, I threw it away.  I was not going to walk back into the Walmarts and request  $9.87 back because this little As Seen On TV product wouldn't give me a nice close shave.

Lesson learned.  Do not waste time or money on any As Seen On TV product.  However, I would like to note that since then, I looked at the reviews for this thing on Amazon and either people love it because it works so well or they hate it because it won't remove any hair. 

About a year ago, still disheartened by my Spencer Pratt blonde beard, I purchased this contraption:

It's basically a little spring that you roll over your face and it ever so gently (ha!) plucks all the little hairs on your face.  I managed to spend a painful thirty minutes and got rid of my little blonde mustache.  And have since been able to keep it off with regular use of this torture device and a simple pair of tweezers.

But the Bellabe Facial Hair Remover barely touched all the peach fuzz on the sides of my face so I've just been dealing with it.  Every now and then I think about maybe having it waxed but never do it. 

And then one day last week, someone I follow on Instagram showed a story where she was on her way to her hair dresser and she didn't want him giving her a hard time for her mustache so she was using Nair for the Face in her car.  And that got me wondering. Why have I never thought to Nair away the peach fuzz????

So guess what I picked up yesterday at Walmart?

I did a little research before buying it though.  I googled it and found quite a few YouTube videos of beauty tubers using it.  I watched one vapid 18-year-old apply it and thought, "If this ditz can use it and it works, it must be good."

So as soon as Dan and Peter left for Boy Scouts last night, I went to my bathroom and pulled out the pink tube and got to work.  I followed the instructions to the tee.

I washed my face.  I dried my face. I applied a thick layer but did not rub it in.  I waited precisely 5 minutes. I wiped it off my face.

And guess what? 

It worked!  Most of the peach fuzz was gone!  But I noticed that there were some spots at my jawline, above my lip, and on my chin where I must not have applied it thick enough because there was still some hair.

So I did what the instructions stated and applied more in those areas.  It stung when I applied it so I only waited 2 minutes before wiping it off.

And guess what?

ALL the hair was gone!!!  It was a miracle!

But also, guess what?

I had to immediately Google "nair burn".  Apparently I had given myself a bit of a chemical burn so I applied 5-years-passed-it's-expiration-date Neosporin as Google suggested.  Well, Google didn't say it should be 5 years passed it's expiration date but that's all I could find around here.  And I also applied some aloe and just prayed that my skin wouldn't peel like an actual sunburn.

A little bit later, Sarah saw me and said, "What did you do to your face???"  And then she shook her head and said, "Oh,Mom!"

I texted Jennifer to tell her my woes and was even going to send her a picture of my face.  But I decided that I needed to keep at least a little shred of my dignity so that photo will never see the light of day.

I applied the out-dated generic Neosporin again before bed and again this morning and it is still red but it doesn't hurt at least.  When Sarah came down this morning she said, "Mom!  You have a red mustache and a red goatee!!!"  And she wasn't wrong. 

However, I was able to mostly cover the redness with make up and I'm hoping that by tomorrow I will look like this:

Weekend recap!

This was my husband last night:

Because in case you haven't heard:

I was going to say that Dan can finally get some rest because all these late games  have meant some very late bedtimes for him over the last week.  But, the Patriots play tonight so it looks like he will be up late tonight too. I guess there's no rest for the weary sports fan this time of year!

Don't worry about him though, I'm sure he would say it's all worth it.  I love how serious and intense my husband gets over baseball.  It's times like this that I'm sure he misses his brother, Bob.  They would spend hours on the phone analyzing the games..  I thought about Bob last night and imagined him in heaven doing this as well:

Last I left you, it was a very cold and rainy Friday.  It rained all day.  But Saturday it cleared off and was partly sunny but thankfully no rain.  My husband had plans to help my brother with a project but that was cancelled because of the weather so that meant Dan spent the day trying to find things around the house to do.  He can not just be still and sit on a Saturday. I, however, have no problems just sitting and being still.

Unfortunately, I was not able to do that on Saturday.  I spent a good portion of the day moving all the stuff from bookshelves and dresser tops to the basement to get ready for the flooring to be installed. I was huffing and puffing most of the day and felt like I got a pretty decent workout.  Plus, everything looks so good with nothing on top of it.  I wonder if I could convince my family to just get rid of all the stuff.  Probably not but I'm hoping that maybe we can only bring back the bare essentials. I'm pretty sure that Peter will absolutely not be on board with that but I'm going to try.

