Or lack there of. I have been busy everyone. So much so that I have reverted back to bad habits. My sessions in the gym are non-existent and I have been enjoying foods that may not be ideal for me.
So I need to refocus and get my head back in the game. My goal is 2x a week for the gym and making better food choices each day.
I know I can do this and I know that I want to do this. I have some great support behind me, encouraging me. It’s gonna be a mental game.
My water intake in down so I need to also get more H2O in my body. Then maybe I won’t feel so tired all the time.
I got this and I know you are all behind me too. Thank you!
This recipe was a game changer for me. I usually make a homemade version of mac and cheese that I got from Ina Garten. But this one, is my new go to recipe. If you feel the need to change it up, or add something to it feel free to do so, but I honestly was not disappointed with this recipe. This one is easily adapted to feed a crowd, and you can reheat it the next day, I think it tasted even better on day 2.
Mac and Cheese
Ingredients:
32 Ounces of Velveeta Cheese – Do not cut it up or slice it, leave it whole
2 pounds of uncooked elbow macaroni – you can use any pasta really
4 cups of heavy whipping cream
1 1/2 cups of water
2-3 cups of shredded cheese – your preference I used Colby and Italian blend
In a baking dish put the block of Velveeta cheese in the middle. Pour the entire uncooked pasta around the Velveeta cheese. Pour in the heavy cream onto the uncooked pasta, followed by the water. Top the noodles with the shredded cheese.
Put entire dish into the oven and bake for 30 minutes (depending on your oven and the doneness of your pasta, you may need to go longer.) After thirty minutes mix the pasta with the cheeses, the pasta should be tender, but if you need to go longer put in for another 10 minutes.
After you mix the pasta and cheese together, combine the bread crumbs, melted butter and seasoning and sprinkle on top of the dish. Broil for a few minutes until golden brown.
When I hear anything described as ‘swinging’ Austin Powers comes to mind. However, this unique bridge in River Falls, WI actually swings.
River Falls is about 12 miles from the Minnesota border and has a population of 15,638 people. One area of the city is the beautiful Glen Park.
Glen Park has been a favorite spot for families and individuals to fish, swim, and picnic since the 1800’s. Part of that charm is the Swinging Bridge.
This 130 foot long bridge crosses over the South Fork tributary of the Kinnickinnic River. It sits on the site of the old mill that washed away decades ago.
Below the bridge is a popular spot for fishing, cooling off or exploring. I searched to find how tall this bridge is but am unable to find that information. If you know please let me know!!
Known simply as the Swinging Bridge, it is a solid structure but the walkway is designed to move and sway. It’s something you only notice on the bridge.
The park is open all year with summer being most popular. You won’t be disappointed in the park as it has many trails, water areas, picnic spots and a pool.
The park is located at 632 Glen Park Rd, River Falls, WI 54022.
If looking for an outdoorsy adventure for the whole family, check out Glen Park!
In the 1990’s it was sensational news to learn that a schoolteacher had an inappropriate relationship with a student. It was even more outrageous when we learned the student was a 12 year old boy, and that his teacher would even go on to have his child, twice. Let’s try to understand the case of Mary Kay Letourneau.
Mary Katherine Schmitz was the middle child in a family of seven kids. She was born January 30, 1962 and her parents were devout Catholics.
Her family called her Mary Kay and her father was politically motivated and was elected to office several times. Eventually his political career would be shattered beyond repair after it was learned that he had fathered two children out of wedlock.
Mary Kay attended college at Arizona State University and this is where she met and eventually married Steven Letourneau. They would also have their first child, Steven Jr, while in college. Mary Kay would later say that she was not in love with Steven but was told by her parents to marry him. They would marry in 1984.
The young family would move to Alaska and then to Seattle for Steven’s job with Alaska Airlines. Their second child, Mary Claire would be born in Seattle.
In 1989 Mary Kay graduated and began teaching at a local elementary school. She first taught 2nd grade and this would be the first time she taught Vili Fualaau.
Steve and Mary Kay’s marriage was not ideal but they did welcome two more children into their family, son Nicholas and later daughter Jacqueline. The marriage was suffering due to money problems and Mary Kay’s claim that she had been emotionally and physically abused by her husband.
