Dark chocolate. Ancho and chipotle peppers. Cinnamon. It is heavenly.
I hope that you all enjoyed reading about Charlie last week! Since I'm tracked out for the next four weeks, I decided to do another post on one specific child since I'm low on content being away from the kids. So, meet Amanda. Amanda is a spunky, southern, African American little girl who will melt your heart. I'll look over every once in a while and find her laughing to herself (she looks like she's an adult when she does this). She also talks to herself pretty frequently and loves riding the tricycle outside up into every "cove" that has a door so she can admire her beautiful self in the reflection. She is an absolute angel in the classroom...very cooperative, flexible, sweet and takes a long nap every single day :)
If you know me, you know that I l.o.v.e. babies and children.
Oh yeah. Christmassy Chocolate Bark. It was awesome.
Who doesn't like Peanut Butter Hersey Kiss Cookies?!? Terrorists probably.
Cranberry Orange Scones. Wowee wow wow.
Almond Snowball Cookies. I usually wait for Kelly's mom (Kel and her mom have a Christmas Baking Day too) to make me my cookie tin and add extra snowballs for me and Chad. But since Kel's mom has moved out of state (noooooo), I might have to make some of my own!
Chocolate Oreo Truffles. Baby Jesus said so.
Because Kevin asked for it and mom usually gives in to his requests. Who am I kidding... mom will NOT deny any of her children Christmas cookie requests. Oh, hi fudge. You look pretty today.
Homemade toffee. This is usually the recipe that while we're making it something will look wrong and we'll call our neighbor Alice (whose recipe it is and who I like to call my NC Grandma) and we won't even get the full question out before she says "I'll be right there!!!" and will run three houses down to rescue us from destroying her toffee.
During my high school and college days, I would say it was pretty evenly split with male and female friends. And I definitely thought opposite sex friendships were great! However, I learned the hard way in certain situations that opposite sex friendships only really work well within a group context. One-on-one male/female friendships get complicated because ultimately one person wants it to be something more. Eek. And then you're stuck with, "Well, do we end the friendship since we obviously want different things?" Sometimes you can just eliminate the one-on-one part of the friendship and maintain the friendship among a group of other people. Other times the friendship fizzles completely.
are allowed to be good friends with your spouse's best friends. Fringe friends may or may not apply... depending on trustworthiness of said friend. But husband's closest friends - in the clear. For instance, two of Chad's best friends are David (Annabelle's daddy) and Stephen. He's grown up with them. My close friendship with them is actually encouraged - since it means Chad will get to hang out with them more often. Likewise, Chad is absolutely allowed to hang out and be friends with my girlfriends like Hannah and Kelly.
ou are allowed to be good friends with your best friends' spouses. For instance, it would be approved for me to be friends with Hannah's husband Jack or Kelly's boyfriend Ian. A-okay. Likewise, Chad is permitted to be friends with David's wife Jamie, etc. Once again, the reason this works is because the friendship is 99% of the time within a group context.
I am a Brickbreaker phenom. I truly think you could enroll me in a Brickbreaker competition and I'd be battling for the trophy. In fact, I'd wager a guess that no one reading this blog has beaten my high score.
Due to Parent Conferences, I've been totally swamped lately. We're down to the last few days of school until Ms. Molly gets a nice loooooong vacation. Thank goodness for year-round schools!
His wife reportedly has left him. His reputation is shredded. His once-perfect name has been dragged through more mud than a Nantucket clam digger's boots. A once-spotless life is now an episode of "Cops."
So what now?
First, Oprah Winfrey.
"It has to be Oprah," says the king of Las Vegas publicity men, Dave Kirvin. "If you did a poll on who's most disgusted by this whole mess, it would be women. To win over those women, you need to win over Oprah. You win over Oprah, you win over America."
Once he's on Oprah's couch, he says this:
"To my wife, to my kids, to my family, to my friends, to my fans, I am so sorry. You believed in me. You looked up to me. You thought I was different, and I let you down. I'm ashamed of myself. My mom is ashamed of me. I'm sure my dad would be ashamed of me. I'm an idiot." Then he has to go full Tebow: "From this day forward, you will never see somebody work harder, 24 hours a day, to win back your trust."
It has to be next week and no later, because every day the British tabloids have him sleeping with everybody but the Page 3 girl. "The sooner he makes his public act of contrition, the sooner he takes the oxygen out of the story," Kirvin says.
Second, he needs to shut down his public life.
