Life – Page 3 – kaylee may

24
May
2014

The {Grateful} Project

Davey told me the other day that it bothered him when I complained.

I immediately wanted to cry, call a friend, and complain about how Davey is too happy all the time. If you know Davey, then you know he never complains. He hasn’t had the easiest life, but he has never complained about any challenges he has faced. He just deals with them and moves on.

So naturally, I thought, “Sure I complain, but he is the weird one for not complaining ever.”

But then I remembered that when I chose to marry Davey, I chose to make it my life’s work to be a good person for him. I decided that I needed to work on being more positive.

As women, I think we rationalize our complaints by saying things like, “I just need to vent” or “It’s good for me to let it all out” or “I need a good cry.” I suppose there is some truth to all these statements, but maybe I take it too far sometimes. When complaining takes up the majority of my conversations, something needs to change.

But how do we, as women, find that balance between “venting” and “complaining too much.” How do we make sure we let it all out before it “bottles up”, but we don’t let it consume us?

I think it has something to do with being grateful, even in the small moments. I heard a TED talk about how gratitude leads to happiness, and I think this should be my first step in working to spend less time complaining. I need to recognize the things in my life that I am grateful for and focus on them.

I have to work Memorial day, but thank God I have a job.
I live in a city where I have yet to meet a group of friends, but thank God my husband is a good friend to me.
My feet hurt at the end of the day and my back aches from bending over to set up obstacles for my patients, but thank God for giving me the opportunity to carry a child.
I miss seeing my Grandma on a regular basis, but thank God I can still call her whenever I want.
I have student loans coming out of my ears, but thank God for the opportunity to make people feel better every day.
The highway I take to work is closed, and it now takes me twice as long to get to work, but thank you God for showing me the back roads of Minneapolis.

When I think of things this way, I really have nothing to complain about.

22
May
2014

A weekend for the books

categories: Life, Marriage

I am officially starting to enjoy it in the great north (is Minnesota the great north?) This may coincide with the fact that we have officially gone one whole month without snow. That’s HUGE. I was beginning to get stir crazy. I even told Davey, “If it snows one more time, I am making the executive family decision…we’re moving.” I guess God doesn’t want us to move because once I said that, it stopped snowing.

To celebrate the weather and opportunity to be outside without the threat of frost bite on any exposed skin, we packed our car with a weekend full of pulled pork, snacks, beers, and games and headed to a cabin in the middle of no where. Quite literally, the middle of nowhere– although we did have an interesting neighbor named Neil with a dog that we eventually nick-named Dirty Murphy. We met up with our friends Matt and Toi (they’re getting married!) and spent our days hiking, playing Cards Against Humanity, and talking about anything and everything. It was a blast, and I may or may not have teared up when we left because I just didn’t want to leave…Some weekends are just like that. If I could bottle it up and step into the bottle on any given day to relive it, I would.

14
May
2014

St. Louis has my heart

categories: Life, Marriage

There is nothing like time spent with friends that refuels the soul. This past weekend was one that makes me day dream at work and count down the weeks until I get to see them all again. Not to mention, watching one of my best friends marry an incredible man is a dream come true. I literally cried my eyes out watching her walk down the aisle– after getting married last September, I feel so much joy for my friends when they share that moment with their husband—locking eyes as they walk down the aisle with all their loved ones present. There are no words to explain it. I could tell Anne was sensing that peace that comes with the Sacrament, and I couldn’t be more happy for her (and John). Here are some pictures to recap the weekend!!

Davey joined Anne and I for our traditional Friday morning mass at the basilica followed by coffee:

See the building in the background!!??? Count 8 floors up…that was our apartment! Take me back…

This handsome broad spent most of the time at the pool! He’s all mine, ladies. 😉

I asked Baby Hiatt if we should live in St. Louis. I felt multiple kicks….I’ll take that as a “yes.”

There is no other way to start Anne’s wedding day than with coffee and breakfast at a local coffee joint!

The bride herself:

Look who we found! SISTER!

This rowdy table was in the back corner for a good reason…

Anyone who can spin Anne around the dance floor has my vote…

The WUPT crew!

Ahh….seriously, take me back.

12
Apr
2014

{Life Lately} | Mom comes to Minnesota!

categories: Baby Story, Life, Marriage, Pregnancy

This week brought the warmest temperatures we have felt since last fall and our first visitor to Minnesota! Mom made her way to Minnesota on Monday and was able to stay until Thursday. As usual, I am left wishing I took more photos to capture our time together. It was so much fun to show Mom around our new town!