Vili Fualaau was born June 26, 1983. He was Mary Kay’s student in 2nd grade and then again in 6th grade. In 1996 their relationship went from platonic to sexual.
June 1996, police say a vehicle parked in a marina parking lot and investigated. When he approached the vehicle, Mary Kay jumped into the front seat and Vili pretended to sleep in the back. When questioned they both gave false names and Vili stated his age was 18.
The officer did not believe this and took them to the station. Vili’s mother was contacted and asked what she would like to do and she told police to return her son to his teacher, Mary Kay. Later she would claim that the police never informed her about the false names or what they had been doing.
It was almost a year later, March 1997 when Mary Kay was arrested. A relative of Steve’s contacted police. Mary would plead guilty and while awaiting sentencing gave birth to her daughter Audrey.
Eventually Mary Kay agreed to a plea deal. Instead of serving 7 years in prison, she would serve 6 months, three month suspended. She would also have to take sex offender treatment for three years and have no contact with Vili or any of her children. For life.
In 1998, two weeks after finishing her sentence Mary Kay and Vili were found in a car together, and it was assumed that sexual intercourse had occurred. Inside the car was over $6000, baby clothes and men’s clothes, as well as Mary Kay’s passport.
Mary’s plea agreement was revoked and she was sent to prison for the remaining sentence. In October 1998, Mary gave birth to her second child with Vili, a daughter named Georgia.
This time Mary was allowed visits from her children but was unable to attend her father’s funeral. In prison she wasn’t well liked and was in solitary for over a year.
Vili would drop out of high school, suffered depression, alcoholism, and attempted suicide. His mother would gain custody of his children, her grandchildren.
When Mary was released from prison in 2004, she registered as a level 2 sex offender and shortly after Vili convinced the court to reverse the no contact order. He was now 21 and planned to marry Mary Kay.
The couple married in 2005.
By 2019 their relationship was over and they were legally separated. Vili never claimed to be a victim and was not ashamed of their relationship. He did see that it was not a healthy relationship and chose to divorce.
Mary Kay Letourneau Fualaau would eventually succumb to colorectal cancer in July of 2020. She was 58 and Vili and their daughters were with her when she died. Most of her estate went to Vili.
Also known as the Jennings Eight. This is a case that begins in 2005 and remains unsolved. In total there are eight victims who were all found in the swamps and canals surrounding Jennings, Louisiana; in Jefferson Davis Parish. There have been numerous instances of ineptitude within the Sheriff’s office and people have named several law enforcement officers as suspects.
Jennings, Lousiana
In May 2005, a man fishing in the canal around Jennings, LA, he originally thought it was a mannequin that someone had left in the canal, but then he saw the flies and knew that mannequins do not attract flies. This was a human body.
The woman was identified as 28 year old Loretta Lynn Chaisson Lewis. She was a known local sex worker but there were no leads to find who may have killed her. Loretta was the first of eight women in the next four years who would be killed in a similar fashion.
All of the women had bizarre and unlikely similarities in things such as their upbringing, their involvement in sex work, drug addiction and the people they knew. All of them knew shady characters, and they talked, sometimes with law enforcement, about the things they knew on prior murders, and it apparently was a lot of information they knew.
The victims also included: Ernestine Marie Daniels Patterson, 30; Kristen Gary Lopez, 21; Whitnei Dubois, 26; Laconia “Muggy” Brown, 23; Crystal Shay Benoit Zeno, 24; Brittney Gary, 17; and Necole Guillory, 26.
It wasn’t until December of 2008, when a task force was formed to catch the person responsible for the murders. Authorities announced they were looking for a serial killer.
Journalist Ethan Brown makes a compelling case against the notion that the killings are from a serial killer. The more he looked the more he found of misconduct and corruption in the local law enforcement. The same law enforcement on the task force.
Frankie Richard
Mr. Brown stated that it was pretty clear that these killings did not following the FBI’s definition of a serial killer as the victims all knew each other, and this wasn’t something that was found with serial killers. They targeted victims that didn’t know each other or them. Kristen Gary Lopez and Brittney Gary were cousins. Brittney Gary and Crystal Benoit had been roommates. They had all engaged in sex work at the same seedy motel in Jennings. All but one of them, Ernestine Patterson, had been involved with an infamous local pimp and strip club owner named Frankie Richard.
