For years and years I never drank coffee. I’ve always had a love for coffee ice cream (got that from my mom) but never liked coffee. Guess you can blame Starbucks for my change. It started with the Frappachino – the frozen coffee drinks that are so close to coffee ice cream. Then I crossed over into the hot “coffee” realm – not the straight up stuff (I still can’t drink that) – the “Mocha’s”. My favorite is the peppermint that is only available around Christmas.

Being someone who likes spending time in the kitchen making things – I started trying to create my own mocha’s. Got myself a little 4 cup coffee maker and a bean grinder. Using a diet hot cocoa mix as the “base” I experimented with different flavored coffees – chocolates, almond, I even found a mint chocolate coffee, although I prefer to add a few drops of peppermint extract instead. On the weekend a nice dollop of light whipped cream will top off the concoction. The only time the little coffee pot makes straight up coffee is if we have a “normal” coffee drinker visiting.

Speaking of “concoctions” – it’s that time of year for me to bake. It’s my favorite time of year because I can get in the kitchen and bake all the goodies I love making and share them with others. Kiss Cookies, Cry Baby Cookies, Pumpkin and Apple pies, “the” Pecan Pound Cake, Cinnamon rolls – time to start putting the recipes online.

It’s difficult to understand why my ex wants to maintain a good relationship with my family but yet does not encourage two of my daughters to do the same with me. I am very happy that all of my girls continue to visit with my dad and my sister. When Megan mentions that she is coming to visit me, daughter #2 basically tells her it’s stupid. That puts Megan in a painful position because she knows I would like her to have a good relationship with her sisters too. But the relationship my ex has with my family just eats away at me.

He kept things of my mom’s that my dad had given to me when my mom passed away. If Megan even mentions the idea of him returning them to me he goes off on her. I’ve asked my dad to speak to him but that gets forgotten. Maybe I should ask my sister to remind him.

This is probably going to be the last year I bowl – I’ve inherited my father’s degenerative joint disease and the joint in my middle finger is pretty messed up. But I guess I’ll go out with a bang – missed a 600 by 4 pins this past Tuesday night.

I want to sign up for the upcoming Pro-Am – Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Classic – Pro-Ams in January. I’ve always wanted to bowl in one. I took Vanessa to three of them. I even was a scorekeeper for one of them. Oh the lost art of hand scoring.

Somehow I let myself be talked into bowling in the USBC Women’s Championships to be held in Reno, NV. Entry fee was $100 – but that’s the cheapest part of the trip. Then there is airline fare, hotel, food and then the group is planning on going to San Francisco. Maybe that’s why I reluctantly signed up – I want to go to San Francisco. Hopefully, I can save up enough for this trip next June.

Jeff was raised Southern Baptist and my being Catholic didn’t lend itself for room to compromise. So I continued to maintain my quiet relationship with God. We would toss the idea around of trying to find a middle ground or even going to a Lutheran church but never did.

I had been working at Holiday Treasures for a couple years without any type of benefits. I remained active within the Miva Merchant community and thought I had a couple of leads there, but they didn’t pan out. I had posted my resume on Monster and watched for job openings in Birmingham. Flipping through the channels one night I stubble across EWTN and Mother Angelica was doing a catalog show. Electronic catalogs and ecommerce are my “specialty” so I went to checkout the EWTN website. They had job listings posted – one was for a Web Designer. At the same time, I found a job listing for Web Developer at the Baptist Health System (here in Birmingham). I wound up interviewing with both of them around April 2001 and then went into the “hurry up and wait” mode. The running joke was “who would get me first? The Baptists or the Catholics?”

Turns out that one of the site owners for a site I built, had ties with EWTN. He came over to me one morning, asked if I still was interested in working at EWTN and gave me a phone number to call. I wound up talking with one of the people who was part of the interview time from when I came in back in April. I went back to EWTN for a second interview with the webmaster – he gave me a great tour of the campus. I went back to my car and cried – I felt like I wasn’t “Catholic enough” to work at EWTN. Little did I know they were trying to find me so I could have a third interview with the company President. So God WAS trying to tell me something – I got the job at EWTN.

I started October 1, 2001. In the spring of 2002, we went to the EWTN Family picnic that was held at the monastery in Hanceville. The picnic included a family Mass. Jeff had never been inside a Catholic Church – it was quite a moving experience for him. He was so full of questions – now I know why I had put at EWTN. He started attending RCIA classes and I started the painful annulment process (I’ll save that for another time). It was a long process – Jeff was finally able to join the Church this past June 2005.

Looks like this may have to be one of those continuing threads.

Somebody should have reminded the “Brookie” where she was at before she decided to drop the f-bomb. I guess the crucifix on the wall wasn’t a reminder? Her dinner time “conversation” with her sons would have my mother rolling over in her grave – I was raised that there is a time and place for everything.

I was a little disappointed that more of the business uses for blogs was not discussed. I did learn that I don’t run in any blogging circles. But I should think about starting a Miva Merchant blog and get Megan to start one too. Then she would have a place to sound off.