The only thing missing was the peanut butter.

I LOVE to bake cookies!  There were always cookies in the house when I grew up as a kid.  At the age of 10, I was baking and cooking on my own and I loved to make cookies.  I don't bake cookies as often as I used to when I had the boys at home or as often as I would even like to since there is only my husband and me at home.  Bob and I certainly don't need to eat cookies and I gave up eating sugar -- except for the honey I put in my tea in the morning and my daily piece of chocolate that I MUST eat! -- a couple of years ago.  But, I do bake cookies or muffins once in awhile when I get the urge.  Then, I take them to our church for the coffee hour and I let everyone else eat them.  It is a win-win situation.

When I travel, I buy packages of nuts or trail mix at the convenient store/gas stations when we stop.  I don't eat the nuts or trail mix when I get home, but for some reason I feel like I must munch on something when I'm riding in the car.  Maybe it is boredom.  I rarely eat the whole package of these nuts or trail mixes.  When I get home, these packages of nuts, trail mixes and such go into the pantry.  Today when I was looking for something to eat for lunch, I spied these various packages of nuts and trail mixes I had bought on my various trips we took in the past couple of months.  I decided they would be good made into some cookies.  I found a basic trail mix cookie recipe online, but then I made up my own recipe as I went along.  I rarely make a recipe like it says, but I do need a gauge of how much sugar, flour, eggs, baking soda and salt to put in them.  Then, I added the packages of nuts, trail mixes, some chocolate chips and some coconut.  The only thing missing was the peanut butter! 

I decided to try just one cookie as I needed to make sure they are good enough to take to church for the coffee hour.  They came out pretty good!  Next time I'll add the peanut butter.

Blue Man Necklace

DeWayne, my son Cavan's organ recipient who lives in Florida, sent me a box of found objects to use in my jewelry and for making my gift bags.  He told me that he went dumpster diving for some of these pieces!  Way to go DeWayne!  Shortly before the box of found objects arrived at my apartment, I bought this blue face bead from an Etsy website called Nature Buttons.  As soon as I saw this blue ceramic face bead I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it!  I wish all of my inspirations for my jewelry were this instantaneous.  I had planned to go look for these horseshoe nails to purchase or ask my friend Laura who has horses if she would give some of the nails to me.  But, then I received the box of found objects from DeWayne and there was ONE of the horseshoe nails!  It was a bit rusty and beat up and it was exactly what I wanted!  I called DeWayne and asked him if he had any other nails like this and he told me he had ONE more.  That was all I needed for my project.  Here is the photo of my "Blue Man" necklace I made with the blue ceramic face bead, some annealed steel wire and the horseshoe nails.

Friendships

I love making new friends.  I have many friends whom I have known throughout my sixty three years and I work hard at keeping these friends.  Friendships take a lot of work, but I believe that it is worth it many times over.  I take the time every day to correspond with these friends via emails, phone calls, Facebook and letters.  Once I have become friends with someone, they are a friend for life.  I cherish ALL of my wonderful friends!  Today I made a NEW friend -- Lyn Belisle.  Lyn and I met through Etsy, a website for people who want to sell their homemade and vintage items.  Lyn makes and sells her clay Spirit Faces through Etsy and a few months ago I bought some of them.  http://lifeofacrazybeader.blogspot.com/2012/05/pendant-with-earth-shards-face.html  Lyn asked for photos of the items I made with her Spirit Faces so she could put my photos on her blog.  We started corresponding via emails and through Etsy and today we met for the first time.  Lyn lives in San Antonio.  Bob goes to San Antonio periodically for meetings with his H.E.B. client so when I found out that he was going on a business trip today, I asked if I could tag along so I could meet Lyn.  Bob and I drove to San Antonio yesterday and we had a lovely evening dining and walking on the Riverwalk.  Today he went to his business meeting and Lyn came to the hotel to pick me up so we could chat, get to know each other and have lunch.  We had so much to talk about and of course, we already have another date lined up to get together in December.  My sister Cindy also bought some of Lyn's Spirit Faces for jewelry and Cindy will be visiting me in December.  Lyn and Cindy are anxious to meet each other too.  I enjoyed my day making another life long friend.

Trip to New Mexico - June 2012

Bob and I love to travel by car and see the sites of the United States.  We decided to spend a week in New Mexico for our vacation this year.  We left on Saturday, June 23rd and drove as far as Carlsbad, NM that first day.  Our first stop was for lunch in Thurber, TX at the Smokestack Restaurant.  This town has a population of FIVE!  Thurber sat out in the middle of nowhere in West TX.  After we arrived in Carlsbad and checking into our hotel, we drove to the caverns to watch the bats come out of the cave.  Sorry, no photos of that.  They didn't allow them.  Each evening in summer, Brazilian (aka Mexican) free-tail bats exit Carlsbad Cavern in search of a smorgasbord of insects for dinner.  The next day, we went back to the caverns to take a self-guided tour.  It was supposedly 56 degrees in the cave, but it felt good to me after being outside in the 100+ degree HEAT!  People say it is a DRY HEAT, but to me, DRY heat, WET heat, it is all the same to me -- HOT!!!