Another aspect that is disturbing because of it’s frequency is that these women would all offer information to the police about a prior murder, and they were then dead shortly after. Many of the residents pointed to law enforcement as being responsible for at least some of the murders. Each of the victims spent time in the local jail and reports note that jailers often trafficked female inmates — including some of the victims — for sex.
And so the Jeff Davis Eight murders remain unsolved. It shouldn’t matter that these eight young women were sex workers or struggled with drug addiction. Their lives still mattered. But law enforcement in the town where they were murdered seem to have discarded them like trash. Here’s hoping the person who killed these women will one day be brought to justice.
It’s been a few weeks since we went ghost hunting, virtually at least. Today I am taking you to Pilgrim State Hospital. Another abandoned psychiatric hospital, this one located in New York.
Pilgrim State Hospital was originally built in 1931 to alleviate the overcrowding at other hospitals and the original location had dozens of buildings and had almost a campus of 2000 acres. They would have been able to house 12,500 patients. It is still the largest in the world, but no longer is an actively used facility. In fact, it is now in disrepair, decay, and deserted. Many of the buildings have been demolished as of 2003.
Pilgrim State Hospital was built as the answer for the overcrowding at the other six psychiatric hospitals in the New York City area. Originally it was built to hold 12,500 patients, but at its peak population it had over 16,000. That’s bigger than many cities, and these patients all lived in one campus. There were four large treatment groups and each group had six separate buildings.
The campus had a building for chronic patients, a theater, staff homes, bakery, laundry, fire house, power plant and a farm. There was also a ten-acre cemetery that lies behind the water tower. The unclaimed bodies were buried with a simple headstone with the patient number. At times the hospital averaged one death per day.
The treatments included many things that were considered cutting edge at the time, but hopefully are not seen any longer due to their barbarity. Before the 1950’s when the drug, Thorazine was developed the following treatments were used:
Insulin shock therapy: The patient is injected with large doses of insulin, which causes convulsion and coma. Introduced at Pilgrim in 1936.
Metrazol shock therapy: Injections of Metrazol (or commercially known as cardiazol) quickly induces powerful seizures.
Electric shock therapy: Currents of electricity are passed through the brain to induce grand mal seizures, commonly used to treat schizophrenia and mood disorders. Pilgrim State started using this technique in 1940 and has recently been under investigation for forcing this treatment onto patients.
Pre-frontal lobotomies: This treatment started in 1946 and by 1959 up to 2000 lobotomies were performed here. Most were done in the central medical building #23.
You are welcome to visit the grounds, always make sure that you can investigate and proceed with caution.
As you can see from the image above, this was taken from two individuals who were exploring the property. Is that a smudge, a person’s head, or just a shadow?
And another image, poor quality, of a human shape in the center. It may have been another person, but the image is again poor quality so it’s hard to say. Only one way you will know for sure if it’s haunted, go check it out for yourself.
In any relationship there is a level of trust. But as I sit here I wonder what trust means to other people and also what trust means to mean.
To start with I ask myself who do I trust? My family, a few close friends, people that I may hire to do a job for me. But each of these people I have given a different level of trust to.
Some people like family (with few exceptions) I would trust and do trust completely. They are my inner ring reserved for those who are my closest people. The ones who hold my secrets.
Then a few select friends who have earned my trust, this level isn’t as full as the inner ring but these people have earned this level, and I would do anything for them, I may not share the family secrets but they may know where some of the bodies are buried, some of them may even have helped. (Cinnamon Hacksaw this means you)
And then another level of trust being those friends who I know and trust enough at certain things but they wouldn’t be my first call to watch my kids or care for my dog. They have proven themselves but I may still be cautious.
The last level of my trust would be those individuals that I have hired to do a specific job for me. I wouldn’t trust them to be at my home without me, nor would I trust them to do anything outside of that job but I trust their expertise in that area. This is a short lived trust. And if they fail to fulfill their job I wont trust them again.
And then everyone else who may be hoping to be even on that outermost level. But my trust is not easily given, and it may be easier to get a papal blessing than for me to trust you.
