He loves the little fishies

Bakery Boy loves sushi. I recently posted something on Facebook about this and his sister commented, "My brother eats sushi?" Yep. I posted about his picky eating a few blogs posts ago. He doesn't just eat sushi, he actually craves sushi. He always liked shrimp...he would eat fish we caught...but he's pretty happy now with lots of things that swim. I have always liked to eat fish and swimmy things of all types. Growing up my fave was a McDonald's fish sandwich. Gross to some, maybe, but I loved them. Having to be gluten free forces me to make my own version which is tastier to my adult taste buds. I am also a fan of sardines...yep.

Bakery Boy is also a revert Catholic and I am a convert. So for the last five years we have been eating more and more fish types during Lent. In fact, last year we gave up red meat for Lent. So maybe this is how his love for sushi grew..I'm not sure. I am sure that sometimes I find myself wondering who this husband of mine has turned into.... never say never will always be my motto.

I have a new favorite this Lent.... crab cakes! We usually make a Costco run at the beginning of Lent to check out their fish varieties for the season. I heard Bakery Boy say he wanted some clams....that is the most unusual request coming from him. I picked up some lump crab meat. Pricey...but we decided to try it one time. Our favorite is their fresh cod fillets. And then my husband said he had calamari while he was in Georgia... so we found a frozen pack of scallops, calamari, little neck clams, and shrimp. I also purchased a large bag of langostino lobster tails. Also pricey but one bag makes four meals..and then it's not so pricey. We love fresh seafood. It is pricey...and I like a deal. Frozen provides that deal for six weeks of Lent.

My gluten free crab cakes

16 oz lump crab meat....not the fake stuff
1 beaten egg...we get ours from a farmer
2 TBSP mayonnaise - I use Hellman's..it is gluten free
1 TBSP prepared yellow mustard
1 tsp Worcestershire
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp Old Bay seafood seasoning
1/2 tsp lemon juice
optional hot sauce to taste..we love Siracha
3/4 gluten free Panko bread crumbs


Whisk all ingredients together in a bowl except for crab and bread crumbs. Fold in crab and bread crumbs. Heat oil in skillet on medium heat. I use olive oil and a small pat of butter. Pat crab cakes into small patties. Fry until golden flipping once. Serve warm. This recipe makes around a dozen cakes depending on the size.

crab cakes with chive mayo

These cakes taste great alone...they have a sweetness that is simply delicious. They would pair well with a chardonnay or pinot grigio. I like to make a sauce..this one is mayo, Angostura bitters, red wine vinegar, and chives...but dill would also highly compliment the sweetness of the crab. I'm serving them on Easter Sunday as an appetizer before dinner...bite size.

lobster rolls....recipe being perfected...however, these were delish just a little too runny on the sauce...I'll share soon as I have enough frozen little tails for another recipe....these were great with a beer.

Friday I will be making a coconut milk based soup with the frozen clams, etc. If it turns out, I'll take a picture and share. I know there are concerns with fish these days..mercury, radioactive fallout.... We eat it in moderation but I just can't and choose not to walk around being scared about everything. I eat healthy, unprocessed food..besides chips..and I'm just choosing to be okay with it all. That being said..pregnant women are supposed to watch the amount of fish meals they eat per week. We are typically eating only one pwe week. 

It's been a wonderful Lent so far and the Triduum is now upon us Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil... Happy Blessed Easter!

Love,

Veggie Girl

I just couldn't do it...

We are nearing Bakery Boy's good 20 years in the National Guard. He enlisted in 1986 three months before we married. I was naive and really had no idea what we were signing up for. In fact, I was so naive I didn't know we were signing up...I just thought he was enlisting. He wanted to be a soldier. He had always wanted to be a soldier. Honestly it was better that I was naive. I was in love and ready to be married. And six months after we married, I was pregnant with our first son, Brady, and he was leaving for basic training. I remember thinking...wait, you have to do what? for how long? did they say that when you signed up? I was sooooooo green and naive.

Leaving him at the airport that day was the toughest emotional thing I had done at that point in my life. But time passed, he came home, and saying welcome home was amazing. I can't say it was the best because by that time I had given birth, with my mom by my side, to Brady...and that was the best thing ever. But showing our first born son to him for the first time..back in that same airport..was very special.

He served 12 years... out of Boone and then into the 1/113th Cav out of Johnston..and he wore the red bull patch. He was a radio operator. And I learned one weekend a month and two weeks of the year were to be spent with the kids and he would miss many, many life events. And goodbyes were tough but welcome homes were amazing.  Time apart can be a good thing for marriages depending on what you do with that time.

