Easy Dole Whips Recipe

Hello my beloved!!! My birthday is coming up and as a special treat, I wanted to serve Dole Whips! For those of you are that aren't lucky enough to know what that is, it's an AWESOME treat they sell at Disneyland that is basically made of pineapple soft serve ice cream or if you get the dole whip float it's the pineapple soft serve with pineapple juice...it's so yummy...if you are ever at Disneyland, you can find the stand next to the Tikki Room! If you are not lucky enough to make it to Disneyland, have no fear my beloved, I found the recipe and it's just as delicious as the real thing!

What you need:
Blender
Large lemon
Heavy whipping Cream
Frozen crushed pineapples
Pineapple Juice
Glass cup

Directions:

1.) In Blender, put 2 cups frozen crushed pineapples and squeeze half of lemon juice in.
2.) Add cup of heavy whipping cream and blend until frozen yogurt consistency, if too tick, add a little of pineapple juice but you don't really need to.
3.) in glass cup, add 1 shot of pineapple juice and scoop pineapple ice cream on top.
4.) Add straw and enjoy the ride in your pineapple paradise!!

I missed him before I met him

Hello beloved! Sorry I haven't been writing for awhile, so much has been happening that I haven't had the energy! I was feeling inspired though and thought I would come on and share.

As I was doing my wifely duties today; you know, cleaning the house, doing the laundry, dishes, ironing my husbands work clothes, etc. I was listening to my playlist on my phone.  I always like to download songs that describes something that relates to my life or my marriage and I like to think that I am compiling a song list to the soundtrack of my life.  At any rate, I was listening to my lifes soundtrack and I started thinking about my life and my husband as songs often make us do and it was a song by Christina Perri titled A 1,000 years and also another song by my favorite band The Civil Wars called To Whom it May Concern, that really got me thinking.  These songs are about loving someone before even knowing who they were and that's EXACTLY how it was with my husband.

I was thinking back...waaaayyyy back from when I was a little girl.  I never could sleep very well, I was always afraid of the dark and never felt safe, so I would put pillows next to me in order for me to feel secure enough to sleep.  I wouldn't use just one pillow and cuddle with it either..NO, I would use like 10 and make a small mountain, then I would either cuddle or put my feet up over them and then I would fall asleep.  After I got married, now that I think of it, I don't use pillows anymore, because when I turn to my side, I see that same exact mountain and feel secure..LOL  But to be honest, I always felt so insecure at night, but since I got married, from that first moment that I laid down in my marital bed and my husband put his arms around me to cuddle, all my fears and insecurities melted away and I felt safe and secure enough to sleep.

It was like before I was married, I was only living half a life, like a HUGE part of me was missing and I knew in my heart that it was Marko and that he was out there somewhere looking for me too.  As cheesy as it sounds, I am a big movie buff and when I was younger, one of my favorite movies was An American Tail, where they sang this song that still gets to me until this day titled Somehwere out there. Okay that's not the cheesy part, the cheesy part is that I use to sit at my bedroom windowsill and sing that song as I looked up at the great big moon in the sky and I would wonder if he was looking at that same moon and somehow we were connected?  Yeah I know, cheesy right?  Nah, I'm just a hopeless romantic like that!  Anyway, as you probably read in my first blogs where I spilled about our whole love story, I would literally see him in my dreams, but never his face because I didn't meet him yet. Truthfully, I think God did it that way, because half the fun of the journey was trying to find him and if I already knew who he was, then what was the point of that adventure?

All in all, the point of my crazy ranting is that I missed my husband before I even knew him.  It was like in my dreams I could see the magnificent romance of it, but when I woke up, he was gone.  I think that is why I slept so much when I was younger because when I was awake it felt like an eternity before I would see him again in my dreams.  Then when I got married, I stopped sleeping so much, because finally my waking reality was my dream come true.....until next time beloved <3

