On the road again

We'll be heading out for Azle again tonight, to celebrate the 4th with our families, to be with Matt's mom for her next dose of chemo, to help with Brent's surprise party, and to visit with Brad. Matt had to pull some strings to get Thursday and Friday off, and I've had to use some mad laundering and packing skills. And we also had to cancel some plans with a couple we've been eating out and playing cards with lately. But I think we'll be ready to blast off once Matt gets home.

I want to say things have been crazy this past month, and that's why I haven't posted. But they haven't been any crazier than normal, besides Kara and Jenn's visits. I've just felt like I had more important things to do than typing an update on our blog. We've been working on getting Natalee potty trained. No where near done with that. Right now we're just trying to plant the seed in her head that going potty in her pottychair is good. We put her hand in a cup of warm water, and we give her a Reese's Piece and a Mini M&M just for sitting down on the little chair and trying. But we've only gotten her to go once. We don't yell or make a big deal if she doesn't. She just doesn't get more candy. When she does potty in the chair, she gets two Reese's Pieces and a Mini M&M of each color, on top of what she got just for trying, plus a lot of hugs and verbal backpatting. Right now I think Matt and I need to learn to watch her better and know when to take her to the potty chair, what my mom calls 'catching her.' And just keep trying.

I've been reading a lot lately, mostly A. C. Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and the His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman. I've problems with both of them for different reasons, but they're still good reads. But I'm very curious to see the U.S.'s reactions if they not only make The Golden Compass into a movie, but the sequels as well. People have always mentioned in conjunction with that series how odd it is that it was so popular in Great Britain and the rest of Europe, but never really caught on in the U.S. There's a reason for that. We'll see how it goes.

Matt's also been picking Magic: The Gathering back up. Matt has a few co-workers who play it, and so he's started getting back into it, going out to play with a few of them almost every weekend for the past month and a half. It's good for him to get out and do something fun and challenging like that with all the stress he has on his plate. Natalee and I just miss him when he's gone, since he's been working so much overtime lately, and then goes out for 6-8 hours one night out of the weekend to play Magic. But he loves it, and he and I play Lego Star Wars on the PS3 the rest of the weekend. There's something wrongly gleeful about ripping the arms off a Lego Stormtrooper, or going around slapping up other Star Wars characters with your little Lego hand.

Hope everybody has a safe and happy Independence Day. (We'll actually be doing something fun this year! Huzzah!)

Recipe websites

This will be a short post. I just thought I'd post up some of the websites I go to for recipes nowadays. I've tried recipes from all of them except the Betty Crocker one, but then I grew up using Betty Crocker cookbooks, so I don't think that counts. And the LandoLakes one is pretty fattening - go figure, it's a butter website!

• http://www.landolakes.com/mealIdeas/RecipeFinder.cfm (Really rich, stomach-growling foods)
• http://foodiefarmgirl.blogspot.com/2005/11/beyond-easy-beer-bread.html (This gal makes beer bread easy. Just do NOT use sea salt - your bread won't rise and will have a mushy center.)
• http://www.bettycrocker.com/ (The tortilla soup recipe looks like the same one I based my famous chicken tortilla soup off of, so this website has my approval thus far. But beware, a lot of the recipes look pretty fattening!)
• http://www.foodnetwork.com (I like the fact that you can sift through so many styles for the same recipe here. This is where I got the key lime pie recipe. You like Alton Brown - you can find his recipes here. You detest Emeril, you'll see who each recipe is attributed to and can easily avoid those submitted by chefs you dislike.)
• http://www.kraftfoods.com (Pretty good mix of healthy and indulgent recipes. And they have a helpful program where you can type in three things from your pantry or fridge, and they'll give you a list of recipes that you can use them in, quick ideas when you don't have anything planned and you just want to use what you have on hand. But, warning, I haven't used any of these recipes yet. I'm trying out the one-pan beef stroganoff later this week.)

Most of these have a recipe box that you can electronically save your recipes to, so you can retrieve them later. And you can sign up for recipe newsletters, through which you might get inspired with an emailed or linked recipe. Let me know if you have any favorite recipe websites. I'm always looking for good new ones.