So this leads me back to my original thought, what does trust mean? Is trust something that allows a person to speak for you? Or is trust a feeling of honesty? Is trust going to be something that will hurt you later?
Are there words that a person says or doesn’t say that will increase or decrease your level of trust? How do you allow trust to be built? All these questions roll through my head and I try to think of those I trust, those I may not trust as much as those I do not trust at all.
Each person that I think of I could answer these questions differently. And each person I could answer these questions almost the same.
My gut instinct is to not trust people but as I build boundaries and not allow people to continue to dictate my life I am finding more ways to build trust and if they do not like the way I do things, then that’s really all I need to know and they will not ever get past the outer level.
I can’t tell you to trust me but know that I won’t rush you into accepting me, I would love to be friends and be able to build that level with you.
I am in love with avocado’s. I could add them to most things and eat them at every meal. However the one thing that I absolutely love it avocado toast. This is currently how I enjoy it, but since it is such a basic recipe it can be tailored to your tastes.
Avocado Toast
Ingredients:
Bread – whatever type you enjoy, toasted to your preferred doneness
1 ripe avocado
salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Toast your bread to your desired doneness.
Cut the avocado in half and remove the pit.
Mash up as much of the avocado as you like and put onto the bread slices. Personally I use half an avocado per slice. Season as you like it.
April 29, 2009, a garbage bag was found in the woods near the town of Theresa in Wisconsin. Inside this garbage bag was the body of a newborn baby girl. She was deceased. The autopsy found that “Baby Theresa” was a full-term infant, weighing 8 pounds and 20.5 inches in length. There was no trauma that could have resulted in her death, and no drugs were found in her system. The manner of death was changed from homicide to fetal demise, Baby Theresa was a stillborn child.
Now police were charged with the task of finding her mother or any family. She had been found on a lone road near State Highway 175 and US 41. Residents close to where she was found were not related to her.
Members of the community came forward to support Baby Theresa after she was found. The Lowell Cemetery Association provided a cemetery plot so Baby Theresa could be laid to rest. Cornerstone Funeral Home and community members donated money and items to make the burial possible. She was laid to rest May 11, 2009.
The State Crime Lab in Madison analyzed the evidence and identified the mother’s DNA. This was run through the national database for felons and sex offenders to look for a match. Unfortunately, there was no results.
The case would go cold.
In 2014, authorities filed a charge against the then-unknown mother’s DNA profile to prevent a six-year statute of limitations for the charges to runout. A Jane Doe warrant for the crime of hiding a corpse had been issued. This would allow authorities to prosecute if/when the mother was found.
In March 2022, authorities cracked the 13-year-old believed to be from her mother helped authorities to find the baby’s mother and charge her with concealing the death of a child.
Karin Luttinen, 45, of Milwaukee, is being accused of abandoning her baby’s body inside a trash bag on the side of a road near the town of Theresa. Police were successfully able to identify Karin Luttinen, and her partner, as the baby’s parents in 2021.
Investigators had spoken with Karin in March of 2021, and she was in denial when she had given birth. She then put the child into a garbage bag and drove “aimlessly” until she found a wooded area where she left the baby.
Luttinen made an initial court appearance March 2022 and posted a $2,500 cash bond. As the case goes through the courts more details may emerge, but as of now there aren’t any further answers to the questions surrounding the case.
There are people in this world that if you learned they were a serial killer you would think, that isn’t surprising, they look like one. And then there are others that when you learn they did despicable crimes you are shocked thinking they seemed so wholesome, how could they have done something like that. And that is why they can get away with it for as long as they do. And that brings us to Herb Baumeister.
Herbert was the eldest child and had a relatively normal childhood but during adolescence he began to exhibit some troubling behaviors; anti-social behavior and playing with dead animals, it was also stated that he had urinated on a teacher’s desk. During his teen years he was diagnosed with schizophrenia but did not receive further treatment for it.
Herb attended both Indiana University and Butler University but never graduated from either school. He had a strong work ethic but drifted through a series of jobs. It is noted that his behavior became increasingly bizarre.
