I had no idea that cucumbers could grow this large.  I had no idea that WE could grow a cucumber this large.  I guess if it gets hidden under a tomato plant and thus forgotten about, a cucumber could quite possibly take over the world…or at least our backyard.  By the way, it was way over 2 pounds.

Three….what can I say about being three years old?  Well, testing boundaries, rules, and independence sums up the age pretty nicely. We have passed through the threshold of summer, usually our difficult months, pretty easily.  I thought I was going to pull out my hair a few times but all and all, we haven’t had too many scuffles.  Catherine is a good kid but like most preschoolers she is getting good at testing her mother and father.  For the most part she listens but we do have our battles, one of them being cleaning up at the end of the day.  Actually, cleaning up at all.  She dillies and dallies and dawdles until my blood pressure is way, way, way above normal.  I have tried a few tactics but none of them seem to hold out for very long.  I have tried timers…worked for about a three days.  I have tried positive reinforcement by putting hearts on her chart.  When she gets 7 hearts she gets a small prize.  That lasted about a week.  I have tried negative reinforcement by taking away her beloved silly bands but that doesn’t work either.

This child baffles me.  It seems like whatever form of discipline we try it just doesn’t work.  For example, when it’s clean up time we set the timer for 15 minutes.  If she doesn’t get everything cleaned up by then she doesn’t get a heart.  That used to motivate her.  Now she will say, ‘I don’t need a heart.’  I kicked it up a notch.  She gets her 15 minutes and if she doesn’t have everything cleaned up, I add another 7 minutes to the timer and if she still doesn’t get everything cleaned up then I would take away her silly bands.  Well tonight, 15 minutes passed…’I don’t need a heart’…set the timer for 7 minutes….5 minutes in she was taking off her bracelets saying, ‘I don’t need my silly bands’….I then got so exasperated that I told her I was going to send her to bed without a story or her beloved panda bear.  She then retorted with, ‘I want to go to bed.’  By that time she was done cleaning up.  Needless to say, it’s been a few days since she has gotten a heart on her chart.

There are other a couple of other issues that we have battles over and it seems that negative and positive reinforcement does not work.  She only goes to ‘time out’ now if she has done something serious and even that doesn’t seem to sway her.  Like I said, she really doesn’t get into trouble very much but these daily battles over smaller issues I am having a hard time trying to figure out how to navigate.  If rewards don’t work and taking away an item or a privilege doesn’t work, what am I supposed to do?

Thoughts??

Several months ago, my organization was invited to participate in the Texas Rangers firefighter appreciation night.  They wanted to honor an organization that worked with the families of fallen firefighters and a local Arlington firefighter had given them our name.  When I got the email from their rep. I almost deleted it thinking it was spam.  When I opened it and actually read it, I still thought it was too good to be true.  I quickly emailed the rep to see if I read the request correctly and he replied within minutes.  His email was not spam and they really did want to recognize our organization and the families of fallen firefighters.

I was pretty excited about going to my first baseball game in a LONG, LONG time.  My first baseball game was the Oakland A’s back in junior high and then when I worked as a medic in the Astrodome, I got to see a few Astro’s games.  Two families that I had worked with, the Staley’s and the Bale’s, both wanted to attend.  And the executive director of the Federation of Fire Chaplains, Ed Stauffer and his family came along.

Not only were they going to be honoring us at the game but we were going to be able to go out on the field for pictures, meet Nolan Ryan, and then they would make a donation to our organization.  We also got to sit in a suite, which was, well, sweet!  I actually didn’t get that much time in the suite because we met up with some good friends of ours who are also fire chaplains.  We had a great time and the experience was unforgettable!  I hope they choose for us to come back next year!

It’s hard to believe that Hurricane Katrina was 5 years ago.  The lyric in a familiar song, ‘time keeps on slipping into the future’ seems to be the motto of my life.  When a friend of mine was re-mincing about our response to Katrina, it jarred me a little.  How can 5 years have already disappeared?

Responding to the aftermath of Katrina was one of those life changing events for me.  Even though I had witnessed the disaster of 9/11, nothing compared to the utter devastation of what this hurricane inflicted on mile upon mile, state upon state.  I couldn’t wrap my brain around most of what I was seeing.  Sites, smells, and even the rancid taste in the air stayed with me for weeks after my return.  To this day, when I see a windowless, white van I can’t help but think of the body recovery vehicles.