We went to Mass on Saturday night and then went out to dinner and on Sunday we had our family pictures taken.  The weather at the beginning of last week was forecasting  a rainy Sunday but it was actually a gorgeous sunny day.  The only issue was that it was a tad windy but our photographer said she can Photoshop out any stray hair so I'm hoping we get some good shots.

I spent so much time fretting about what we were going to wear and thought I was good to go. I got a new scarf to wear with my outfit.  The colors were perfect and would have tied all four outfits together perfectly.  BUT - isn't there always a but?  But it was really largeand I could not for the life of me tie it where it didn't like like it was wearing me.  If I wasn't getting a picture taken, it would be fine (and I do plan on wearing it this fall and winter) but it just felt like I was going to be fussing with it and worrying about it the whole time.  So I decided at the last minute to ditch it and I threw on a gold necklace instead.  So much for tying everything together. 

After our pictures, we rushed back to the church where Sarah's Girl Scout group meets so they could complete their Silver Award.  They planned, shopped for, decorated for, cooked for and ran a Bingo game for the church members and raised money for the Breast Cancer Foundation.  It was a great evening!

Why didn't I read the instructions??

I survived the football game!  Luckily it wasn't windy and that makes all the difference in the world.

Our poor team lost by a very large margin.  It seems we either win by a large margin or lose by a large margin. 

Toward the end of the game, I got out one of my hand warmers.  I was shaking it to activate it and it wasn't warming up.  Then I read the instructions and realized it takes 15-30 minutes for them to warm up. So they were nice and toasty right as we were leaving the game. Now I know.

I accidentally purchased the 18 Hour warmers.  I saw the 18 and thought I was getting 18 in the package.  Y'all.  I'm normally not this dumb.  I would like to report however, that this morning when I pulled the hand warmer out of my purse, it was still nice and toasty!   

In other news, it seems that Peter's religion group will not be meeting today after all.  Apparently one of the kid's moms has to work and can't get him there.  Peter was totally okay with that as now he has the whole day to nothing but what he wants to do.  However, the kids have November 1st off for All Saint's Day and he will be spending that day off working with his group.  I asked why couldn't they just stay after school one day and do it there but several of the kids are still doing fall sports and have practices right after school so that won't work. 

Right now it's raining outside and it's cold.  So I'm enjoying another cup of coffee and the kids are still in bed.  I love it when it's raining and we don't have to go anywhere.  That doesn't mean that we won't go somewhere but I enjoy it when it's cozy inside and I don't have to go somewhere.

Sarah's Girl Scout group has planned a Bingo event at the church which hosts the troop.  The event is a fundraiser for breast cancer research.  The girls will be providing light snacks and prizes as well as running the Bingo games. The girls have planned the whole thing by themselves so hopefully it will go off without a hitch. They will be accepting donations. 

This Bingo event happens right after our family pictures on Sunday.  The forecast at the beginning of the week called for a rainy Sunday but now it looks like it will just be cloudy.  Fingers crossed these pictures will turn out nicely.  I think I have finally figured out what we are going to wear....

I do have a different scarf than the one in the picture.  The scarf I'm going to wear has  burnt orange in it.  The mustard just didn't look quite right.  And I'm too lazy to go photograph another picture so you'll just have to use your imagination.  Please note - that Sarah will not be going pants-less.  She will have on a denim skirt with that sweater.  Again - too lazy to dig it out of her drawer for the picture.

And that is really all I have to report today.  Stay warm and cozy my friends! 

I'm cold and I've got more driving to do. So, what else is new?

All the high schools are moving the Friday night football games to tonight due to large amounts of rain in the forecast on Friday.  So we are skipping the last swim practice before high school practices start to go to the game.

I am already trying to figure out what to wear so I don't freeze.  Layers and layers and blankets, I guess. I will also probably pick up some of those hand warmers they sell that you crack open, shake to activate and  slip into your gloves.  Or slip into your shirt as one of the track moms did at one of those freezing track meets I complained about all spring. 

I did my civic duty and voted this morning.  My friend Wendy works at the polling site during early voting and it always makes me happy to see her when I check in!  (HEY WENDY!!)  She said that my bestie Jennifer had already been in that morning to vote. I hate I missed her.  (HEY JENNIFER!!)