My mom is awesomely thoughtful! We came home from work to find Easter treats. 🙂 We also found a new box of Kleenex in our Kleenex dispenser that had been empty since January, extra food in a our refrigerator, Easter cookies…etc!! Mom things. 🙂

Davey and I have been getting outside every chance we get in this warm weather. We keep thinking it’s going to snow again, so we better get outside when we can. We took a long walk around one of Minneapolis’ many lakes!

And Baby Hiatt has started to collect handmade baby blankets from my sweet, thoughtful patients!

We have 14 more weeks until we get to meet Baby Hiatt…I can’t stop thinking about what the baby will be like!

30
Mar
2014

Davey’s Famous Pretzels

categories: Marriage, Recipes

Sometimes my friends from the South use the phrase “y’all” as a complete sentence. It means, “Oh my goodness, you guys, can you believe it?” For example, we may go to the mall and see an awesome deal. Someone will simply say, “Y’all” to get our attention and hold up the price tag.

When I first tasted these pretzels, I wanted to look around to anyone who will listen and just say, “Y’all.” THESE ARE AMAZING. And no words can really describe them. If Davey didn’t like his job so much, I think I could convince him to quit and open up his own pretzel stand in the mall. He could give Auntie Anne a run for her money, that’s for sure.

Davey typically looks for extremely easy recipes (less than 5 ingredients), so I was surprised when he told me yesterday he was going to make pretzels. (side note: This may or may not have been after he took me to the mall because I told him I was craving mall pretzels — after which we left the mall empty handed because the pretzels looked ‘too hard and dry’ to satisfy my craving…err…). Not to say I don’t have confidence in my husband’s skills, but it seemed like a far-fetched idea for Davey—whose first home cooked meal two years ago consisted of a hot dog on a piece of white bread with shredded cheese on top—to make something that required active dry yeast. Doesn’t yeast make things difficult?

Well, apparently not. This recipe turned out surprisingly easy and surprisingly scrumptious.

I’m willing to share Davey’s recipe with you, but ladies, you’re on your own for finding a man who will make homemade pretzels for you when your 23 weeks pregnant and having strange cravings.

If you don’t want to just say, “Y’all!” after your first bite, then you must be missing some taste buds.

Ingredients

1 cup milk
1 package active dry yeast
3 tablespoons packed light brown sugar
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
10 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoon fine salt
1/3 cup baking soda

Sweet Flavoring:
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
dash of cinnamon

Directions
Warm the milk in a saucepan until it’s hot enough to stick your finger in the milk for 5 seconds, (think just above hot tub temperature). Pour into a medium bowl and stir in one packet of yeast. Let sit about 2 minutes. Stir in the brown sugar and 1 cup flour. Soften 2 tablespoons of butter and stir into the mix. Add the remaining 1 1/4 cups flour and salt. At this point, the dough should be sticky. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for about 5 minutes. Dough should be softer, but still slightly sticky. Shape into a ball and place in a lightly greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit for one hour. Dough will double in size.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Punch the dough to deflate it, then place on a lightly floured surface. Use a pizza cutter to slice dough into 12-15 pieces. Roll each piece into the thickness of your finger. Each piece of dough should be about 6-12 inches long.

Dissolve the baking soda in 3 cups warm water in a shallow baking dish. Dip each pretzel stick in the soda solution, and lay on greased baking sheet (or pizza brick) leaving room between each pretzel stick.

Bake 5-7 minutes or until lightly golden brown.

Melt butter. Brush over each stick. Dip pretzel sticks into sugar and brown sugar mixture.

Enjoy!

27
Mar
2014

Milwaukee, WI

categories: Life, Marriage

Davey and I went on an adventure this weekend to visit my brother, Rex, in Milwaukee! My sister drove up from Indianapolis for the adventure as well. Living in Minneapolis without any family makes us feel a little stranded at times, so spending a whole weekend with two of my siblings was great. We explored the city, watched some basketball, went to mass, and shared a lot of laughs! Siblings are the greatest —

Enjoy our short video recap of the trip!

16
Mar
2014

Our second home

categories: Marriage

Leaving our first home in Carmel, IN was one of the toughest things about moving. We had just moved all my stuff in the apartment after getting married and were making it ours when we got the call that we were moving to Minneapolis. So, just after unpacking in Carmel, we packed everything back up and loaded the Uhual, making our trek up north on Christmas Day.

Until yesterday we still had a few boxes that had yet to be unpacked, but there is nothing like having people over that gives you a swift kick in the rear to get yourself together and unpack those last boxes….and hang those pictures on the wall…and figure our why that closet door won’t shut… So thank goodness we invited a couple friends over for lasanga last night. It gave us the motivation we needed!

We spent yesterday finalizing our move and making our house a home. Here are some pictures!