He needs to skip San Diego, skip the Masters, maybe even skip the U.S. Open. When your house is rubble, you don't go play the Buick Open. Tiger needs to prove to his wife, Elin, sponsors and fans that morality is more important than majors.
Third, he needs to clean house. If he wants to keep his wife, he has to get a new agent, a new caddie and some new friends. It's hard to believe all this went on without their help or knowledge. How can she see them as anything but enablers?
Fourth, he needs to freeze his corporate sponsors before they freeze him. He needs to tell them, "I'm not doing any ads or taking any payment until I can again prove myself worthy of your products. I'm sorry I've let you down. It won't happen again."
Fifth, he needs to write his Tiger Woods Learning Center a check for $5 million with a note that says, "Keep studying hard. I'll be back to help you fundraise in 2011."
He needs sincerity and commitment and honor now because he might have just ruined a lot of lives, maybe even his own. He needs transparency.
Let us into your life a little. Do the "A week on the road with Tiger" story. Give a home interview once in a while. Let people check in the closets and under the bed. Prove to the world you've changed. Because "no comment" and three security guards are only going to make people suspicious.
Sixth, a few manners wouldn't kill him. No more terrible-twos temper. No more swearing. No more throwing clubs. And instead of pulling his signature blow-by move on the hundreds of autograph seekers waiting for him after every round, stop and sign for 15 minutes. Hasn't hurt Phil Mickelson any.
This fall is straight out of the Book of Wallenda. Not so much because his bottom was so low, but because his top was so high. His image, his likability, his hero factor were in the clouds. He was the kid with the 10,000-watt smile from the public golf course -- he brought golf to people of color all over the world. He was the great black hope of the game who made good.
A golfer? With two young kids at home? Alleged to have had affairs with as many as 10 women? The best swinger becoming the biggest swinger? Overnight? Unthinkable!
Seventh, he has to return to the Tour and take the ridicule he has coming. He'll feel as though he's being paraded down Main Street, naked, in a glass box. Women will be wearing TIGER, YOU FORGOT ME T-shirts. Guys will be holding ELIN OVERCLUBBED signs. Babes will be hollering, "Hey, Tiger! I took my name off my voice mail like you said!"
He can shoot 42 over par; he just has to get through it. Then he has to play in a major, maybe the British at St. Andrews, where he won last time. And then he has to start winning again.
"There's four steps to getting past this in the public eye," Kirvin says. "First tournament. First major. First tournament victory. First major victory. Only then will the media let us get over this. The public will forgive him. They won't ever forget, but they'll forgive."
He'll come out of this as an even better player, if that's possible. The golf course will be the one place where he can go to forget, and he will want to forget constantly. Where he once spent six hours on the range, he will spend eight. Where he once had the will of 10 men, he will have the will of 100. He will win again -- win huge -- and people will call it a comeback.
But it won't be a comeback. He never lost his game. He lost only his mind.
I sometimes feel guilty that Chad does so much around the house. He keeps up with car issues, pays the bills, does laundry, helps clean, etc. Sometimes I feel like my "list" isn't as long as his. But yesterday it kind of dawned on me that there are certain things that come up throughout the year that it's my job to do... or else it most likely wouldn't get job.
I've been asked my thoughts on the top story of the past week:Lester Holt: How do people treat you? Friends, strangers?
Eddie George: Oh, you're their best friend. (laughs) I mean you go from bein' a funny lookin' guy to bein' the best lookin' guy on-- in the world. You know?
Lester Holt: What's not to like?
Eddie George: I mean it's-- it's a great lifestyle. But the flip side of it, it-- it's a mean business. And you can be taken advantage of very easily.
Lester Holt: We all face struggles. But as a professional athlete it just seems like the temptation just must be rollin' in front of you all the time?
Eddie George: Oh yeah. I mean you walk in the clubs and-- and people recognize you. And it's like flies. You know? They're attracted to-- to the light.
The tile on the floor and shower stall will be that nice cream colored tile. We'll use the blue-green glass tile (which Chad loves... and I'll explain later how this became an issue) as the accent in the shower stall (a row of three that will go around the stall at eye level), as well as a row of three on the floor when you cross over the threshold into the bathroom, and again into the master closet (which is off the bathroom). The nice little pebble matting with be on the shower floor... so it'll be like having your own little foot massage in the bathroom.
We also chose tile for the laundry room and buddy bath - but that would take too much time and the bathroom/kitchen is more of the highlight anyway.
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