The flooring arrived yesterday and is currently stacked up in the dining room to get acclimated.  Isn't it so lovely and inviting?

Sarah popped a bracket the other day while eating tortilla chips so I've got to take her to the orthodontist at noon today.  I hate it when a wire pops out or a bracket pops off.  Luckily it doesn't happen very often but when it does it's always weeks away from a regular appointment and must be dealt with. 

Since I don't want to drive all the way to Kernersville and then to Winston and back to Kernersville and back home and then back to Kernersville for pick-up, I will be killing time in the Kernersville Target before pick-up. I love spending time in Target but I am starting to look forward to the day (and it will be here in a couple of months) when Peter can handle some of this driving.  I feel like I need one of those cliche decals on the back of my car.

There's a teacher workday tomorrow and the kids are out of school.  But Peter's religion group is meeting again to complete the next installment of their project and you know what that means.  I get to drive to High Point again and kill time in the High Point Target while waiting for him to get done.  Luckily I've still got money on my Starbucks gift card!

I guess I've complained enough for one post.  I'm sure there will be more to complain about tomorrow so check back! 

Here's what's happening in our neck of the woods.

I know you guys are going to think we are crazy but we've changed our minds and we are going ahead with having the carpets removed upstairs.  We decided if we are going to do it in a year or two we might as well do it now.  There's no rhyme or reason to our decision but it came after several discussions on the topic and we are moving ahead!

The flooring will be delivered tomorrow morning so it can acclimate and the carpet removal will begin on Monday.  That means the entire upstairs will be in disarray for a while but I'm hoping it will all be worth it.

Sarah's excited because she loves any kind of home improvement.  Peter is not excited because he hates any kind of change and definitely any disruption to his comfort. 

This is the last week of the high school swim prep practices at the Lexington Y.  Next week starts high school swim practice at the Kernersville Y.  We've purchased some new googles and a couple of new practice suits in honor of the occasion.  To say she is excited is an understatement.  I hope the season lives up to her expectations.

The weather has taken a turn and by the end of this week highs are expected to be almost twenty degrees cooler than normal for this time of year.  And the whole weekend is supposed to be  rainy.  Boo.

There's a football game on Friday night and we have our family photos scheduled for Sunday.  But it's still early so I'm hoping the hurricane in Mexico and the cold front from Canada shift and turn and that everything changes by the end of the week.  Fingers crossed!

I made a bunch of wings on Saturday using my Instant Pot and they were delicious.  To be fair though, I must warn you that I browned them in a pan on the stove even though you can do it in the Pot.  It's just easier in a big pan when you are doing a bunch.  And the recipe calls for broiling them in the oven to crisp them up after you get them out of the instant pot.  But all that work - probably took me about an hour - was definitely worth it! 

The wings were done and they managed to get crispy under the broiler.  I did put them on a rack in the pan to keep them out of their juices while they were broiling.  One of the reasons I don't like to get wings at restaurants is because many times, they aren't done all the way through.  (Unless I get them from Christo's.  I have never gotten a bad wing from there.  There are other local wing joints, where wings are supposed to be their specialty, and their wings are under cooked.  Under cooked chicken  is GROSS and a recipe for gastrointestinal disaster! Ask me how I know...)

The only problem with my Instant Pot wings was that I did not make enough.  But that is easily remedied!

And with that, I leave you with a picture of the world's most loved and most spoiled cat ever...

Friday Chatter

This week has just chugged right on by.  I have managed to make it to the gym every morning this week which is rare.  Normally if I make it three times. I'm content with that even though  4 times is my goal.  So imagine how thrilled I was with 5 days straight!

(This was the sky two days ago as I was going into the gym.  Isn't it lovely?)

I'm just trying to keep up with my husband who is the thinnest I have ever seen him thanks to a low carb diet and running 4 times a week.  He has also been lifting weights in the basement and is starting to resemble the mid-20s-something boy I met waaaaaaayyyy back in the day!   Unfortunately, his wife still resembles the 49-year-old that she actually is.

I was in the shower the other day and was thinking about being 48 and then I literally stopped and said out loud, "WAIT!  I think I'm FORTY NINE!"  and I actually had to calculate whether I was 48 or 49. 