Well, at the twelve year mark his second enlistment was up. We were swamped with five young sons and life. We made the decision he would not reenlist. It was tough but the right thing at the time. He missed going to Kosovo with John. He felt huge regret. Six years later, after 9/11 and job loss and all kinds of things... he said, "I am reenlisting." I didn't say much. He didn't ask for my opinion. No matter what my thoughts were, I knew when he came home with all his gear once again, he was in the right place. My Bakery Boy is a soldier and has always been a soldier. He had switched MOS earlier to an NBC specialist. And that's what he reenlisted as but this time in the 671st...with an eagle patch as an E5. Seemed odd to see those in the closet.

Our marriage was very rocky at that point. We had been through too much for one marriage to handle....sick kids, job loss, loss of our home... He had to go to PLDC in Nebraska. We fought or we were silent all the way out. I dropped him off without much of a goodbye and wondered if we could pull it together. But I credit those weeks with saving my marriage. We both had the opportunity to see what it would be like without the other. And I decided, I would fight for my marriage and lay down my anger towards him. He came home and was promoted fairly quickly to an E6. I did that pinning but, honestly, I was still in my naive mode and I'm not sure I truly understood the significance and the work we had put in so far. But had I punched him then..I might have not stopped...it was such a maddening time in our marriage.

How I got to the point we are today in our marriage is another story...but we both had to lay down our anger and swords. It's a good thing we did when we did because in 2009 he received word he was deploying to Afghanistan for a year. That goodbye is one I will never forget. I can still feel the last kiss he planted on me. And saying goodbye after his two weeks of leave...worst heart-wrenching goodbye ever. He came home, along with our son, Brady, safe...and that welcome home is the most emotional thing I have ever experienced.

We have spent the last three years readjusting. Deployment taught us both a lot. He immediately started working on schools and promotions. During the last year he was gone for three months of training. And, finally, yesterday I pinned him as an E7..a Sergeant First Class. Our timeline is what it is..he would have reached this sooner had he not gotten out. But this time I knew and was not so naive...and I was pinning him and myself..our whole family. We all worked hard and pulled our weight to get him to this point. Except I couldn't do it.....

You see...I couldn't punch him, slap him, whatever... on his new rank.... I get it. It's what they do. But we've been through so much hurt already. I just had to leave it up to a couple of other soldiers.... and hopefully the next time he sees Brady..his son can do it. He'll finish the job as he's a fellow soldier.

Somebody asked me recently when he was going to be done. I said, "He'll be done when I say he is...." and we shared a chuckle. My mindset is different now. I'm not naive. We will know when the time is right and we will make the decision together. For now we keep walking through open soldier doors.

He may be a soldier but I am a National Guard wife and mother.

No emotion and don't look me in the eye...but I did..couldn't help it...he kept his soldier on

 I am receiving instruction to slap him..make it heard..he is grinning...a couple soldiers asked if they could do it...yep..but we apparently didn't get pictures?

And changing his cover

Such a conflict of emotion.....Bakery Boy pinned Brady a little while back.... did he punch my son? neither one has ever said. 

Thank you for all the support...we can't do this as a family without everyone's love and support. Oh...and he's back in the cavalry in communications... 1/113th. All is right...see that bull on his shoulder?

Love,

Veggie Girl

Woven together...and then it all makes sense

I have been hesitating to write... simply because we, Veggie Girl and Bakery Boy, have a huge story and sometimes I'm not sure what to write or where to go with it...it is so much and we have healed and grown beyond much of it. Or do I just write about our daily adventures? Everything has shaped us and our marriage. Today it all became very clear.

Our story together is almost 30 years in the making with lots of ups and downs. But events from when I was ten years old through today...at 49... all came woven together in just a few minutes.

When I was ten, I experienced sudden hearing loss in my right ear. The cause remains a mystery to this day. After discovering my hearing loss, my parents took me to several doctors and we finally ended up at Mayo Clinic where they said, "She is profoundly deaf in her right ear and there is nothing we can do to help her." We left. I remember how I felt riding home..scared...sad... alone. And then I went on with my growing up. Being single-sided deaf is very challenging. I have no directional hearing and I appear to be fully hearing. So I experienced people being left confused when I didn't hear them. And then people were always thinking I was rude or stuck up. That became my life. My good friends and particularly my bakery boy are always hearing for me. Being hearing impaired is incredibly frustrating socially. My friends and family will tell you they don't like to be in my black void area which is to my right back side out of my vision. Vision is key for me to understand what I am hearing as I must read your lips.