I have written two other posts about my time spent in New Orleans and St. Bernard’s Parish.  You can find them here and here (I’m not sure why the pictures are messed up in the post When I get some time I will fix them).  What I do want to share for this 5 year anniversary post is the fact that I had some true friends that were working side by side with me.  We dealt with some tough stuff…most of the stuff the average person will never see in a lifetime.  These chaplains that I got to work with, I consider the best of the best.  I will never forget sitting with them in broom closets talking with a burned out paramedic, or sitting on a curb in a flooded out neighborhood waiting for the body recovery vehicles to bring the dead to the ‘reefer trucks’, or standing on I-10 overpasses ‘counseling’ the rescue workers, or going through decontamination just so we could enter back into our cars to head to base camp.  So many memories with some incredible people.  I couldn’t imagine a better team to work with.  I couldn’t imagine a better group to process the experience.

5 years later I still have some images of that time burned into my brain but most importantly I have memories burned into my heart.  The experience has made me a better person.  The experience has sealed upon my heart the chaplains that I know I can count on when we are faced with something really, really bad.  Those relationships were forged in flood waters, on church floors, at base camps, inside of a Navy ship library, and in the back of a D-MORT facility.  When it comes to the work we do as chaplains, I can’t imagine a relationship any stronger than the ones that were built in New Orleans.  And for that, I feel incredibly blessed.

I didn’t realize that 3 year olds can be totally into a fad but it looks like we have one on our hands.  Catherine is just completely obsessed with the Silly Bands craze.  As you can see on her arm she has about 30 of them.  They remind me of some punk rock phase from the 80′s.  She won’t keep any other type of jewelry on her body but these little rubber, animal (or anything) shaped bands she can’t get enough of.  The first set she got she accidentally misplaced (she’s still into stashing things into boxes and bags) about three days ago and she was devastated.  I told her we would buy her another set as soon as she got all five hearts on her chart for sleeping through the night.  Well, she did manage to find them before we had to buy her a new set but she didn’t let her daddy forget that he still JUST HAD TO BUY her more of them as soon as she got that last heart.  She knows how many she has and if one is missing, all hell breaks loose.

Even though Catherine has gone to summer school, we were all still a bit anxious about starting pre-k 3 today.  I was ready for her to get back into her school routine but I was a little worried how she might do with her new teacher and the new classroom.  Well, no worries needed here because she marched right in and was ready to go!  I’m almost looking forward to kindergarten because I think she really thrives in the classroom setting.  I can’t wait to see how much she will grow and change this year as she moves full steam ahead to being a 4 year old.  The kids in the pre-k 4 class just seem so big!

Here are a couple of pics from today:

And one last silly picture to leave you with a smile

This is a post about the yumminess that is Sprinkles cupcakes.  It’s not a bakery that sells other items like cookies or pies, it’s purely a cupcake shop.  I have heard quite a buzz about this place over the last couple of years and when it came to Houston, I knew I would eventually have to make the trip out there.

Sprinkles is located in the same trendy area as the other bakery that I visited.  I am not sure what it is about the Westheimer area, but most of the gourmet cupcake shops and bakeries seem to be located there.  I actually wish I lived closer to that side of town because there are so many unique stores, restaurants, & places to visit.  Whenever I go there, I definitely feel like I am living out in the ‘burbs.’  I have had to make a few trips to that area for work related things, so I figured why not kill two birds with one stone?

I had heard rumors about long lines, longer waits and sell-outs of certain flavors and so I was a little worried that I wouldn’t even get the opportunity to try one of the cupcakes.  After lunch, John and I went on the hunt looking for little shop.  Unfortunately,  it’s in a building that’s under construction which makes it incredibly difficult to locate.  I assume that on days that the lines are wrapped around the block, the store would be easier to spot.  Fortunately for us, since it was a weekday, there wasn’t a line at all.

We chose four different cupcakes because, well, we couldn’t resist just one or two!  I wish my wallet and my waistline could have handled trying a sample of all of the cupcakes.  Oh, to dream a little dream!  Our chosen four were key-lime, cherry, chocolate peanut butter, and cinnamon sugar.  The website states that they are made with all natural ingredients.  I noticed this right away because John has tried making a few cakes from scratch and the taste and texture were very similar.  The flavors in the cake were delicate (other than the chocolate) and the icing was a a light, rich buttercream.  I didn’t really like the cherry flavor.  I have tried two different cherry cupcakes and I haven’t like either.  I liked the key-lime quite a bit and the other two were pretty tasty.

