LOVE isn't in the falling....it's in the staying there..

You know you have been married a long time when.................. you and your mate buy the same exact card for each other.......AND it wasn't even a Valentine's card!!! Or you know you are positively, absolutely, definitively SOUL MATES. It happened to Tim and me on Valentines. We both bought this (pictured on blog) card for each other. And the weirdest part is, that the card is not even a Valentine's Day card and it was not in the Valentine section. I bought mine about two or three weeks before Valentines and saved it. Tim bought his Valentines afternoon. When we exchanged presents and cards that evening, we were both surprised---a little. We tend to think alike on most subjects. (Except he LOVES TV and I LOVE books.) We tend to have the same ideas, and many, many times we will say or write the same things to each other without knowing the other has already said or written that. PLUS, it was a GREAT card. If you look close enough you can read it. The card pictured is actually a THIRD card I went back to Hallmark to purchase, so I could put an unmarked one on the blog!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyway the twin cards were better than the presents we exchanged....Just because the idea that we picked the very same card out of the hundreds and hundreds that are offered! How neat is that?????

The 'Large' family

Maybe it is not the BEST idea to follow up the eating healthy blog entry with one about the LARGE family, but that in fact is the sad truth of the matter!!  Pictured here is just a smidgen of the food I made for the family when we were celebrating Luke's Sweetheart night and ballgame.  I just couldn't resist putting them on the blog since I keep talking about eating healthy!

Obviously I had to make a lot of food.....just look at the boys I was trying to feed!  I love the picture of Ford with all the 'big boys'.  The funny part is not that he thinks he is cool being with the 'big boys', but he seems a little transfixed by pretty little Tiffany and her red dress.  I guess boys are boys at any age when they see a pretty girl!  

Now about the Large family:  We dubbed ourselves this quite accidentally.  "We" being my extended Ferguson family.  I have many, many cousins and we all tend to be very tall and 'big-boned' as we like to say.  "Good breeding" material as hubby likes to say!  Hearty stock.  Sturdy Scottish people.  As I said, I come from a 'large' family....as in many people.  We are a close knit family.  I have already talked about how we all used to spend every Sunday afternoon together at my grandparent's house.  We were a lucky family as well.  Three generations of my family had been deployed to different wars.  From WWI, WWII, the Korean Conflict through Viet Nam, we had family members deployed at each war.  These family members saw active duty and front line duty.  They all came home.  No women died during childbirth, no tragic accidents happened, no babies were stillborn.  No one in my family died until my grandparents did.  They were both in their late 90's when they died.  Tragically, that unbelievable streak of good luck ended on Halloween night 1991.  My cousin, Barb, was killed by a drunk driver that night.  We had never had to deal with tragedy before, but because we are such a close-knit family we immediately rallied around one another.  Although my  Dad had many nieces, he always had Barb at the top of his list.  She was feisty and talented and smart.  My Dad was asked to deliver the eulogy at Barb's funeral.  He, being the seasoned politician, was used to delivering speeches to all kinds of crowds.  That day found him struggling more than he thought he would.  When he got up to speak, he looked out at the family.  I'm telling you we are a big family (once again...number wise).  We can be imposing.  We take up an entire side of any given church.  And there we were.  The funeral was sad, as Barb was not quite forty and left behind two young sons, not to mention we had lived in our little utopian world where tragedy did not happen.  My dad's speech seemed to make us more sad as he talked about things we had all done as a family when Barb was there.  Then he said his now famous line.  I don't even really remember the exact words, but however it was that he said it, we ALL 

Trying to eat healthy!

I was making my lunch the other night (yes, I try and get it made the night before) and when I was finished I noticed how pretty the lunch actually was. Forget that the lunch is in a plastic container and a paper plate, it still LOOKS good. Don't get me wrong, I have never had any kind of problem eating food that doesn't LOOK good, but something about my lard-wired brain knows that this food is healthy and 'good for you', therefore the visual aspect is good too. I am still trying to stay in the 1200-1500 calorie per day routine. What I have here is a shredded lettuce salad with a little bit of cheese, some tomato and some spicy turkey breast. The fruit is a combination strawberries and grapes with a little (fake) sugar on top. (Zero calorie fake sugar I might add). When I go to the store now I am always looking at calorie counts and most importantly PER SERVING. The products often try to trip you up with the idea that the calorie count is low. Then you look at serving size and see that you usually have to double (or triple) that amount!!! This spicy turkey breast was 50 calories for two ounces. Once again I have to say that being on a diet is a lot of work. Not only the calorie awareness issue, but just the preparation of the food so that I am not rushed and grab something 'not so good' for me. This lunch is long gone and yes, it was delicious!