Tasty Tuesday

Today I thought it would be nice to share a recipe that I absolutely love which is cheesy potatoes. Now, I want to warn you that this is NOT a healthy item and there is probably a way to make it healthy but I do not do that. This was passed down to me from a professor so make sure if you make it to let me know so I can tell her you loved it.

Here is the recipe: (Serves 15)

Ingredients:

2 lbs. (1bag) frozen hash brown potatoes

¼ - ½ cup frozen chopped onions

1 ¼ lbs. shredded cheddar cheese

2 cups sour cream 1 can cream of chicken soup

1 can cream of mushroom soup

salt

pepper

Directions:

Mix thoroughly all ingredients and bake, covered with foil, for 90 minutes at 325 ' in a 9 X 13 pan that has been well sprayed with Pam.

Topping: Corn Flake Crumbs, crushed

After baking for 90 minutes, top potatoes with a layer of crushed corn flake crumbs. Return to the oven, uncovered, for an additional 30 - 45 min or until potatoes are thoroughly heated.

These potatoes are amazing. Anthony literally asks for them every week so I hope you all enjoy!

Movie Monday

Good morning everyone! I got up bright and early this morning and decided to get some things out of the way for the day. Last night before heading to the gym Anthony and I ate dinner and watched a movie which I decided to cover for today's blog. We watched "A Bee Movie" and although Anthony had already seen it, I really had wanted to see this one. It was as good as I imagined. It had great wit and humor, good innovative ideas, and a great plot. I loved Jerry Seinfield's character Barry Benson, he was really funny and a great hero of the movie. I also noticed the voices of Matthew Broderick, John Goodman (Hilarious), & Renee Zellweger. They were all great and the characters were well developed.

I thought the movie was absolutely great and I would recommend it highly. On Anthony & Erica's movie ratings, this movie gets ***** out of 5 stars! It's clean, family friendly, and even has a few good Jew jokes which I of course enjoy with my Heeb self! Awesome! :)

Scrapbook Sunday

Anthony and I are back to one of our old passions and loves. (I am laughing a little as I type that) We have started to go back to the gym. That is the reporting on your "hobbies" this week. Maybe I should have written this on witty wednesday. Keep us in your prayers as its only day two and we are both limping to bed! Goodnight everyone!

The baby journey....as of now.

I have hesitated to write about this on our blog just due to the personal nature of it but I really try to be genuine and transparent on my blog because it is so therapetuic for me. Anthony and I decided in October that we wanted to start "trying" to have a baby. When I came home after much deliberation in my own therapy, hours and hours of personal thought and prayer, and much brainstorming and said "ok Anthony, let's start trying" I thought that the decision was going to work a little differently. I have always had really good female health as in you could set the calendar by me. I thought that once we decided to stop taking precautions that I would not see another period for 9 months. I seriously thought it would be that easy.

I set an appointment very quickly after deciding to talk about getting pregnant with my doctor. My doctor was extremely enthusiastic and said that I was ready to start trying and told me to start prenatal vitamins and to understand that it would probably take between 6 and 12 months to get pregnant for a healthy woman my age. I then went to diabetic education and start taking classes about being diabetic and pregnant. The staff at the diabetic education center were not nearly as enthusiastic and wanted to warn me (and rightly so) that I needed to have good control of diabetes in every way in order to have a baby. I took their advice seriously and started eating according to their plan, taking prenatals, and treating my body like the little house it was going to be.

The first month was interesting and I thought for sure I probably got pregnant right away until the monthly visitor showed up and taught me something new. The facts are, I didn't get pregnant right away. I got onto the computer and looked at "What to expect when you're expecting" and did an ovulation calculator for the next month and planned my attack. Sure enough the next month came around and it wasn't long before I found out in November that once again, I wasn't pregnant. I started to wonder whether I was calculating right so I looked in my calendar and figured out that I do not have a cycle every 28 days but have one every 31 days so I had to recalculate for December.

I recalculated properly and went back to the drawing board only to see December come and go with not pregnant all through it. I felt like that was probably ok since it was the first month I really knew the facts but resolved that January would come and it would happen. I would get pregnant. We did what we had to do and then I started to get really sad. I started to have doubts about my femininity and started to feel inadequate about my abilities to bear children. I have no idea what convinced me that to not have a baby right away made me tainted or not good enough but I sure felt that way. Then about middle January to late January my little sister called and said "I am pregnant" and she didn't mean to get pregnant. Now, I love Britt so much and think she will be a great mama so my heart was full of happiness and then there was this little nagging pain in my heart that said "Maybe you aren't good enough to be a mama Erica."