I'm trying to be positive though. Dan is 52 and looks great so there's hope for me yet. I figure I've got three years to get my act together!  :)

I have been pricing out companies to pull out our upstairs carpet and put in flooring to match the floors downstairs.  I was all set to pull the trigger and Dan was all grown up and said, "Don't you think it would make more senseto hold off on the floors since we really need to buy Peter something to drive since he will be 16 next month?"

I pouted for a while and then realized it did make more sense and I actually felt  relief at the decision not to move forward on the floors right now.  (Spending large chunks of money even on something I want stresses me out.) Now I'm looking for a good carpet cleaning company because those carpets are filthy and do need some TLC.

I had a parent meeting for the high school swim team this week.  The coach seems like a great guy and there are a couple of team moms that seem to have their act together and I believe they are the ones really running the show (isn't that always the way?) so I'm hopeful Sarah has a good experience. She's very excited because several of her new friends are swimming as well! 

They will practice every day right after school and it sounds like there are some carpools to get the kids to the Kernersville YMCA.  I'm hoping all of that stuff sorts itself out over the next week and a half.  I like to have a good idea of where I need to be  and when and right now all that is kind of fuzzy. 

And speaking of swimming.  I was taking Sarah, Cheyanne, and Colton to our  seasonal swim practices.  We were less than 10 minutes away when we realized the road ahead was blocked due to a bad accident.  So I turned around, found somewhere to park and pulled up Waze to figure out how to get to the Lexington YMCA.  It gave three routes but they all needed to use the road that was blocked. (Typically Waze can tell there is a problem and will provide a route around the issue. But for some reason it did not do that last night.) And since we were running late anyway due to Sarah being at her first swim meeting with the high school team, I said, "Let's just go home."

All three of the kids were fine with it. In fact, there may have even been a little cheering.  I knew how to get there from another way but it was going to require a lot of backtracking and we were going to be really late.  After Dan got home last night and I was going over it with him, he laughed and said "Why didn't you take so and so and make a left on so and so and then get on blah blah blah blah?"

I actually knew the route he was referring to but with my bad sense of direction I wasn't able to figure that out in my mind on the fly. (I rely heavily on my Waze app.)  Also, (and this was the real reason) I was just as happy going home as I was going way out of my way and I think his was would still have us arriving at least 15 minutes late. 

I guess that's it.  There isn't much else going on around here other than the fact that it finally feels like fall and I can't decide whether I'm happy about it or not.  I guess I might as well enjoy it because there's nothing I can do about it.

But here's something I can be happy about:

Have a great weekend!

Just another weekend update.

Last I left you, I was enjoying an extremely rainy Thursday at home. I came out of my warm and cozy cocoon around 2:40 to pick up the kids.  I normally leave the house around 2:50 but wanted to leave a little early because it was raining really hard and I noticed that the wind was really picking up.

I was not prepared for what I went through to get to school.  Many of the area school systems had closed on Thursday ahead of the hurricane.  We just went through this with Florence and got nothing but rain but the school systems always err on the side of caution.  Our school (and the public school system it normally follows for weather closings) did not close.  I thought nothing of it until I was actually driving through that weather to pick up the kids.

I always take the back roads to school.  It's a little longer but much more peaceful and no highways.  I was second guessing myself as I was driving by trees that had fallen on the side of the roads, driving over the occasional  power line across the road (in my defense the car in front of me drove over it as well and there's still one down right near my house that people are still driving over) and seeing so many flooded out streams and creeks.

I thought to myself that I should have taken the highway and could have avoided all of that but after speaking to someone who did take the highway home, I'm glad I didn't.  Her normal 30 minute drive from school took her AN HOUR AND A HALF! Traffic lights were out, portions of roads were closed due to flooding and in general it was a mess!

I however managed to make it home safely with the kids because thankful the wind had finally started to die down on our ride home and the rain was beginning to slack off as well.

Sarah's swim practice was cancelled.  Dan and Peter's camping trip was cancelled because one of the leaders owns a farm and his farm suffered a lot of damage and another leader was called in to work over the weekend thanks to all the issues the storm caused.

There are people in this area that are still without power.  Thankfully we never lost power and basically resumed life as normal on Friday.  My kids went to school on a two hour delay on Friday but all the rest of the area schools were out.  Many of the schools had no power and many of the area roads were flooded.

We had ten days of dire warning prior to Florence and got nothing more than some heavy rains.  We go two days of hearing that Michael was going to hit Florida and we got pounded here.  It was crazy!