While I really liked these cupcakes quite a bit, they weren’t my favorite at the time.  Believe it or not, the Cinnabon cupcake is still #1 on my list.  I have to say though that Sprinkles is hovering at #2 on the list because the cupcakes I have tried since have not been that great.  The more cupcakes that I taste, the higher the ranking I give Sprinkles.  I know for some of you out there who have an affinity for Sprinkles will think I am a heathen but I was a bit disappointed because their cake seemed dry and I wasn’t a fan of the texture.  I might need to do a retry on another day to see if another batch turns out different results.  I liked them well enough, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t think that they are the best.

When we are tasting the cupcakes I am looking at texture (spongy), the moisture, the flavor, and the icing consistency and flavor.

It seems like nearly every blogger is doing it right now and as if every single one of my posts have been set up this way as of late.  The bucket list…both loved and hated and yet right now, it’s the only reason I am putting up this post.  So here goes:

• I’m still a bit shell-shocked with the latest firefighter fatality.  I can’t talk about it because I have to maintain confidentiality but let’s just say that this has been a defining case for me and the work that I do.  I have been thinking a lot about where I am with the Task Force and where its future is headed.  There is a lot of uncertainty, questions, and just ‘what if’ moments.
• I have noticed that today marks the half way point in August.  We have had some fairly tough moments this month but actually the whole year has been difficult, so I’m just going to chalk everything that has gone on this month to it just being a nasty year.
• Catherine finished out her summer session of school and in a little over a week she will be starting pre-k 3.  There have been some issues that have come up with her school and we are praying for a quick resolution.  We are actually hoping she will get accepted into another school next week.  We shall see.
• Speaking of Catherine, all of the craziness we were going through at the beginning of summer seems to have subsided for now.   She isn’t crying or throwing a fit every five minutes, so I feel a bit less stressed about her right now.  She has however notched it up a bit with her going, going, going mentality.  She is always asking us to, ‘watch me!’ which just about drives me bonkers.  Even though she has always been a talker, it seems like now there is hardly any silence from that child.  I have to tell her at least two or three times a day that it’s ‘no talk time.’  She loves tinker toys, gymnastics, and swimming.  It’s too hot in Texas to do anything outside that is worthwhile other than swim.  Neither of us can handle being cooped up inside for too long.  I think the house would look like a bomb or hurricane hit it if we didn’t go out at least once a day.  Swimming has been our way of letting out some of the energy she has.
• The stress of everything going on lately on top of Catherine’s endless supply energy has made me love an earlier bedtime.  I have always, always, always been a night owl, but I can no longer handle it.  I’m exhausted by 7:00pm.

• I am not a huge fan of cooking, mostly because of the cleaning up part, but lately I have been wanting to try some new and challenging recipes.  My first foray into this cooking adventure has been a lobster bisque that I found on this website.   I think it turned out pretty darned good but I don’t think I will be making it again.  It took about three hours to make the stock and now my house smells like lobster.  I can’t get the smell out and I am not happy about it.  The other recipe I decided to make was a flatbread that I found off of the blog, Your Homebased Mom.  That was easy and good!  I would highly recommend it!
• We are still in a quest to find the best cupcake.  We have tried a few more places and I need to do a post on the findings.  Most places have been a bit disappointing to say the least but there have also been a few surprises.
• I’m still burned out with blogging because by the time I have a chance to actually write, all I want to do is go to bed.  I am hoping this new blog design kicks me back into high gear.  Thanks Diana for the new header!
• I am still dreaming of a vacation but my travel season is about to start back up again, so I will take what I can get.
• I cannot get enough of Molly the Owl and have dreams of one day owning an owl box!
• And that’s about it for now!

Our next foray into our cupcake journey was a little bakery and cafe in Houston called the Dessert Gallery.  This bakery was a edgy, funky shop up near the Westheimer district, which is a trendy, glitzy part of the city.  I had some pretty high hopes given the decor, the area of town, and that it didn’t come from a grocery store or mall chain shop.  The size of the cupcake was a bit disappointing but they were cute.  I bought a lemon cream, red velvet, German chocolate, and vanilla with chocolate frosting.