So then the time comes for the monthly visitor and nothing came...for 2 weeks. I went on the two week mark to the doctor because all of the at home pregnancy tests were coming negative and I figured maybe I was like those women that test negative at home but just don't come out on a pregnancy test and have to do blood tests. Note here that I had never been late in 18 years of being "a woman." I was sure this one had stuck. I went to the doctor and took blood tests not only to determine if I was pregnant but also if there was something unbalanced about my hormones. It turned out I was not pregnant and nothing was wrong with my hormones. I ended up completely skipping my period in February and that was really hard on me to start to have hope and then to find out that it wasn't pregnancy at all.

Anthony and I went on vacation in March and really tried to shake off our disappointment by enjoying ourselves being married and having a road trip. We did not talk about making babies or family but just enjoyed being married and got back to where we "connected" not to create a child but to create intimacy. It was a nice trip back. We basically laid down our cares and concerns for having children on our road trip and promised God that we would allow Him to decide.

So here we sit at the beginning of May and we are not pregnant that we know of. I should note here that I am indeed two weeks late again but I know how that doesn't mean anything. We have not tested at home just because again, we are giving God the time to do this. If I am over a month late again I will test at home but it will take me 2 months of being late to go to the doctor. I feel like this is pretty safe as I am already eating like I am pregnant, taking care of my diabetes like I'm pregnant, and taking prenatals. This is the way that I have to sit with it to be emotionally not stressed or disappointed.

If you all could keep us in your prayers for God's perfect timing, that would be lovely.

Thanks,

Mr & Mrs.

Singer/Song Saturday

Today's Singer is Brett Dennen and the song is called "Ain't gonna lose you." It's a really honest presentation of how we feel when we love someone. I have attached the song in a youtube video but there is really just one picture as it plays. I saw Brett in concert in March in Reno, Nevada and it was magnificent. When he sang this song, I literally wept through the entire song. It seemed so raw and emotional. Let me know what you think about Brett and this song. If you like Brett, he has three cds, has been featured on Grey's Anatomy and just now getting his start in being popular. I have loved him for some time! Enjoy the song....I have added the lyrics so you can follow along.



Ain't Gonna Lose you -- Performed by Brett Dennen

You can put a stick in my spokes

I can be the butt of your jokes

I can be the laughing stock

I can be your hoax

But I ain't gonna lose you

They can come and tear my house down

They can run me out of town

They can tie me up, call me a clown

But I ain't gonna lose you

No I ain't gonna lose you

I can't stand the thought of another man

No I ain't gonna lose you

They can make me turn my back on my friends

Send me away to San Quentin

Put me in the hole

A thousand times again

Oh I ain't gonna lose you

No I ain't gonna lose you

Throw me in a hurricane

Tell the world I've gone insane

Run an electric shock to my brain

But I ain't gonna lose you

No I ain't gonna lose you

I can't stand, the thought of another man

No I ain't gonna lose you

No I ain't gonna lose, ain't gonna lose, ain't gonna lose

Ain't gonna lose, Ain't gonna lose

And I sing it from my rooftops

Sing it from the bus stop

Sing it on the street, drunk to a cop

Oh I ain't gonna lose you

No I ain't gonna lose

Ain't gonna lose you, Ain't gonna lose you, Ain't gonna lose, Ain't gonna lose you, Not gonna lose

Faith Friday

We were watching American Idol on DVR last night as we had not gotten time to watch it during the week. Jaimie Foxx was the mentor this week and as I am a big fan of his, I listened to every word he had to say. There was a part of the show where he said to the audience that he asked each contestant if they wanted to be a singer or an artist and that was an important question for each of them to answer. I was thinking about how this fits so well with our Christian walk. Often times, we end up just being a singer and not an artist.

This is how I connect singer and artist to our walks. A singer is a person who takes a song and sings the lyrics but never puts their own personality, strengths, or emotion into the song. An artist is someone who not only sings the song but brings themselves into it, changes it to reflect their personality, and fills it with appropriate emotion. Webster Defines both as such:

Singer: One that sings (no kidding, it was this short)

Artist: 1. One skilled or versed in learning arts. 2. One who professes and practices an imaginative art. 3. A skilled performer 4. One who is adept at something.

This really tugged at my spirit because we can just be "singers" who say we are Christians and do all the movements (like singing) or we can be an "artist" who not only professes but practices our Christian walk. I think it's important for all of us to look at whether we are just "singers" or are we "artists" in practicing God's love to this world. American Idol taught me something this week, okay, well Jaimie did!

Thrifty Thursday

I found a really awesome site recently to help me find all kinds of deals so I thought since tonight was my last night at school and I got home late, I would pass on this site so you can check it out for lots of deals and coupons

Retail me Not!

Enjoy and I promise next week there will be more to Thrifty Thursday! Next Thursday I am speaking at my commencement so say a prayer for me if you think about it!