And off subject, another interesting website: http://www.getridofthings.com/index.html. I'm not saying to trust their methods wholecloth, but I'm trying out their antkilling methods with the borax cottonballs. Not for certain if it works, but it seems like it might be, and it didn't cost an arm and a leg. Most importantly, it doesn't seem to be as harmful and fumigatory as some commercial antkillers.

Sick again

Well, it was my turn to be sick this past week. I started feeling headachey and unwell Sunday afternoon; by Sunday night I had a fever of 103.3 F that didn't want to go down. Matt was up all night with me and had to miss work the next day so he could take me to the doctor's office. I came clear on the throat swab test for strep throat, and my white blood cell count was normal, but I was still so sick I had to lay down in the exam room. Mom very reluctantly brought Kara over to help out so Matt wouldn't have to miss any more work. Thankfully, I was feeling better by Tuesday morning, just weak, horribly body achey, with a sore throat. Kara helped out a lot. It was really nice having her here to play with Natalee and help around the apartment. I know Natalee enjoyed having her here to splash water on, waggle her tongue at, and giggle with. When Kara ran up to the store for me Wednesday, Natalee went looking for her all over the apartment, looking in all the rooms while holding a hand to her tummy as if to protect her heart.

Kara and I got to spend some quality sister time together. I haven't done that with just Kara in a long time. She's grown up on me - it's sad that I don't have that sweet baby sister who said "'Doodle-doo!" to the rooster, but it's amazing and a lot of fun too. I showed her how I make my Matt-approved pork chops (Matt's a picky eater), we wandered around Walmart and Palais Royal some. And we played Lego Star Wars all together Wednesday night, which was really funny. And then Natalee and I drove Kara back to Conroe to meet Mom. Hopefully we'll get to see her again soon. With her working a full time job and a long-term boyfriend, we don't see much of each other nowadays.

Jennifer will be coming to visit this next week. I'm looking forward to it. And I'm feeling a lot better now, with just a little bit of a sore throat. Natalee should finish her antibiotics today. As long as Matt doesn't get sick in the meantime, we should all be well and ready for whatever when Jenn gets here, so at least one of my sisters won't have to play nursemaid during their visit.

Natalee's latest discovery has been her belly button. She walks around with her finger poked into it and will point towards yours, saying "Wazat?" even when your shirt's down. She points to everything and asks "Wazat?" It's a lot worse when she doesn't point and asks. Then we have to name everything within sight and hearing. And right now she's sitting on a bottle of nail polish, wiggling her butt, and saying "weeee, weeee, weeee." She's a stinker, but she's fun, and she's mine. :)

Strep Throat

Natalee has strep throat. Urgh. She started acting clingy and quiet Wednesday night, which tipped Matt off that something was wrong. She had a 102+ fever that lasted through to the next morning. So I cancelled a follow-up checkup with my doctor and got Natalee in to the pediatrician's yesterday. She's been acting fine for the most part, just cranky, but her throat swab came back positive for strep. Poor baby. She's on antibiotics now, and her fever's been gone for the most part, but she's still got a sore throat. The only way I know something is wrong is that she's so fussy, and she can't say what's bothering her. It's just a matter of dosing her with amoxicillin and painkillers when she gets really fussy and keeping her home and away from other kids. The keeping her home part stinks right now because this weekend our town is throwing a big carnival to celebrate it's 100th anniversary...and the carnival is just halfway down the street from us. She would have got a kick out of going to that. Oh well.

Rain, rain, go away...

Well, we got back last night from visiting Matt's parents, and friends and family in the Fort Worth area. And it rained. And rained. And rained a great deal more. The whole trip, from the drive up there to the drive home. You get rather inured to rain down here in Southeast Texas, but lots of rain in North Texas is pretty unheard of. We started feeling as if the rain had decided to visit along with us.