Jump ahead to age 20..I met my bakery boy. I was prepping veggies for the salad bar and he was prepping desserts....a food service romance.We married a year later. Early in our marriage the Cochlear implant became headline news.  I told him, "If anything ever comes around to help me hear, I will do it."

And by the time we were 24, our second son was born. Brenden was born with multiple life threatening heart defects. He was missing his aorta, had multiple holes between the upper and lower chambers, and had a misplaced right sub-clavian artery. He had his first of three open heart surgeries at four days old. He is our miracle..and he is a huge story himself... but key to today is from the time he was able to cry his voice was raspy. And as he grew, everyone asked if he was sick. His voice was weak and he was always hoarse.

When Brenden was 17, we took him to an ENT for his voice. We only knew to do this because his older brother, Brady, had recently had his vocal cords looked at because he is a singer and was having difficulties. The speech pathologist asked Brenden, "Does anyone ever have trouble hearing you speak?" Brenden replied, "Yes, my mom, but she doesn't count because she's deaf in her right ear." The speech pathologist looked at me and said, "Have you heard of the BAHA?" I hadn't. She got me a pamphlet and to be honest I was so engrossed in what I was reading I had a hard time paying attention to Brenden's appointment.

At home, I simply handed the information to Bakery Boy. There were really no words. I said, "If I can get insurance to pay, I have to do this. There is finally something to help me." I had my BAHA placement surgery March 30, 2008. Three months later, which was the required time for healing, I received my Divino sound processor. I was 43.

I cried a lot. I was overwhelmed with sound. My left ear worked but I heard in a very flat way and now I was hearing in fullness...possibly with more stereo. I sobbed all through church the first Sunday I heard the piano. I sobbed hearing the radio in the car. I heard the wind and the birds and cars all at the same time. I stood in amazement at the grocery store when a clerk spoke to me in my black void and I heard her and turned and walked to her line. Brenden also had a vocal reinnervation surgery for his paralyzed vocal cord around the same time....which happened because of his first open heart surgery. And I was shocked and amazed the first time we had a conversation in a car. It was never possible before. Our doctor, Dr. Simon Wright, gave us the gift of communication. He changed our lives. And I thought my story was done.


Two years later, I prepared to send my husband and son to Afghanistan for a year long tour. My husband, my bakery boy, prepared his office to be taken care of by a fill-in soldier... Shaun Myers. Bakery Boy and oldest son, Brady, returned safely. And we started to get to know Shaun better. He came down for a bridge festival and I could see the soldier connection between my husband and him. They continued to share an office. He came to Brady's wedding. And then we heard Shaun had met Amber. I missed their wedding but husband attended. Their baby girl, Aliannah, was born premature last December 2013 with microtia and atresia essentially leaving her deaf. And I fell in love with that baby girl the minute she was born before I even met her.

Aliannah is my life experiences all rolled into one...really sick, hospitalized kids (we have one more..another story another day) combined with my deafness. And I'm okay and I'm through it all and still standing. I talked to my audiologist about donating my Divino to Aliannah so she could begin to hear now..so they could relax and get funds and insurance in place for Ali's surgeries and her very own BAHA. I found out it was possible. My Divino was sitting in my dresser for I received an upgrade two years ago. I waited to tell because tests needed to confirm she had the potential to hear. Yesterday was an amazing day and I was so blessed to be part of Ali's first time hearing her momma's voice. Ali and I happen to share the same doctor office and audiologist...I don't believe it's a coincidence.

My faith is my driving force. Everything I do is because of my beliefs and the proof I see through the miracles in my life. As I was living the last 30 years, there were times when it was all just too much. And I asked often why we had to go through so much. Why did my children suffer? Why did life have to be stressful? Why? Why? Why? And as I walked and often times trudged through each day, I would receive answers and my heart was softened and shaped. But never did I expect to see this outcome. Never did I expect to see all of these events woven together. Trials are heart and gut wrenching. It is so hard to wait and wonder and want answers. And then we heal and we are able to look back and understand.

I would change one thing about my trials. I would take away my children's pain. That, as a parent, is the most difficult thing. But going through everything we have, Veggie Girl and Bakery Boy together, has made us what we are today...at the age of 49.

There is more to come I am sure...more blessings and more trials. But we have new forever friends with Shaun, Amber, and Ali...they are a part of our family now.

Side note: Brenden is 25 now and healthy. He and his wife are expecting their first baby this summer.

Love and Blessings,
Veggie Girl

The first day I met Ali 

Yesterday... I'm wearing my BAHA BP100 and she's wearing my Divino on a softband...clearly she wants her momma


UPDATE PICTURE OF MISS ALI 2015 (she has her own BAHA now):