Easy homemade eclairs

Hello my beloved and Happy Valentines day!!! I know we are still a day away, but when you're in love, it's Valentines day EVERYDAY! I actually started the beginning of this week being extra sweet to my sweety and making extra special dinners. Tonight after dinner, we watched a cheesy valentines movie and my hubby mentioned that he was craving something sweet. I turned to him and asked him what he wanted and that I would make him anything.  He started acting like a girl saying, " I don't know, I don't know..." So I gave him some suggestions and one of them was eclairs. He got excited and said he wanted me to make him 10!! But I said relax count Chocula...I'm going to make us like 2... So off I went to the kitchen to bake some love for my love and it's super easy to make so I thought as a sweet Valentines gift to you all I would share my recipe; here it is, enjoy and HAPPY VALENTINES DAY:

Ingredients:

4 eggs (large)
1 cup flour
1/2 cup butter
1 cup water

Prep:
Oven 425 degrees Fahrenheit, line cookie sheet with parchment paper

Directions:
1. In a medium saucepan, put 1 cup water and 1/2 cup butter over heat, until butter is completely melted.

2. Add flour and mix until it becomes dough then remove it from heat and put it in a mixing bowl.

3. Mix 4 eggs ( one at a time) until they are mixed well

4. Put mixture in a piping bag and on your cookie sheet (lined with parchment paper), pipe eclairs 3  1/2 " long

5. Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown

6. Cool, cut eclairs in half and put filling ( you could make your own custard, but I just take the easy route and use vanilla pudding).

Icing: to make the chocolate on top, just get some semi sweet chocolate chips and heat in a saucepan until melted and then dip tops of eclairs, let cool and enjoy!! To be honest they are delicous even without the icing...mmmmmmmmmm

The grace of God

I went to the store with my mom the other day and as we were walking towards the store, I noticed a store clerk collecting shopping carts. Usually this isn't something anyone would pay attention to, but I guess I'm more observant than the usual, but he caught my attention because he was new; I frequent this shop and know the usual employees so when I seen him, I guess I was registering him as a new employee or something, but also I noticed he was an older gentleman, close to my moms age and I even told my mom, " hey mom why don't you work here..this is where you first started working anyway isn't it?" My mom brushed me off and we went inside to shop.

We were suppose to just run in really quick and buy some doggy shampoo ( my doggy got a bit of a flea infestation, but that's another time, another blog). Anyway, before I was rudely interrupted by myself, getting back to the story...we ended up just walking around the store and spending more time then we intended to. By the time we got to the front of the store to pay a frantic older woman came in looking flustered and asked with a shaky voice, " did anyone turn in a purse by any chance, I doubt it though?" The lady at the register looked around and said " no, I didn't see anything."  Could see in her face that her heart sank as she was holding back tears, she replied, " I figured, can I use your phone to call my daughter? I was putting my bags in the car and there was a car waiting for me so I was rushing and I forgot my bag in the cart." My heart went out to her and I prayed in my heart for her to find her purse.

My mother started suggesting places it might be like her trunk or maybe the backseat of her car? The lady replied, " no it's not there, whoever took it came up to because I just went to the bank and there's $1,000 in there...her eyes started to water and just then the same man that I saw collecting carts walked by and I remembered and informed her that the male employee might know what happened to it because I saw him in the parking lot earlier collecting carts. She quickly turned around to the gentle man and asked him about her purse and he said "yes, we have it, let me get it for you, it's in the back." As he left to retrieve the purse, her face lit up and her confidence returned as she yelled, " he found it, he has it!!!" We all praised The Lord and as she waited for the employee to bring her purse back, my mom went up to her and gave her a comforting pat on the back as she turned around my mom gave her some comforting words and she thanked my mom. My mom told her though it wasn't her and pointed to me and said it was my daughter that remembered but it was God that put us there at the right moment. She thanked me and agreed and said she's going to go home and get down on her knees and pray now. She thanked us again and told my mom that her husband has dementia and she has just been so all over the place worrying and taking care of  him, that's why she had all that money because she had to go pay all the bills and run a bunch of errands. We gave her some more comforting words and left the store, but it's moments like these that we really see the grace of God. Times where you wouldn't even expect it. I mean, the fact that we were only suppose to get in and out and right when we got there for me to pay extra attention to the employee collecting the shopping carts. I truly believe it was all by the Grace if God if not for anything, but to be there for this lady at what could of been her darkest hour. Thanking The Lord for giving me the opportunity to see HIM in action and just wanted to share this story...until next time my beloved <3

Let's cut the cheese!!!