We left Carlsbad on the afternoon of Sunday the 24th and drove to Roswell, NM to spend the night.  We took a tour of the UFO Museum.  I was hoping to see at last one REAL spaceship and/or alien!  After dinner we took a drive to find a spot to see the night time stars.  We found a good spot to return to later in the evening and I even saw a rainbow shining through a hole in the clouds! That night about 9 p.m., we drove out to the desert and away from town to the spot we found earlier so we could see the stars.  We sure could see a lot of the stars away from the lights.

On Monday the 25th, we drove to Albuquerque. We drove straight to Sandia Peak, as the tram ride up the mountain was my first priority.  Bob and I both LOVE being high up in the air!  Once we got to the top of Sandia Peak, we walked around on a couple of the trails.  It was only 66 degrees at the top of the peak and over 100 degrees on the ground.  I was very hot and sweating even at the top of the peak.  I got dizzy and nauseous.  Bob said I had altitude sickness.  We didn't stay up there very long.  It was beautiful scenery though.  It made me miss my skiing days back in the 70's and 80's.

After we checked into our hotel and rested up a bit, we walked around the Albuquerque Old Town area.  Lots of fun, unique shops to poke around in.  We couldn't stay out very long though, as the heat was too much for me and zaps my energy.

On Tuesday, the 26th after checking out of the hotel, we took the Turquoise Trail to Santa Fe.  This was a beautiful, scenic trail through the mountains with lots of interesting towns to explore.  We stopped in the town of Madrid for lunch and to go through a few of the little shops.  I would have liked to have stayed longer, but it was just TOO HOT!

We arrived in Santa Fe and after checking into our hotel and cooling off a bit, we walked around the plaza.  We went to the Loretto Chapel where the "Miraculous Staircase" to the chapel's choir loft has two 360-degree turns and no visible means of support.  An anonymous carpenter is said to have fashioned the spiral steps in 1878 using only wooden pegs.  Bob wanted to see the museum at the Governor's Palace so we went through part of that in a short time.  There were many vendors that lined the plaza area with their homemade jewelry, etc.  I bought a unique pendant made with coral, turquoise, mother-of-pearl and serpentine.

On Wednesday the 27th, we stayed in Santa Fe.  We had a couples massage at Ten Thousand Waves, then we walked around the plaza looking for bead stores and rested in our COOL hotel room.

On Thursday, the 28th, we took the High Road to Taos.  This is a very scenic drive up the mountain, driving through the little towns of Nambe, Chimayo, Santa Cruz, Cordova, Truchas, Las Trampas and Picuris before we reached Taos.  In Taos, we stayed at a bed and breakfast called Casa Benavides.  The B&B was wonderful and I LOVED Taos!  I could have stayed here for at least a week!  And it was much cooler too.  Our B&B was a block away from the plaza where there were many unique restaurants and shops.  We ate lunch, walked around the plaza, went to the Kit Carson home and museum, and to see and photograph the San Francisco de Asis church.  This is the famous church seen in many of the Ansel Adams photographs and the Georgia O'Keefe paintings.  Then, we drove to the Rio Grande Gorge and bridge.  It was very windy at the gorge!  We ate dinner OUTSIDE on the patio of the Renata Cafe since it was COOL.  We heard music coming from the plaza so we walked there to listen to a local guitar player and singer named Max Gomez.  It was a wonderful evening!

On Friday the 29th, we toured the Taos Pueblo before we drove to Amarillo, TX where we stayed for the night.  The main pueblo here is thought to have been built between A.D. 1000 and 1450, making it one of the oldest continuously occupied communities in America.

Bob and I don't enjoy riding in the car for a long length of time, so we decided to stay in Amarillo, which was halfway between Taos and Tulsa, which would be our next stop. 

On Saturday, the 30th, we drove to Tulsa, OK to visit Bob's brother Nick, his wife Sandra and my son's family.  We met Corbin, Christy, Caty, Carson & Christian, along with some of Christy's family members at Joe's Crab Shack for dinner.  This was the restaurant of choice from Carson since she was celebrating her 8th birthday.  Bob and I stayed the night with Nick & Sandra, went to church and lunch with them on Sunday before we drove back home to Dallas.

I love seeing the sites of the United States, but it sure is nice to return home to my own bed!

If you want to see our photos we took of our trip, here are the Shutterfly links:

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These are our photos from Carlsbad, Albuquerque and Roswell.

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These are our photos from Santa Fe and Taos.

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These are our photos of Sandia Peak.

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These are our photos of Carson's 8th birthday celebration at Joe's Crab Shack.