I love God and my family. I try to be a perfectionist but am lazy by nature. I'm a stay-at-home mom who home-schools. I love to take pictures and paint. I'm still learning a lot about myself and what I like to do. I'm discovering that I like to cook and love food. I like being creative and doing things my way. I love to experiment with new recipes in the kitchen although sometimes it stresses me out. I like cooking the same dish over and over again until I'm a freakin' expert at it. I'm getting braver as I get older. My favorite things to cook are simple dishes that call for just a few ingredients. My kids would probably tell you they like making cookies the most. One of my favorite family cooking traditions is this weird and unusual fear of refrigerated pasty tubes making that crazy pop sound when you open them. I remember opening biscuit tubes for my mother. I had a tube of cinnamon rolls explode all over one time when I opened it and now I'm pastry-tube shy. My kids think that it is funny that I would be so freaked out over a little pop sound but now they are doing the same thing. It seems like I always jump a tiny bit even though I know it's coming. I'm happy to pass that tradition along to my kids and their kids-lots of giggles to pass along generation to generation. Anything I cook and people like is a triumph to me. It is also cool when I have an idea for a new recipe and try it out and it's better than I had planned. I caught the toaster on fire in my parent's house when I was growing up...I've come a long way baby. Thank God I've gained some cooking skills and some common sense.