"Break Free"

With drop in temperatures combined with the rain from Hurricane Sandy, it is really difficult to type today.  While my hands have fortunately been doing a little better lately, it has still been a challenge to do all my normal stuff thanks to my fibromyalgia.  I find it really ironic that it has decided to settle into my hands making it almost impossible to move my fingers some days, especially when I want to write.  And yet, I feel so thankful since I have nothing worse to deal with unlike so many others.

Despite the pain and difficulty, I really wanted to write today (or more accurately, these several days since it has taken me that long to type out this post since my fingers will only let me do a few lines at a time).  The past few weeks have been hugely encouraging for me in regards to my fibro.

Halloween: Angry Birds Style

Last year, we decided it would be really fun to dress up thematically for Halloween.  At least, I decided that would be fun while the boys would still go for it and Brian would humor me.  I've been looking back nostalgically this year since the boys thought it was so fun dressing up as a group that they want to do it again this year just this time Avengers style.  This means, however, that being the only girl, I automatically get to be Black Widow with the cat suit as I accompany a miniature Hulk, Captain America and Thor around the neighborhood.  I'm somewhat doubtful that would be as cute as last year's white angry bird costume on me!

So many people asked me though how I made last year's costumes that I thought I would share it since it was really easy, and as I usually strive for, really economical. 

"Funny" Fish Tacos

As many of my friends and family have heard me bemoan, Mexican food is pretty hard to come by were we live in the South.  And by Mexican food, I mean things that actually resemble what I ate when I was in Mexico and when we used to live in Southern California.  We've had to explain what a tamale is ("no, you don't eat the corn husk"), fish is actually normal in a taco, and chile rellanos are not smothered in velveeta.  We've found a couple good places, but I have been attempting to create healthy versions of some of our favorites.

I cook a lot since it so much cheaper to feed our three ravenous boys healthily.  I've been working on healthy and quick recipes that I can easily make in about half an hour since between homework, soccer and bath time with our crew, nights are pretty busy!  So last night I came up with a new recipe for healthy fish tacos:

Remember to Back Up!

Not too long ago, I wrote about how my computer crashed and refused to be resuscitated back to life.  What I didn't write about was how I had forgotten to back up my hard drive.  For a very long time.

Did I mention that I have been writing two books?

As it appears, my hard drive was messed up with whatever happened with the computer and all my data is now inaccessible with almost no hope of recovery.  Fortunately, I had most of the kids' pictures backed up on (thanks, Shutterfly!) but my books are gone.  One of them, a book on theology, I have been working on for several years.  The other one, a fictional story, was newer but represented hours and hours of work nonetheless.

It is easy to say that the immediate lesson from this is to always back up your data.  I can guarantee that I will not be making this mistake again, but I think my pain in this episode of my stupidity has a deeper root. 

Pear Decorating Fail

My parents have been doing some really fun renovations to their home lately which has gotten me thinking about mine.  Maybe it is a combination of wanting to decorate for fall or feeling like I'm living in the Star Wars and Lego aisles at a toy store, but whatever the reason, I have felt inspired to see what I can do to freshen up the house and make it look like a girl actually lives here.  With our food budget skyrocketing as all three of my boys have decided to go on a growth spurt at the same time, I clearly needed to be cheap about it too.

Technical Difficulties



I really have to apologize since it may well appear that I have dropped off the face of the planet since it has been several weeks since I last posted.  Despite my intentions of posting at least once I week, I have failed.  Shortly after I wrote the last post, my computer decided to stage a grand rebellion by way of turning off unexpectedly when my husband was trying to sync iTunes with my iPod for me.  For his kind gesture, he was  rewarded with a very long ordeal of trying to get the thing to turn on again.  It did not want to.  After several diagnostic attempts (which are very tricky when the computer won't even turn on, might I add), we lost all hope for its recovery when we realized the motherboard was fried.  Rest in Peace, cute blue Dell laptop!

However, this has left me computerless and a bit posting-challenged.  My post tonight comes courtesy of a borrowed computer (thanks, Brian!).  In the meantime, I have realized that I am far too dependent on my computer.

An Answer to Prayer

Not too long ago, I wrote about all the struggles I have been having in parenting our second son, Luke in my post, Courageous Parenting.  Since then, I've been praying like mad for him.  We've had some good days and some not so good ones (which are, sad to say, usually very funny given his mischievous personality!)  But yesterday, everything changed; it was the best day!

Luke decided to ask for forgiveness from God and has chosen to follow Jesus with his life!

There's not much better than that in this world!  After weeks of saying he doesn't care about rules and that he wants to be bad and do things his way, he made the best choice of his life.  I'm not saying all is said and done with him now since my precious Luke still has a lot of growing to do (as we all do, though) but he is now on the right track.