Joyfully Celebrate Love

My husband has been wanting his Takamine guitar for quite some time, as he couldn’t bring 2 guitars from Colombia (excess luggage). His sister got her Visa approved, but didn’t have the funds to come to AZ, so she went to Miami, where she has been staying for the past couple weeks, with some relatives of their’s.

She brought the Takamine from Colombia to Miami and last Tuesday, she finally shipped the guitar from Miami to us. We just got it and now my Love is tuning his black Takamine.

It cost us nearly $100 to buy the box and ship from Miami to the U.S. My husband was frustrated with his sister regarding this, but I told him to let it go. I am grateful that we had the money to pay for the shipping. But, it was far less expensive to ship from Miami than to ship from Colombia.

Praise God she is here (the Takamine). My husband is going to get it ready to teach me to play on that, our daughter will play on her Jasmine, and my husband on his Taylor.

I’m happy for my husband that he will have 2 guitars to use to play. I look forward to learning, though, when I was a kid, I took lessons for a whole year and didn’t do well with guitar. I’m a keyboards and woodwind gal.

Okay, so I had a bag of mini-corn tortillas in the frig waiting to be used. Today I made homemade chicken soup as I bought a bunch of chicken breasts on sale, as well as chicken thighs. I boiled 2/3rds of a package of chicken breasts. Wasn’t going to eat the whole thing for chicken vegetable soup, but figured I could use the breasts for chicken salad or some other chicken dish, like enchiladas.

I put in the soup celery, onion powder, garlic powder, garlic, cilantro, carrots, and water. I boiled and simmered for quite some time and had the soup for lunch. Since I’ve hardly eaten anything in 2 days (weight is going down obviously), I was still pretty hungry afterwards, but opted to not eat more.

When we got home, I thought, what if I used the chicken to make some mini chicken tacos. Went to Pinterest to try to find a recipe, but to no avail. What people called chicken tacos were really mini chicken bowls. They were not chicken tacos.

So, I decided to make up something –
- 1 chicken breast
- 1/2 bunch cilantro
- 2 small avocados
- 4 oz lite cream cheese
- 4 oz jalapeno jack cheese
- pinch of sea salt
- 26 mini corn tortillas (about 4” in dia)

I shredded the cooled, but not cold chicken breast that had been sitting in the broth for a few hours, so it was nice and tender. Did this with my hands. In a small food processor, I put the avocados, cream cheese, cilantro, and sea salt and processed away until smooth.

It looked like a creamy green sauce with flecks of green. It was perfectly yummy. I shredded the jalapeno cheese with my new handheld stainless cheese shredder that I picked up at Goodwill for maybe $2. It wasn’t the easiest to use as one person, though, but I shredded the cheese fine.

I mixed the shredded chicken, the shredded cheese and the creamy avocado-cilantro sauce together until well mixed.

Then, I heated about 7-9 mini corn tortillas in the oven to soften them for 43 sec on high. I put about a teaspoonful or more on half the corn tortilla and folded in half like a taco. Did this until all the tortillas were gone.

In the meantime, I heated a 10” skillet with oil on medium high. We fried the tacos in oil and drained them on paper towels.

Let me tell you, these were simply the best mini tacos ever. I almost always have cream cheese, cilantro and some type of cheese in the frig, as well as corn tortillas.

This is definitely a do over recipe and the next time I might add some cayenne pepper or chipotle peppers and we will make a much bigger batch. These really are very tasty.

Though I wasn’t supposed to have any because of my sore throat, I did eat 5.5 of them. My husband had 6.5 and the kids each had 7. Really, I could’ve eaten way more than that, like maybe 15, but there weren’t 15 to eat.

The next time I make these, I will take pictures and post the recipe in my blog.

My husband LOVES Costco’s mini tacos, preferably the beef, but chicken is also good. He loves these over the tacquitos. He was pretty sad when Costco discontinued the mini-tacos. I even bought a bunch of mini corn tortillas in hopes of making mini-tacos, but alas, I have done nothing and they still sit in the fridge.

Today when we went to Costco, me not feeling well to cook dinner, asked my family what they wanted to eat for the next two days where I would not have to cook. We went to the freezer section and they chose raviolis, egg rolls and mini tacos. My husband was seriously excited like a little kid getting a big shiny red bike for Christmas.