We went out to dinner on Saturday night and noticed large tables of burly men and realized that they were power line workers that had been called in from other areas to help restore all of the power.

Since Dan and Peter didn't go camping, they stayed home on Saturday and did yard work.  Sarah and I helped the Girl Scouts at a work day at the church where her meetings are held.  After that we got Sarah's flu shot, grabbed some Chick-Fil-A and then ran errands.  We took Cheyanne with us and we had a nice day.  Peter and Dan were annoyed when they found out we had Chick-Fil-A and they had leftovers at home.  Did they really think we were going to be gone ALL day and not eat something?  They should know me better than that!

Sunday was a lovely day.  After church we had lunch at my parent's house and then Sarah and my mom went to paint at a local art studio.  My mom has been taking some classes there.  This is what they painted on Sunday.  I think they did a great job!

Dan, Peter, and my brother watched the Panthers game while I napped.  After the game, I did three loads of laundry and worked on my grocery list.  And then we watched the Red Sox and the Patriots until I fell asleep.  I should have forced myself to stay up for the football game because it had a very exciting finish.  But I'm an old lady that needs her sleep! 

Thankful Thursday - Edition 41

It's a rainy Thursday here today thanks to Hurricane Michael.  We are supposed to get 3-6 inches today in our area.  That's our normal total average rainfall for the whole month of October - in one day.

But the good news is that after the rain clears out tonight, tomorrow and the rest of the weekend will be cool (high in the 60s) and sunny!

Here are just a few of the things I'm thankful for this week...

1. My best friend's son just got offered a paid summer internship with an excellent company!

2. A brilliant red cardinal flying past on grey and cloudy day.

3. My Keurig which faithfully delivers fresh, hot coffee to me every morning and sometimes in the afternoon too.

4. My 20-year-old washing machine which is cleaning a load of dirty clothes for me right now and the 20-year-old dryer that will be drying them.

5.  Carpool got switched around this week which means that I didn't have to drive a car full of kids to school in the pouring rain AND I don't have to drive next week either! 

6. Because I didn't drive car pool this morning and the weather is gross, I decided to stay in today and do my normal Thursday errands tomorrow.  A nice cozy day at home is always good for the soul.

7. Once I get the laundry done and dinner prepped, I'll be eating bonbons and watching This Is Us.  Well, technically I'll be eating leftovers for lunch and watching This Is Us but still.

8. Beautiful weekend weather means that Dan and Peter will be able to go on their Boy Scout camping trip and Sarah and I will be able to do some fun girly things.

9. I'm sure you've seen it already, but this meme made my day when it saw it.  Dan laughed at it too but the kids just rolled their eyes.

Updates and Instant Pot recipes.

We had a lovely weekend.  How about you?

On Friday night we headed to the football game.  Unfortunately, this week's game was also extremely lopsided but not in our favor this time. It's such a bummer...a close (or even closer) game is so much better. 

Peter and Sarah always have so much fun in "The Pit" with their friends.  The pit is where all the students sit.  The seniors sit on the first group of rows, followed by the juniors, next are the sophomores, and finally on the top rows of the bleachers are the freshman.

We are a very small school and there is no band, but  the seniors are in charge of chants and cheers and there's always this really strange horn blowing and my kids love it.  It's a nice way to spend a Friday night.  And the weather is still warm around here so it makes sitting outside at night enjoyable for  me - I hate to be chilly. 

This week is supposed to be much more October like - highs in the low 70s so I think my days of mid to upper 80s might be over until next year.  Oh well - that will give me something to look forward to!

On Saturday we did typical around-the-house stuff and then Dan and I went to Kohls.  We got on outfit for him that I think I might have him wear in our family pictures at the end of this month.  I say might because I'm not 100% sure.  I have Sarah's outfit picked out and the two colors in her outfit are the same as the two colors in Dan's but it feels too matchy- matchy.  Now I've got to figure out what Peter and I are going to wear.  Luckily I have 20 more days to get this sorted out!

On Sunday, Dan had a Boy Scout committee meeting after church and then he and I went out for a little afternoon date.  Since August Dan has been saying that he's going to miss our monthly Sunday night dates while the kids were at Confirmation class.  Sowe decided to just do it anyway even though the kids are already confirmed.  We headed to the restaurant we always used to go to, split an appetizer and had a drink.  We watched some football, talked about the kids, and just generally had a great time! 