15
Mar
2014

Feeling loved

categories: Love Story, Marriage

Living so far away from family and friends makes any type of contact with them extra meaningful. We had two fun surprises this week that reminded us how grateful we are for our loved ones.

The first surprise was coming home on Thursday night to find a package from our sweet friend, Megan, with a picture frame for our ultrasound picture. So sweet of her to think of us during this time. Since this is the first addition to the nursery, it spurred in me the desire to start looking for a crib and rocking chair! Send me any pins of cribs and rocking chairs you like on Pinterest!

The second surprise was coming home on Friday night to the news that our wedding video was uploaded on Northernlight Filmworks Blog. It was so neat to watch the video on Friday night and relive our wedding day. We will show the video to Baby Hiatt one day. 🙂

09
Mar
2014

Our adventure to Minnehaha Falls

categories: Life, Marriage

This weekend was monumental for a few reasons–the greatest reason being that I finally caved and purchased maternity pants. I entered a new dimension of comfort that I have never known before and I love it. The pants make me feel better about my changing body since I no longer have to pull my pants closed with a hair-tie extending from the button to the buttonhole (see here). Once I put the pants on, I magically felt like my body is supposed to be this way, and I no longer have to compensate for it.

Another reason this weekend was monumental is that we finally had an opportunity to play with one of my birthday presents–a camcorder! Here’s a short video of our adventure to Minnehaha Falls:

Minnehaha (hahaahahaha….) Falls was so beautiful! Melting snow isn’t the most photogenic thing in the world, but I couldn’t love it more. We soaked up the 40 degree weather, which is about 50-60 degrees warmer than the past few months. Maaaaaaybe spring will come?!

02
Mar
2014

Stop and smell the coffee

categories: Faith, Life

Coffee.

It’s the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning.

And it’s the last thing I think about when I go to bed at night as I prepare the pot for the next day’s dose.

Like anything else in life that is amazingly good, one can consume too much, not enough, or just the right amount. (I guess Goldilocks had it right the whole time)

This is how I use the amount of coffee I drink as an indicator of the priorities in my life:

1. Too much coffee: Can there be such a thing as too much coffee??!! Yes, there can. When I think of someone who drank too much coffee, I think of my creepy middle school band teacher who always had a cup o’ joe in his hand and the smell of burnt coffee on his dry breath. I would practice my clarinet so much so I wouldn’t mess up in class for fear Mr. Woodworth would walk up to me in class, lean in real close, and tell me with his smelly breath that I messed up. I’m not kidding. He had quite the pot belly, too. When bored, I would imagine that if I stuck a needle in his belly, coffee would sprout out.

I do not want to become that person.

More than 2 cups is too much for me, and that’s when I stop myself and think of Mr. Woodworth. I think Mr. Woodworth drank too much coffee because he was bored with his job. But for me, too much coffee usually means I am overworking myself, and I need to get more sleep. The time in my life when I drank too much coffee was during grad school. I drank coffee for the energy to study. I would drink it morning, noon, and night. I didn’t even stop and enjoy it really; I just drank it as a drug to stay awake and alert. So if I am tempted to reach for that third cup, I remind myself to slow down.

2. Not enough coffee: Aside from the times when I used coffee as a drug to stay awake and alert, I love the experience of sipping coffee. My earliest memory of coffee is watching my mom sip it in the morning when I would get ready for school. She would wake us up, help us get our breakfast and lunches ready, then sit in her robe and sip coffee. She would hold her mug with two hands, keeping it close to her mouth. I asked her once why she held her coffee to her mouth when she wasn’t drinking it, and she said, “Because I love the smell of it.” I would board the bus, turn around and wave to mom, and she would smile over her coffee mug. At an early age, I couldn’t wait to be an adult and enjoy coffee. I recognized that sipping coffee was an experience to be savored and appreciated. Now, as an adult, I often find myself running out the door in the morning without my morning coffee because there are thingsineedtodo and peopleineedtosee. That’s when I think of my mom on our early school mornings and remind myself to slow down.

3. Just the right amount of coffee: If I am drinking just the right amount of coffee, I am able to sit, sip, and simmer. The experience of 1-2 cups of coffee provides time for a good conversation with a friend, the formation of a new idea, or the necessary closure to an ongoing thought. When I am drinking 1-2 cups a day, I am spending the right amount of time in purposely purposeless thought.

After all, it’s the subtle nuances of everyday life that should be appreciated over a cup of coffee. So when I am so busy that I need coffee as a drug to stay awake, or so busy that I don’t have time to enjoy the experience of coffee, I remind myself to stop and smell the coffee to fully appreciate life.

Category: Life