Amish Friendship Bread

Ever make it? Well if you're like me and you don't cook much or hardly at all, the task seems quite daunting. It was actually pretty neat though when I gave it a shot. You get this bag of goo and for like 10 days you do all this stuff to it and on the 10Th day you bake it. It's really good - tastes a lot like coffee cake. Most days all you have to do is mush the bag but a few days you add a few ingredients like milk and flour and sugar. You then split the batter and give it to friends on the 10Th day. It's sorta like a chain letter but with food. I gave mine to the ladies at work and told them I totally understood if they'd want to toss it, but I think most of them were actually gonna make it. You can also add raisins, nuts etc to it to make it even better but I thought I'd just follow the recipe since sometimes that alone is challenging enough for me. All in all though, it was fun to watch the batter ferment and stuff and people actually ate the bread when I took it to work so it couldn't have been that bad. Thanks April for bringing me my bag of goo - it made for an interesting 10 days, and you may just make a cook out of me yet - but don't hold your breath :-)

October Already?

Behind again - much has happened these past three weeks or so - almost all of it has been a lot of fun! It's had its ups - Family reunion at Put in Bay - and downs - had to take Mark to the ER - but all in all, it's been pretty good. Thankfully Mark is doing pretty well, although they are going to do some blood work to see what is going on with him. He's feeling quite a bit better though - Thank God!

Tonight we're having a WXKR radio reunion at Mi Hacienda in Toledo. Can't wait - it's been forever since we've all been together. I'm definitely taking the camera for that one. My friend Jennifer, who is AWESOME at planning these types of events -is making a CD of old pix that we all e-mailed her - that oughta be a hoot.

Thought I'd put a picture from the old radio days on the blog too - partying with the band The Why Store back in the mid-90's - seems like only yesterday!

And of course, I had to post a picture of the wild and crazy Kruse bunch at Casual Cape on Put in Bay - what a neat place and what a great time! Two houses all to ourselves - we're going to try to do this every year from here on out, and thanks to my Mom's cleaning effots, next year we get Thursday evening free! Go Mom!!!

Memories of Summer

Our friends and neighbors, Tom and Emily, have a friend who came in August and took some pictures of their dog Sandy and also of the lake views from our beach. I swear Sandy is smiling - no wonder Noah loves her.

Said Yes to the Dress

Found "the one" - it's simple but beautiful. I love it! Thank God Mom has been there all the way to help me with one thing at a time so I don't feel so overwhelmed. Still nailing down the date, but it's definitely going to be next September or October. This is really exciting - never tried on a wedding dress before, so what an experience that was. I had tried on about a dozen before finding this one. I actually passed on it a few times because it didn't look like "me" in the bag, but once I got it on, it fit so perfectly and I just fell in love with it. Plus it was actually comfortable - I never thought a wedding dress could be comfortable but I can see me wearing it easily all evening. My sister is coming in town in a week and a half for a family reunion and I just can't wait to show it to her - she's going to cry, and I might even cry too.

In Check

God always has a way of keeping our egos in check. This morning I went running down at one of my favorite spots down the road from here, and it was such a perfect morning for a run. The sun was out but it wasn't too hot yet, and there was a nice breeze as well. I had run all but about the last quarter mile, and I was thinking here I was running on my day off, feeling good, thinking that I've come a long way since I started doing this regularly almost nine months ago. Then all of a sudden, some young tan girl in a Brandy Chasteen running bra comes running out of Lakefront Marina looking absolutely stunning and running with the greatest of ease. As I was running behind her I just laughed to myself, noting that there's always room for improvement.

In other news, with persistence, God also allows for things that start off rocky to turn out Great. That's what happened yesterday. My Sister was in town for basically only one full day and we were hoping to go waverunning. Unfortunately, everyone and their brother had the same idea around here. We had a heck of a time just getting them around to the beach to fuel them because they were on empty and kept cutting out before we could even get them to the jetty (is it jetty or jeddy? hmmm). Then there were so many people at the beach that we didn't feel comfortable fueling them around all those people, so poor Mark basically had to trek through thick foliage (hopefully not poison ivy-infected) to get around to a more secluded spot for fueling. Once we finally got them fueled, the waves kicked up so it was a bit of a bumpy day for riding, but we ended up having an absolute ball! Then we came back up to the condo and cooked brats and beans and corn on the cob and snacked on veggies and cheese and talked and laughed with the folks too. They even got on the waverunners and rode for a while - I was so proud that they did that, even though it was a bit rough out there. It ended up being just a wonderful and memorable day - a hard one to top!

Hot, Hot Hot

Whew - Summer is back with a vengeance. These last few days have been muggy and hot, and we've taken refuge in the cool condo. The dog, poor little black critter that he is, is out and in in a moment as the heat is way too much for him as well. Our neighbor Joan had a fish fry last evening - walleye bites, and they were awesome. We sat around and ate and drank some refreshing Sangria and enjoyed the occasional breezes as they would blow through. Now it is Sunday afternoon again, and I've got that ambivalent feeling I always get as the weekend winds down, wanting to savor every moment of what's left of the weekend and mentally preparing myself for another busy work week. Maybe I'll head out and take a dip in the lake because before we know it, it will be sweater season again.

Oh, and I finally downloaded the picture from when my Uncle Frank (my Mom's little Brother) and my Cousin Missy came through on their way to moving her down to Virginia. She is starting an exciting job at James Madison University tomorrow. She's going to be teaching a history class and getting her Master's Degree there as well - too cool - we're So Proud! We had such a nice time the other day - hadn't seen them in at least five or six years - Uncle Frank lives in North Dakota. It's amazing how time gets away from us, but with family and close friends, it's like we've never been apart!

What a Weekend

This weekend was our FTX (field exercise) at Camp Perry. Each year we spend three days in the field playing war games and honing our skills. It's always a trip - we have chemical attacks, aggressors trying to access our camp, and all sorts of other fun stuff. Well this year, we had our Detachment, a brand new group of Red Horse Personnel from Mansfield, join us. Normally it's hotter than heck and miserable as all get out, but this year, the weather was just perfect. Other than the downpour we experienced on Saturday night, you couldn't ask for anything better. OK, maybe one thing could have been better. If you're going to have over three hundred people playing war games, you might want to locate the porta potties a bit farther away from the dining tent. Needless to say, after three days, even with good weather, when you stood in line for your meals, you always had the pleasant aroma of porta potty wafting through your nasal passages. Maybe this is the Air National Guard's way of helping us to control food portions and stay within fitness standards . . . it sure worked for me!