The wrappers were a pain in the backside to get off but John managed to capture a few photos without showing the mess I made of the frosting trying to get them out of the box.  The flavors were rich, and the textures not too bad.  They weren’t too dry like the other cupcakes we had tried, although John said the German chocolate was a bit drier than the others.  I wasn’t too excited about the lemon cupcake, which had a pudding type filling that I was a bit disappointed with.  I would give it a 5 because the design was nice and the frosting was excellent.  The red velvet and chocolate cupcake I would give a 6 because they had a good flavor but were pretty plain looking.  John give his GC cake a 6.

Over all this was a nice bakery to visit.  I would be tempted to try the cafe for their lunch foods and maybe try another pastry or two but I am not sure I would get another cupcake there.  There are several other shops in the area I would try first before I made my way back to that particular shop.  If you are looking for a cupcake that is more homey than fancy, I would say this is your best bet.

At the end of a pretty busy first half of the year, I was hoping that I could spend my summer reorganizing, refocusing, and re-energizing some different areas of my life.  Well, it didn’t quite go as planned.  June was packed solid with meetings, business trips, and activities for Catherine.  Quickly June was gone.  In early July,  I was hit with a pretty difficult firefighter fatality case and I have been extremely busy trying to sort through the issues that have come up with that.  Also, July is when the annual fire school takes place at Texas A&M and I spend several days there teaching or attending meetings.  I usually call that my hell week because I drive back and forth from south Houston to College Station several times and that’s almost 300 miles round trip.   So, July has been pretty much disappeared in a haze of furor and today I am looking at August.  And while my calendar doesn’t look too packed out just yet, I can’t hold my breath that it will stay that way.

August is typically not a good month for me and my family.  I go into the month holding my breath and praying a lot.  If something bad is going to happen, it seems like August is when it will.  With 2010 being such a tumultuous year already, I feel pretty anxious about what the next 31 days will entail.  I know, I shouldn’t be superstitious, especially since I am a chaplain but sometimes it’s hard not to feel a bit of trepidation when memories from the past still linger.

Since we can’t seem to get out of town to escape the craziness for even a day or two, I have decided to try and make the best of it with what little energy I have left.  A good friend of mine gave me the pool pass to her super cool swimming pool.  It is almost resort like and has a children’s pool with a frog waterslide and sprinklers.  Catherine and I have spent most of the days she is not in school there.  It almost feels like we are at resort somewhere in the Caribbean.  We have also been spending time in Kemah, at the library, at the beach, or doing fun things around town like visiting the dog show.  There won’t be much time in the fall to do activities like this, so I am trying to pack them in now.  It’s been such a great way to forget the three ring circus that has become our life, even if it’s only for a few hours.

I have also decided to go on quest to find the best cupcake ever made.  Well…at least in the Houston area.  With my traveling schedule in the fall, I might hit up some out of town bakeries but most of my quest will take place locally.  John and I will be testing out cupcakes in and around town trying to figure out which one we like the most.  I hope to have the time to blog the experience, but we shall see.  Cupcakes seem to be such a great way to also find a little bit of normal in this abnormal world.

Here are the first three cupcakes we tried and the results:

This was lemon filled cupcake that I bought from our local Kroger’s store.  They have remodeled and the store looks quite fabulous.  The bakery is absolutely beautiful and I thought their sweet treats would be just as fab.  NOPE.  Taking a way the horrible lighting, this pretty cupcake was a huge disappointment.  It was dry and the icing was a yucky mix of whipped cream and buttercream.   I only cut a quarter of it to eat, and I couldn’t even finish it.  On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the best), this cupcake gets a 3.  It only scores that high because it did look pretty.

This cupcake came from Cinnabon.  Who knew that they have ventured into the cupcake world?  They make an awesome cinnamon roll, so you would think that their cupcakes would be just as good.  This one…not so much.  It was a bit dry but the icing was incredible!  I would give this one a 4 because it was pretty and the icing was good.  I wouldn’t buy it again though.

This one is also from Cinnabon.  This cupcake is supposed to be a take-off of their cinnamon roll.  Holy moly, this sucker was phenomenal!  By far this has been the best one we have tried.  The cake was not dry at all and resembled their cinnamon roll but just a bit cakier.  The frosting was to die for!  If you love this company’s cinnamon rolls, then you will most likely love this cupcake.  I can only give it an 8 though because I think that it resembles their cinnamon roll too much.  I would have liked to have seen their cupcakes taste this good.  It does rank up there though!

We have four others that we have tried but I will leave those for another post.

Anyway, keep us in your thoughts and prayers!  We need them!