Sarah had some weird issue going on with her eyes over the last month.  Her eyelids were red and puffy and then they would dry out and look like they were healing just to turn red and puffy and crusty all over again.  We tried coconut oil and Vaseline and then purchased some over-the-counter eye wipes.  Nothing was helping so we finally went to the doctor on Friday afternoon. 

The PA we saw said it might possibly be eczema so she gave us some samples of Eucrisa to try and she said that if that didn't clear it up then it was most likely an allergic reaction and she would refer us to the allergist.

Low and behold, we saw much improvement after just one application of the Eucrisa and now 3 days later her eye lids are almost as good as new!

I know you guys are wanting an Instant Pot update so here you go.  On Saturday I made ribs in the Instant Pot.  They were really good and only took an hour from start to finish which is so much better than the 3 plus hours it used to take following my old recipe.  The recipe I used is found here.  

And today for lunch, I made myself some wings in the Instant Pot.  They were really good too.  However, I should note that they did require time under the broiler so it wasn't super fast (total cook time was around 45 minutes) but they were actually really good considering they weren't fried in the deep fryer like the ones I love at my favorite place for wings. So I guess that makes them healthy!  :)  This is the recipe I used.  Please note, I just used the butter and hot sauce and omitted everything else from the sauce recipe.  I like a basic hot sauce and don't need all the other stuff to enjoy my wings

And I think that's about all I have to share for today.  We aren't even going to speak of the fact that the Red Sox are poised to blow their wonderful season by loosing to the New York Yankees in this series. 

I'm over it all - the politics and the driving around....

We had to go to Greensboro again last night. This time, there was a classical guitar concert at Guilford College and Peter was required to go for his guitar class. 

The performance was of The Walls written by Sergio Assad and this was the US debut of this piece of music. Sergio Assad was in attendance and it was performed by Bill Kanengise from USC.

From the Guilford College website:  "The Walls explores the human impact of four walls — the Great Wall of China, the United Kingdom’s Hadrian’s Wall, the Berlin Wall and Jerusalem’s West Bank Wall. As the music moves the audience through centuries and across borders, Sergio charges the performers, especially Bill, with transforming the guitar’s sound to embody different ethnic musical languages"

The music was lovely and some of the members of Peter's high school's guitar ensemble performed with the group.  It was nice to see one of his good friend up on stage.  And I appreciated the sentiment behind the music - which to me is basically you can put up a wall but it won't stop people from getting over it.

HOWEVER - as part of the program, they had 4 professors from Guilford College speak on each of the walls and other than the fact that it took up way to much time and added nothing to the music - it was extremely  political and I could have totally done without all of that. 

I understood what the music was trying to get across without the professors adding their own two cents.  It wasn't needed and in my mind it took away from the actual music and the  writer's message about music breaking down barriers.

Enough about that.

Peter has informed us that his religion group needs to get back together this weekend to work on another project so I guess I will be driving to High Point  and milling around there for a while.  Guess there's more Starbucks and Target in my future.

And I guess al of this driving is good because honestly, it is making me ready (gasp, I can't believe I said that!) for Peter to have his driver's license. I'm ready to retire the taxi sign from the top of my SUV.

We just need to find a decent automobile for him to drive.  But don't worry it's on my list of things to do so hopefully it will get checked off soon.  Although, things do tend to stay on my list for a while before they actually get checked off.  But as long as it's on the list, it will get done - eventually!
  
Bishop has a home football game tonight and the theme is Pink Out.  All the students will be wearing pink on support of Breast Cancer Awareness month.  So guess who was scouring all of Winston-Salem yesterday for cheap hot pink tee shirts?

FYI - Michael's for the win!!  $3.33 each. 

And with that, I've got to get the oil changed in  my car so I will leave you with this surprise rainbow from yesterday afternoon.  It was raining  nearby but not at our house so when I looked out the window I was pleasantly surprised!

Thankful Thursday - Edition 40

It's Thursday and here are a few of the things I'm thankful for this week:

1. Foggy mornings and my favorite tree:

2. Gorgeous sunrises.

3. Clean laundry.

4. An empty dishwasher.

5.Leftovers for lunch.

6. Parents that love to drive my kids around.

7. Good health.

8. A new episode of This Is Us waiting for me on the DVR.

9. Time spent with friends.

10. Checking things off my to-do list.

11. Indian summer.  I will be ready for cooler days at the end of this month but right now the mid to upper 80s is perfect!

