Thursday, February 25, 2010

I gotta new attitude

so the blog is back and open for view to all who care to see what goes on in this girl's life!
I decided to kick the negative attitude. I can't control the things that happen, but I can control how I react. I have so many good things in my life to let a few things stand in the way. things were out of control for a little bit, but they're back to good....for the most part. this week was exhausting at work. Tonight was my first free night in the entire week. Mr. Soup went to go see Cornel West speak at UNT, so I made plans for dinner with a friend, but they fell through. I'm just chilling with Sampson and Maya. Some days it's nice to come home and relax with them. I love my students, but lately I've been overwhelmed with their problems, academically and personally. While Mr. Soup and I are anxious to start a family next year, I do love being a dog-mommy. I never have to worry about Sam or Maya using drugs. All I have to do is feed them, walk them and love them and they're pretty content. Plus they are adorable. I know Mr. Soup and I will have beautiful children, but Sam and Maya are as cute as can be!
I was talking to one of my co-workers and she mentioned how a lot of her students wrote essays on their new dad. The stories were all similar in plot in that they all started out with biological dad and mom together, fight ensues, mom takes kids/dad leaves, mom gets a new boyfriend and bam new dad. I thought this was really sad because you can't replace people. One of my students asked me how come I refer to my stepdaughter as my stepdaughter and not my daughter. I told her that my stepdaughter already has a mommy and I cannot replace her mom; I can only enhance her life. I do feel as though Abby is my daughter and sometimes (most of the time) I do not always agree with her mother's choices. However, I would never want to replace her as a mother. I am so thankful to have Abby in my life and to be part of hers. I think she benefits from having two families rather than one. I wish more families could see that. I wish my students' families could see that. Maybe it'd make their time at school a little more bearable if they knew they didn't have to choose between biological dad and new dad, etc.
Okay enough of that rant! So, Mr. Soup officially started his new job and officially has weekends off now! He booked our cruise and we're set to go! We're still trying to get stuff together for buying our first home. We keep going back and forth on where we want to buy. We love our area now. Great schools, shopping, parks, and restaurants. Plus, we can get to Uptown/Downtown pretty quickly. However, the homes over here are more expensive. We looked near where I work, and while we could get more house for less money, I'm just not in love with the area. Ugghhh...what to do! I am glad we're going through this process. I just have this feeling it's not going to work out, but Mr. Soup keeps reminding me that it will.

Sunday, February 14, 2010

champagne cupcakes


I'm posting pictures of the champagne cupcakes. They were a success. One thing that proved to be difficult was folding the eggs into the batter. I googled for tips and found a video to help me, but it was still a challenge. The frosting was not a success. Luckily, I planned for this and bought regular frosting from Wal-Mart. I then added champagne and food coloring to it (violet + sky blue = periwinkle). So we have champagne cupcakes with periwinkle frosting to celebrate our first Valentine's Day as a married couple. Murad is taking me out to eat in a little bit, so I need to get back to getting ready! Enjoy

Saturday, February 13, 2010

cooking with the campbells....for real, son!


I am a collector of recipes. I love collecting recipes and then redistributing them as my own to others! No lie. some of my favorite recipes include: zesty barbeque chicken, turkey/spinach meatloaf, chicken croissant casserole, fiesta chicken casserole (can you tell I like casseroles?), chicken roll-ups....but I don't have too many baking recipes, so I'm taking all the dessert recipes that you have!

so tomorrow is valentine's day. since we are low on funds due to some rather large upcoming purchases, I will be making some edible treats to celebrate my man! I am very lucky that my husband loves my cooking. He is always encouraging me to try new recipes and he usually loves everything I make. However, pastries are another story. We both love buttercream frosting, but our tastes kind of end there. So, if you have anything extra sweet and buttercreamy, please send it my way.

We both love chocolate covered pretzels, so tomorrow I'm making candy-covered pretzels and I'm wanting to try out this new recipe I found....champagne cupcakes. Mr. Soup and I have 6 or 7 bottles of champagne left over from our wedding. We plan to open a bottle of wine or champagne from our wedding every anniversary until we run out. However, I kind of want to open a bottle tomorrow to make these yummy treats. I'm a total dork and think it's kinda cool that they are champagne cupcakes and one of our wedding colors was champagne. Maybe I could find some periwinkle sprinkles to go on top!