Since I didn’t want to heat up the kitchen with the oven, I used the toaster oven to bake the tacos, but I knew that one tray wasn’t enough. After I dished out the tacos of the first tray to my husband and our 2 kids, I set another try in to bake and figured they would be done by the time they finished.

Unfortunately for me, since I’m not feeling well, I was going to just have chicken noodle soup with saltine crackers. Oh yum.

When I dished out the first plate of tacos for my husband, he commented on the huge pile on his plate. I secretly laughed, knowing after he polished off that plate, he’d want another plate. Of course, that was the case. I laughed and told him that later as I had already prepared another tray of tacos.

I’m glad that I’m learning what pleases my man and to make him happy. If mini chicken tacos it is, then so be it!

They say a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. My husband really does love to eat and he loves food. Thankfully I’m a good cook (as so is he) and he enjoys my cooking.

He’s not really a breakfast person and that is my favorite meal of the day. I was just going to leave him a mantecada (sp?) muffin for breakfast but I don’t really like eating muffins for breakfast. I like a hearty protein-rich breakfast.

So, I saw the package of chorizo I had in the frig that I bought earlier this week, and I saw the ceramic pie dish I found at Goodwill for about $3. What a deal because nice ceramic bakeware is expensive. I remember getting cilantro earlier in the week, too.

My husband loves chorizo and potatoes, not a huge egg lover, but if there is a lot of stuff he likes, he’ll tolerate the eggs. Thus, my chorizo & potato quiche was born.

I browned up the chorizo, added chopped onions and grated potatoes, with minced cilantro. Scrambled up some eggs & milk, added a little sea salt and there you have a quiche. Hope it turns out. It’s baking right now.

Since my daughter and I are going to a mother-daughter luncheon this afternoon, I remember earlier in the week I made a Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Casserole and made extra chicken that my husband diced up.

That will be perfect to make a chicken salad for him and our son for lunch, so they can have quiche for a late breakfast and chicken salad for lunch. Yum.

This morning before I left to take the kids to school, I bent down to kiss my husband who was still sleeping in bed soundly. My long hair brushed up against his arm and he freaked. He thought it was a cockroach and tried to swat it. He looked so scared. He did this in his sleep and I started laughing so hard.

I couldn’t stop laughing.

There were a number of things that just made me laugh today that he was doing. While we were at the store, and I was laughing about something else, he asked me if I was a comedian. I laughed more.

I really, really love and appreciate my husband so much. Having been married twice before, I was skeptical that my third marriage would work well before I ever knew about my G. I knew my Mr. Right existed somewhere in the world. How God would bring us together, I had no clue. But, I did trust that if I allowed God to work in me and surrendered to God, that eventually my Mr. Right would come.

It’s almost funny with where we are now – 2 engineers who have been previously married, starting again from scratch financially and our relationship, building our lives together.

God is soooo, and I mean soooo very good. I am in total of awe of Him that it makes me just want to cry.

I remember being on here, in 43T, when I did my daily 5 gratitudes and when I was at a super low and couldn’t find 5 things to be thankful for because I was heartbroken, devestated. My life was turned upside down – everything was broken.

Now, though we are starting back at the bottom, my hope is in the Lord, and taking actions. I have an incredible husband who will not let me feel sorry for myself, but help me back up, to see the talents and great in me, to help me get back on my feet and we walk together.

There is so much that I want to write, but my thoughts are flying in at a million miles an hour. I feel so incredibly blessed.

This was not the route I envisioned going through, but I can definitely say submitting to God has been the best thing as I am now just starting to really reap the rewards. I’m making money again and seeing things more clearly. It’s like taking a telephoto lens and adjusting so the focus becomes clearer and clearer.

The fear is being dispelled that I had financially and though we still have a number of challenges that lie ahead of us, I get to be with my Love and our children, to raise them together.

No, I’m not making the 6-figures I was making as an engineer, yet, but I am going to keep stepping out in faith and keep doing it and let God bless beyond my comprehension.

Really, G and I should not be, that’s what a lot of people told me. But, we are together, in the same place, married and happy. I feel like dancing.

If you feel hopeless, let me tell you that not all things are hopeless and it won’t be forever. I pray this is the Morning Star formation (a trading pattern) and things will just keep going up.

I’m really enjoying my sub contracting job and the people I’m working with. Challenges with some of the stuff, but I am getting it and learning. I feel this is a breakthrough for me to be able to once again earn money, and that God will accelerate this.