12. And my blog friend Mary's book Be Brave In The Scared is available for pre-order on Amazon today!!  I just ordered my copy and I can not wait to read this book when it comes out!

What are you thankful for this week?

All the weekend nuggets...

Happy OCTOBER!!  I'm announcing that as if you didn't know already.  October sneaked up on me so maybe it did the same to you and you are like me, scratching your head and wondering how it happened.

It's going to be beautiful weather here this week - low 80s.  That's perfect.  I just got back from the gym and the grocery store and the humidity is low and the sun is shining and if it stayed like this forever, I would not be mad.

In other news, since it is technically fall, I'm slowly pulling out the fall decorations.  Remember this:

Well, the greenery was looking a little limp so I cut some more from our bushes and added some golden rod.  It grows wild around here this time of the year and there just so happened to be some across the street from our house.  On Saturday, Dan and I clipped some and added it to my arrangement.  It looked so pretty and was the perfect late summer/early fall decoration.  I did not manage to take a picture before disaster stuck.

As we were clipping it, Dan mentioned that my Uncle David was allergic to golden rod. I thought nothing of it until yesterday while Peter was at the island working on his Eagle project when he sneezed.

Dan exclaimed, "I bet it's the golden rod!" 

I was hopeful that the sneeze was a one-and-done but nope.  Peter sneezed three more times and began rubbing his eyes.  Less than 5 minutes later his entire face was red and his eyes were swollen.  Benadryl was administered,I sent Dan outside with the offending allergen, and sent Peter upstairs to take a shower.

And I was left feeling bummed out because the free pop of yellow was gone my arrangement.  However, as I was driving home this morning, I noticed some yellow flowers (I think maybe Blacked-eyed Susan) so I'm hoping that I can spot some close to home and grab those.  Hopefully the boy won't be allergic to those as well.

In other news, I made this delicious dessert for Sunday lunch.

These Caramel Apple Crisp Cheesecake Bars were a huge hit.  Even my husband who prefers chocolate desserts said they were really good and to make them again.  And my brother who doesn't eat dessert typically had some of this and said it was good. 

If you make them, please note, the crust won't be super hard when you are trying to spread the cream cheese filling over it so you will have to be gentle so as not to get the crust in the filling.  However, with a little patience you can get it accomplished and the crust hardens up when the whole thing is baking. 

Also, if you make this, you must use whipped cream and caramel sauce.  That's what made this bar dessert so yummy!(And mine looks nothing like the original but they were still good!)

Sarah had a busy weekend. Her Girl Scout troop held a yard sale on Friday night and Saturday (with a sleepover in between) and then after they were done and had toted the leftovers to Goodwill, they worked the chicken pie supper at the church that hosts their meetings.  And then because they had worked so hard over the last 24 hours, their leader took them out to dinner.  She loves the girls in her troop and her leaders and had a great time. She was tired though and spent most of yesterday doing homework.

Which reminds me, the reason she was still doing homework on Sunday even though the kids had a teacher workday on Friday was because Peter had to go to High Point to work on a religion project with some kids from his religion class.  He didn't know how long it was going to be so I told him I would stay nearby and get some coffee from Starbucks. (i didn't want to drive all the way home to just a text that he was done.) Sarah heard the word "Starbucks" and decided she wanted to go too.

We found a Target with a Starbucks and managed to kill an hour and a half.  He still wasn't finished so we found a T.J. Maxx and killed another hour and a half.  And then  he was done.  But by this time, it was 2:00 and we hadn't eaten lunch so we stopped for KFC - Peter's choice - and finally made it home a little after 3:00.  Then I had to load my car up with yard sale goodies and get Sarah to the sale.  All this to say, had we known it was going to take all day, Sarah would have stayed home to work on her homework and I would have milled around High Point alone. 

In other news, not sure I've mentioned it or not but Dan has lost 25 (probably closer to 30) pounds since April doing low carb.  I've been on and off the low carb wagon (mostly off) since January and have had no success.  Most likely due to the fact that I have been mostly off the diet. But his determination to stick with it has inspired me.  So, once again, I'm giving it a whirl.  I continue to lose and gain the same 5 pounds which isn't really doing anything to help me lose the 15 that I would like to lose.  So here I go again....Wish me luck!