For Christmas Eve, my husband and I went over to our longtime friends home to visit and spend some time with them. They are Filipino and as a tradition in the Philippines, they eat this special cheese called Queso de Bola which is this REALLY aged cheese for like 40+ years and according to my dad! there's no real special reason on why they eat it on Christmas, they just do!

So as we were seated at the dinner table, my friend kept saying, " Ok, let's cut the cheese!" Of course, me being me, I had absolutely no choice but to reply, " please don't, we are at the dinner table!!" Of course myself, her husband and mine all chuckled, but it didn't seem to phase her, so she just looked like us quizzically and we continued on with our dinner.

After dinner and dessert, she again became excited and once again said, " I'm going to cut the cheese now," to which...like I said! me being me! I had no choice, " please don't cut the cheese, or at least not in front of us!!" Again, we started laughing but she just looked at us like we were crazy, until her husband asked her, " do you know what that means? That's a saying for farting!" She gave a half hearted chuckle and said " oh you guys ok well I'm going to go cut the cheese now!" LOL.....that was one of the highlights of my Christmas Eve and I just thought I would share...Until next time beloved.....please don't cut the cheese!

New year, New me

Everyone is mainstreaming all of their highlights for the year 2013, but for me, I'm just ready to get this year over with!

I didn't have any highlights for the year, nothing that I can say was TOTALLY AWESOME, or amazing...Although, it didn't have as much heartbreak or as many depression setbacks as last year, if I had to reflect, I would say this past year for me has been MEH!

If you have been following me, I'm sure you have read how I was mistreated, betrayed, stabbed in the back and just straight out hurt this year, but I really don't think those things were such bad things! You see my beloved, if it weren't for those moments, I wouldn't be the strong, more confident person that I am today. It's because of those trials and tribulations that I found out a little bit more about myself, I learned about my limits, my own expectations and who I really am! I am the type of person that knows what I want and who I am and I am willing to put in the sweat and pain to get it, but the moment you hurt me, or make me feel taken advantage of, then it's so long, goodbye, don't let my fist slug you on the way out!

It says in Isaiah 43:18  "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past"and also in Ezekiel 36:26 " I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh."

This past year has made me a new person, with a new spirit and an even deeper love for my Lord and Savior.  So good bye 2013 you are now history and I am ready for the adventure that 2014 brings!!

Happy New year my beloved, may it be a year filled with much joy, peace and above all else....LOVE!!!!! Until next time.....

Oatmeal Banana Bread Cookie Recipe

Hello my beloved friends around the world! How the heck are you? As for me, I'm doing well, the seasons are finally changing and Baking Season is full on!! So I made these cookies once before and everyone LOVED them, but I never wrote down the recipe, so I had a baking day with my mom the other day and while I was making them, she wrote down all the ingredients and what I did. Now that I have the actual recipe, please feel free to try it and make it your own...Lots of love and until next time!

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp ginger

 1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 stick butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

3 cups oatmeal

1/4 cup milk

4 mashed riped banana

Optional Ingredients: Chopped walnuts, raisins or anything else you want to add for texture and crunch

Prep time 15 min

Bake time: 15 min

Instructions: 

1. In large bowl mix all dry ingredients first, then add, egg, milk and vanilla. Mix well, then add 3 cups of Oatmeal, use which ever brand you like, doesn't really matter.

2. Mash four bananas in a separate cup. The more ripe the banana the better! The ones I used were pretty much black.

3. Combine and stir with fork until all ingredients are mixed well together.

4. Put baking wax paper on a cookie sheet or simply grease your cookie sheet ( I line them for easier clean up), then With a rounded measuring spoon or tablespoon sized scooper, start to line the cookie sheet with cookie batter

5. Preheat oven to 375 degrees and once heated, place cookie sheets in for 15 minutes or until golden brown on the bottom. 

6. Take cookies out and let cool for a minute on wire rack. Cookies should be really soft and the consistency between a cookie and bread ( maybe I should call this my banana bread oatmeal cookie recipe instead huh)? Next place on a plate and watch them disappear before your eyes because they are so yummy!