In 1971 Herb married Juliana “Julie” Saiter. They would have three children. Julie admitted later that they had been married over 25 years and had only been sexually intimate six times. In 1988, Herb had found the Sav-A-Lot store chain (a total of 2) in the Indianapolis area.
By the early 1990s, investigators with the Marion County Sheriff’s Department and the Indianapolis Police Department began investigating the disappearances of gay men of similar age, height, and weight in the Indianapolis area.
Herb lured his victims by visiting bars and inviting gay men to spend the night with him. He then traveled back to his home where he would kill his victim. Although he was married and had children, his crimes happened at a time in his life when his marriage was supposedly in shambles. There were times when his wife Julie and their three children would leave the property for days, leaving Herb to do as he pleased. He had never admitted he was gay, but Julie suspected due to their non-existent sex life.
Roger Goodlet vanished and besides his family nobody seemed to care. In the early 1990’s a gay man didn’t get much attention from police. Tony Harris was a friend to Roger and was helping the family locate him. He put up missing posters in the gay bars and at one bar he noticed a man staring at the poster and licking his lips.
Gathering his courage, Tony approached the man, intuitively knowing that this man knew something. The man introduced himself as Brian Smart.
Even though he suspected Brian knew something Tony agreed to leave with him, and they eventually arrived at an estate that Brian said belonged to his boss, Fox Hollow Farm.
Fox Hollow Farm Pool
Engaging in sexual activity in the indoor pool, Brian said he especially enjoyed autoerotic asphyxiation and liked to take men to the brink of death, watching their eyes bulge, and their lips crack. Tony was now sure that Brian Smart was killing gay men in the Indianapolis area.
Tony told Brian that he knew he was behind the missing men and that he was going to go to the police. Brian laughed and said nobody would believe him. He had gotten away with it before, why would this instance be any different. Brian said that there was very little effort by the police, mainly because there were no leads. Brian was cocky, but he made a mistake. He didn’t kill Tony.
Tony did contact the police and they attempted to locate the property, or any homes owned by Brian Smart. Tony did see Brian again leaving a bar and Tony followed him and got his license plate number. The police were able to identify the man as Herbert Baumeister.
Police visited Herb at one of his stores and this shook him, heightening their suspicions. When they asked if they could search his property, he refused. The police then went to his wife and told her they were investigating her husband in a homosexual homicide.
Julie was angry and defended her husband, she stated if they wanted to search the property she would give them a tour, just as soon as they presented a search warrant. Police only had circumstantial evidence, and not enough for a warrant.
It wasn’t long after this that Julie and Herb’s life began to crumble. The thrift stores were failing, and Herb was becoming more and more unpredictable, Julie filed for divorce. She wanted answers over the allegations with her husband.
There was a crucial piece of information that Julie had kept from the police but had told her attorney. A few years before this all started, her son had found a skull in their backyard and carried it inside to show his mom. She went outside and found even more bones.
Her attorney contacted police with the information, and they went out to Fox Hollow Farm and were finally able to do a search of the property. There were bones scattered all over the place. The large bones were further back in the woods while the smaller bones were directly behind the house and had been burned.
The search was conducted while Herb was on vacation. It turned up the remains of eleven men, eight of whom were identified.
The eight identified victims were:
John Lee Bayer, age 20
Richard Douglas Hamilton, age 20
Steven S. Hale, age 26
Allen Wayne Broussard, age 28
Jeffrey A Jones, age 31
Manuel Resendez, age 31
Roger Allen Goodlet, age 33
Michael Frederick Kiern, age 46
The deaths occurred during the spring and summer months only, Herb’s season to kill, mainly because his wife and children would be away from the house at their lake house, and he was all alone. If it wasn’t for Tony Harris taking the chance of leaving the bar with Baumeister, then who knows how long the killing would have continued.
With a warrant out for his arrest, Baumeister fled to Ontario, where he committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. In his suicide note, he described his failing marriage and business as his reason for killing himself. He did not confess to the murders of the men found in his backyard.
Police estimate that Herb Baumeister could have killed up to 27, he told Tony Harris it was closer to 50. Herb Baumeister was also believed to be the I-70 strangler referring to the stretch of highway where the bodies of another 9 men were found during the mid-’80s.
Amateur Connoisseur 