Pickling peppers

Love this easy recipe to pickle banana peppers!

Equal parts water and vinegar, I used a 32oz jar, so I had one cup of each water and vinegar.

2 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon course sea salt
Any herbs and spices you may want
Boil this concoction while you clean, slice and prepare your peppers in the jar.

I boil mine about 5 minutes

Pour into jar on top of peppers and voila! Place in the fridge once cooled and wait about a week to use.

They are delicious and last forever!

Enjoy! 🌶

Cake For Breakfast

Let's think about this, cake for breakfast. I'll admit. I've eaten cake for breakfast. Particularly when I was growing up and my dad would be in charge of breakfast in the morning. Sometimes it would be scrambled eggs, other times it would be left over cake or pie my mother made the night before.

My mother would then get upset, but, in my dad's defense, she did make it that night before.

Cake has eggs, milk, sure it has sugar, but you've got protein, vitamin A, calcium, ect. If you go the pie route, you've probably even got some fruit in there!

So let's recap, cake for breakfast is a good, nutritious choice!

Go Steelers!

While my family is not huge on football, we do consider ourselves Pittsburgh Steelers fans!

Apples!

2 years ago I began the task of canning. My specialty is jams and jellys, but I've made applesauce, pickles, hot pepper rings, ect. A local orchard is sometimes the best place to buy produce for your canning adventures!

Best friends!

This happens on the daily. These 2 nap together every chance they get. Desmond is a 4 year old pit mix that we adopted when he was a puppy. We had to put our other dog, Emma down this past February, she was 16.

Desmond and Emma were best buds! Des grew up with Emma, and when he passed he was very sad and lonely. Then comes Marlo! He has made it his mission to be her protector, friend, and brother.

I cannot wait to see how this friendship progresses as Marlo gets older!

Marlo Jane

This little girl is the light of my life!  I had never been a "baby person" until my little Marlo was born!  I was never a very sensitive person, until she was born.  I was never a lot of things until she came into my life.  Marlo was born 6 weeks early.  I have a heart shaped uterus of which I was unaware until my water broke one evening waaaaay before it was supposed to.  Marlo was also breach, therefore an emergency c-section was in the works.  My hubby and I arrived at the hospital shortly after 11pm, and she was born at 2:25 am on June 2, 2016 at 5lbs 9oz, 18 inches long.  Talk about a whirlwind!

Marlo was placed in oxygen and heated incubation chamber for the first 24 hours of which I was unable to see her due to having the c-section and all that comes with it (catheter, compression boots, IV, ect).  Not our birthing plan AT ALL!  I have a pretty high pain tolerance, so the plan was to go all natural if possible, but to not beat myself up if I decided on an epidural.  All that changed at about 10 pm on June 1st.

So along with insane hormonal emotions running through me, I wanted to see this baby!  I hadn't gotten to visit her in the nursery and they would not bring her out because of her delicate situation.  In the end, she was only in incubation for a 24 hour period as I mentioned before.  She was a tough cookie, and was able to spend most of my hospital stay (4 days) in our room.

Breastfeeding was torturous, I don't think my body was ready for it yet, but she did get some breast milk within the first 5 weeks of her new life.  I tried and tried to pump and feed, but she was growing at a rapid rate, and my milk was just not coming in.  She's been on formula ever since and is now a hefty 13 pounds.

The reason I am sharing this story is because I know I beat myself up over the things that I didn't accomplish that I wanted to; natural birth, breastfeeding for at least 6 months, a full term baby.  But in reality, we don't get to make those choices, the universe makes them for us.  I was lucky to have a wonderful support group of friends and family that allowed me to push through the hard times and recognize that as long as Marlo was healthy, why did it matter how she got here?  Now I don't even think about the things I wasn't able to do, because just waking up to her sweet face every morning made it all worth it.

New Mom Rant

Let me start off by saying again that I am a new mom.  I saw this onsie on Facebook about a month or so after having my little girl and at that point and time I felt it was very suitable (no, I did not purchase it).  I could not believe the amount of unsolicited advice I was getting from all types of people in my life!  It was like torture when I was trying to figure out my own life with my new baby!

People want to give you advice, and I don't think they mean any harm by it, but for a new mom with a touch of Postpartum and hormones galore, it can create a lot of anxiety.  So please, if you are one of those people that like to share things even when you aren't asked, don't.  That is all.