4th Of July is always a little bit special for me. It was my mom’s favorite holiday and we had some special traditions on this day. I have tried to keep the traditions and made it last year, and I also made it this year.
First of all, if we had a flag pole the American flag was raised at dawn. Then we start off with skipping breakfast and instead having an early lunch. This lunch shall consist of a steak, rice or potatoes of some form (mashed or baked), sauteed mushrooms, brown gravy and sour cream.

This year I really nailed it. It was sooooo good. And the good part is, I always make food for two. Even though mom is not here anymore I make a plate for her and then I have dinner for tomorrow!

Then, around 3pm we have “Fika” which is a Swedish daily thing actually. It’s something to eat with a sweet to. for us it was mostly a cake of some kind. Very appropriately I found a cake mix in the pantry earlier this week so I made myself a chocolate chip brownie cake. And I really nailed it. It was the most perfect cake I’ve ever made! So proud of myself!

It’s holiday, screw being healthy today! No I didn’t eat it all… I still have a lot left so if you want to taste come by my house!

Then it was time to get ready for my performance. I was invited to sing the national anthem at the flag retirement ceremony hosted by Kings Fort Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) at the Terrell Celebration. I was there quite early to meet folks and warm up. I have not performed for almost two years. When I started to warm up and was going to sing through the song the lyrics just left my brain. How many times have I sung the National Anthem? I had to freaking Google the lyrics to get them back in my head. I totally panicked! But thankfully I remembered it during the performance. But due to this the nerves took over for a second and my voice broke on a note. It wasn’t bad and I recovered quickly but I’m a perfectionist and this was not perfect. It was okay, not perfect. Shit happens.

But it was so much fun to be out and about again. See people. Perform. Just have a normal day. Thanks to all that took a picture with me! I left very early, already at 7pm since I had to go to bed. Yeah, I had to wake up at 1:40 am to get to work. I was in bed around 8:30 but it didn’t matter, I was wide awake and that the neighbors started to fire off fireworks (expected) didn’t help. The dogs were not bothered at all, they slept through it. The only day I’m grateful that I have a deaf and a super cool dog.

It’s been so awesome to have three days off. I really needed it. Just take care of myself and recover! The next three weeks will be insane. My schedule is weird so I have to look every day, not to see if I work but where I need to be at what time. So if you don’t hear from me for a while, don’t worry…