Matt's mother is doing pretty well, all things considered. The chemotherapy is no picnic, but thankfully she's been able to take some medication that helps her deal with the worse side effects of the chemo, though even those weren't helping as much as time went along and the chemo started setting in. But we had a really good visit with both Mom and Dad, and Natalee got to charm Grandpa McMullen again. We also got to spend Saturday evening with Brent, Rachel, Pam, Eric, Daniel, Gabby, and kids at Pam's house, visiting, playing with the kids, eating lasagna and cobbler, and gleefully teasing each other, especially during the Wii games. It's a lot of fun when we can all get together. With Rachel and the boys back in Azle and Brent possibly in and out, we might be able to get together more often. *fingers crossed*

I also got to spend some time Sunday with Stephanie while Natalee was napping and Jay watched the boys. (Many thanks to Jay for giving his wife the heave-ho for a few hours of girl time) We ate Chinese food, ogled things we really didn't need, didn't have the extra money for, but played with and pretended we were going to buy, nonetheless. Afterwords, we consoled ourselves with some really fantastic ice cream and were very bad Mormon girls and gossiped about everyone we knew from church - how so and so was doing, where so and so was at, how many kids so and so has, remember him, what happened to her, etc. Good times.

We got to see Dad, Brenda, and my sisters as well. It's always a pleasure when I get to see my family. I'm so proud of the young women my sisters have become, from watching cartoons incessantly, running when it was time to brush their hair, and sneaking into bed with me in the middle of the night, to such poised, beautiful, creative, funny people. It amazes me that they've grown into two of the people I most want to spend my time with. Jennifer's been doing really well with her school work - she was selected for a very special honor group that visited TCU not long ago to discuss their college prospects and try out dorm life. Matt and I are very happy (dare I say it, smug?) that she still plans on attending A&M after high school. And Kara has been working her rear end off to put a new engine in her car, no mean feat. We're all three looking forward to seeing them both in June. Natalee was even looking for the girls afterwards, trying to see around Matt when he loaded her into the car. It was also really good to see Dad and Brenda. Dad is pretty much what you would wish for in a parent as an adult - always there to listen, encourage you, share what's going on with the rest of the family, and help you when you need him. I've grown to appreciate him a lot more as I've gotten older. And Brenda complements Dad perfectly, and has always been a fun and understanding stepmom. Plus she's been putting up with the girls' antics for years now. (Kudos to Brenda!)

Anyways, I'm babbling since it was so good to see everyone. The only ones we didn't visit were my grandparents and Aunt Kim and family. Since they live in Azle, we usually always see them, so I didn't feel terrible trying to set time to visit others we hadn't seen in quite a while. We made it home safely, hurrah!, and we stopped in West at the Czech Stop on the way back, so we got to enjoy very, very good food despite the awful weather. The cream cheese kolaches are divine! Everyone in the state of Texas should at some point try to make their way to West and sample the really fantastic Czech foods.

Until next time, TTFN and all that.

And a one, two, three!

Well, I like Stephanie's blog so much, I thought I'd give her style a try. I like the layout of this blog a lot better than the MSN My Spaces - I don't think anybody can actually enter those unless they have a Hotmail Live account. Bummer. I'll try to post as regularly as possible here with the McMullens' happenings.

We received very good news last night. Matt's mother has breast cancer, stage 2B. She recently had a radical modified mastectomy. The good news is, her PET scan came back clear. The cancer hasn't spread to anywhere else in her body, and because her lymph nodes are still small, she doesn't have to have radiation. She starts chemotherapy this Friday. We'll be driving up to Azle to be with her and Dad this weekend, to help out and spend some of Memorial Day with them. I think they're looking forward to seeing our little booger baby.

I made a key lime pie this week. It came out pretty well, though I would recommend lessening the amount of lime juice in the recipe - it's very tart! Since Matt is pretty anti-sour cream, mayonaise, etc. we just used cool whip and blackberries as topping, and I bought a pre-made graham cracker pie crust. This is based off of an Emeril recipe from Food Network.

• 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs


• 1/2 cup granulated sugar


• 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick butter) melted


• 2 (14-ounce) cans condensed milk


• 1 cup key lime or regular lime juice


• 2 whole eggs


• 1 cup sour cream


• 2 tablespoons powdered sugar


• 1 tablespoon lime zest

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
In a bowl, mix the graham cracker crumbs, sugar, and butter with your hands. Press the mixture firmly into a 9-inch pie pan, and bake until brown, about 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature before filling.
Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees F.
In a separate bowl, combine the condensed milk, lime juice, and eggs. Whisk until well blended and place the filling in the cooled pie shell. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes and allow to chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.
Once chilled, combine the sour cream and powdered sugar and spread over the top of the pie using a spatula. Sprinkle the lime zest as a garnish on top of the sour cream and serve chilled.