It makes me happy that both my husband and I can work from home.

There are so many things I love about my G. One of them is shopping. We love Goodwill, Savers, and thrift stores. And, we will eventually probably get into garage sales more for even greater deals.

The past few 3 days, we’ve been to so many Goodwills and I’ve tried on a lot of clothes, half of which did not look good on me (I’m sure he’s thankful for that). He will give me his opinion on whether something looks good on me or not, and I trust his opinion.

It’s really fun to shop with him, though, today, he said I looked like a sausage in a top and I did not find that very nice. I told him so and the next time he thinks I look like that, a nicer thing to say is . . . “It’s too small.” He said it wasn’t meant to be a slam, but I can tell you this wife doesn’t like to be told she looks like a sausage in anything. Definitely a really bad thing to say to your wife.

Thankfully, he sometimes doesn’t get the expressions right and I’ll forgive him for that. :)

So, note to you men with gals, don’t ever tell her she looks like a sausage. I’m glad, though, there were many outfits or clothing where he did give me that “Wow! You look amazing look!” Guess that makes up for it. Heehee.

Today my husband spent the whole day together running errands, shopping, eating, playing. We both love Goodwill, so after going to the social security administration to do my name change, we went to a number of Goodwills in central Phx area.

We ended up having lunch at Greek Town in north Phx. The food was delicious and we used the mobile Entertainment book for a 10% discount. Originally I wanted to go to an African restaurant, but the area made my husband feel uncomfortable because it was looking a bit divey, which I have no issues with.

He said he didn’t trust places like that. I explained that many of the divey places I’ve been to serve the best of foods. Sometimes the owners of those places can’t afford the high rent in the nicer places, which is why they are in places that don’t look so great.

We had a lot of extra time today because we couldn’t go to DMV to make my name change until next week. The SSA said we have to wait for that until the name change is in the system, which it won’t be for a few days.

When we picked up the kids, our son had great news that he got a 98% on his Science test that I thought he wouldn’t do well on. He also got 100% on his 2 math quiz/test and 100% on his Literature test.

My husband decided to lift 2 weeks of being grounded, therefore, he only has 1 week left of grounding, which would be this weekend. We are in a chess tournament all weekend, so that shouldn’t be a big deal for our son.

They played chess again tonight. My husband got his replacement OtterBox camo iPhone case from OtterBox today. We got to be together the whole day and I absolutely loved it. He did, too.

The prior 3 days, I missed him so much with being gone for training. But, training today was only 45 min., which was to review what I did and provide me with feedback.

We have been getting along great. Today was very positive for all of us. He even suggested we take the kids to get ice cream as a treat.

Love, love dates with my husband. It was a relaxing day.

Next week we will do DMV.

I missed my Love so much yesterday while I was in training class from 9-2:30 pm. The kids and I had to leave for school early, by 7 am and we didn’t get back until almost 4 pm.

We have spent almost every single day together for most of the day minus and hour or so here and there. We rarely tire of each other and I have never been able to spend so much time with one person and be great with it, even in our conflicts, when we have them.

When I got home, we hugged and kissed for awhile until G got a little uncomfortable because the kids were waiting to give him hugs. Although we often work in the same room with us both on our computers doing our own thing, when we want to kiss, talk or whatever, we are there with each other, even if in a different room.

Sitting at the computer almost all that time from 9-2:30 pm, there was no G and my thoughts kept flinting back to him, wondering if he missed me and he did.

I’m really glad this subcontracting job, after the training is done, is done at home, where we can be together. When he is legal to work, it would be great if he also was able to get a job he could work from home.

He doesn’t get up as early as me, nor is he a morning person. I want to sleep in today at least until 6:15 am, but alas, it’s a little after 5 am and I’m wide awake.

When my husband is driving and we have McDonald’s (fries), he loves for me to feed him fries. He likes them bunched up as many fries and just feed him . . . he opens wide and takes all the fries. He really, really loves fries A LOT or anything potatoes.

I remember when he was in Colombia, he had a cow that I told him I was eating and driving. All he knew was the awful traffic they had there and had no concept that it isn’t as bad driving here.

Sometimes he’ll have a burger in his hand, the other hand on the steering wheel and me feeding him fries and I just laugh about it and remind him when he was in Colombia and his reaction towards me eating and driving.