When I was a kid....

When I was a kid I dreamed about being a grown up...I think most kids dreamed about pirates and princesses, but I'm pretty sure that I don't remember doing that. I played in my play house and I cooked and I cleaned. One of my favorite dishes to make was "burritos" this was a combination of what I called "elephant ear" leafs( this big tree that grew on the edge of our property and had huge leaves and some sort of pea pod that hung down). Anyway, I would take the leaves and put mud in the middle and then roll the leaf around it.  I wasn't a very creative child, my mom would say I was too practical for that.  So that was all said to say that now that I am an adult, sort of, I dream about practical things still.  Meet most of my googling lately...

This is a Jeld-wen Craftsman III. Yes I am a dork. I love the craftsman style homes and interior decor. I think it says I'm sturdy, but I'm a simple pretty too! Haha...just thought I would share what I'm day dreaming about.  New interior doors for my house.

Two New Recipes

Last night I tried two new recipes, both great! Cheddar and Parsley Biscuits and Tomato and Cheese stuffed Chicken. If you notice the chicken recipe had asparagus in it, but we didn't have any, so I just left that ingredient out. Also, I added dashes of olive oil and balsamic vinegar to the baking dish. I used canned diced tomatoes, so I used the juice and extra tomatoes around the dish to keep the chicken moist. The I sprinkled some more balsamic vinegar on top...and I really liked the flavor this added. The biscuits I didn't change anything and they were perfect, man they were good.

Before

After

Soooooooo Gooooooood!

Again, soooooo goooooood!

Micaiah's shower, really!

I know it was officially Vanessa and Hart's shower, but it's all stuff for Micaiah, who we will meet in just a few short weeks! Yay!

So the spread was Publix cupcakes, yum, bruschetta with a cream cheese spread, a palmetto cheese bruschetta, fruit tray, cookies, cheese ball with crackers, nuts, and mints...so basically the usual! 

Here's our Bruschetta Recipe

several large tomatoes (diced)

1/2 onion (diced)

 splashes of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, basil, salt and pepper to taste

Cream cheese spread

cream cheese with enough sour cream to make spreadable

tsp garlic powder

tsp basil

spread on toasted bread and then add tomato mixture!

This is my friend, Susan's idea for a centerpiece, and I loved it!

Mama Nell, Mom-to-be, and Jane

The Girls

Our Boys

After the shower, we had our monthly high school hang out, yay all together!

Part of the Gang

So last week my high school friends got together, and our friend Aundrea was actually in town. She just got engaged and it's been way too long since we'd seen her.  We forgot to take a picture when everyone was still there, but we managed to grab Cam, Aundrea, Sue, Me. Hooray! Sorry Jena and Vanessa!

Accordian Style Potatoes

Ok, so we tried this recipe Accordian Potatoes and I can tell that I'm not a good judge of when things are done. So bake these longer than you think so you don't have to throw them in the microwave like I did.  But anyway here's what they looked like.

I liked that it breaks up the monotonous baked potatoe and the garlic flavor was great...if I would have baked it long enough they would have been amazing.  She calls them Hasselback potatoes, but references that they are also called Accordian style so I like that better, more animated!

Precious moments....haha

We love our baby Gage! Here's why:

She's precious when she sleeps!

She's precious in a close-up, when she's asleep.

She'll climb in any hole Andrew asks her to! Ignore the glowing eyes please.

Last Tuesday...Quesadilla Night

Last night Andrew and I made homemade quesadillas...now I won't attest to there authenticity but I will attest to their excellent flavor.

First you cut up 2/3 lb of chicken as fine as you can handle it. Add taco seasoning...personally I like to add this will the meat is raw(I think the flavor works into the meat better). Then add black beans.

Aren't they pretty? These are our tomatoes from our garden.  Nobody was sure about us growing Beefsteaks, but their flavor is excellent.  They haven't been very big, but great flavor. So we put down a tortilla, then added cheese, chicken combo, cheese and folded the tortilla. In a pan on medium heat.

They were delicious!

Book Report--I hated them in school, but don't mind them now!

I haven't been reading much lately.  I've said before that I am a very inconsistent person and it's still true.  However, I tend to find a bunch of books I like and then get burned out reading and I guess that happened in April and now I am just reading a book here and there.

I just finished reading The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton, a book many people my age and older probably read in high school, but I never did.  I was sitting at lunch discussing books with my coworkers and two of them said this was there favorite book. Then one brought it to me the next day. It's a short read and a compelling story.  It built off of the last book I read Same Kind of Different As Me, because both of these books have a "we are all people" theme.  Outsiders is dealing with teenagers that go to the same schools, but are from different social classes and parts of town.  Same As Me (for short) deals with the homeless and social elite and how they find common ground.  I'm enjoying this theme, because unfortunately my mind builds barriers between people based on what we look like, how we act, where we live, and the list goes on and on and confronting this wrong thinking is really refreshing.

Here are a few passages to get you hooked and make you read it if you never have before:
A poem that is important to the book..Robert Frost...
"Nature's first green is gold, her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower, but only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief.
So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay."
It means more if you read the book (so good)!

"Cherry no longer looked sick, only sad. 'I'll bet you think the Socs have it made. The rich kids, the West-side Socs. I'll tell you something, Ponyboy, and it may come as a surprise. We have troubles you've never even heard of. You want to know something?' She looked me straight in the eye. 'Things are rough all over.'" 
I think this is a good challenge to think about where others are coming from...not to sound too after school special, but we really don't know what anyone else's life is like.

"Most parents would be proud of a kid like that--good-lookin' and smart and everything, but they gave in to him all the time. He kept trying to make someone say 'no' and they never did. They never did. That was what he wanted. For someone to tell him 'no'. To have somebody lay down the law, set the limits, give him something solid to stand on. That's what we all want, really."
I think this is a beautiful description of America's downfall.  We all think we want what we want and no limits, but really that leads to destruction. If all we ever get is exactly what we want; then we end up self absorbed and all of our relationships suffer.  We all need limits and that was what God was doing in the Old Testament; he was saying I love you and these things, if you mess with them, they will hurt you.

Ok, this is my last passage...sorry I know I am a little carried away...
"They looked like they were all cut from the same piece of cloth: clean shaven with semi-Beatle haircuts, wearing striped or checkered shirts with light-red or tan-colored jackets or madras ski jackets. They could just as easily have been going to the movies as to a rumble.  That's why people don't ever think to blame the Socs and are always ready to jump on us.  We look hoody and they look decent. It could be just the other way around- half of the hoods I know are pretty decent guys underneath all that grease, and from what I've heard, a lot of Socs are just cold-blooded mean---but people usually go by looks.

Ok you are either intrigued or bored, but either way that's enough!

Soap Box

Andrew hates posts without pictures (so I try to limit them) but here's one.  I used to love John Mayer...love his music not necessarily him because I didn't know him, but I really related to his music.  If you know me at all, you know I speak my mind.  This is refreshing to some and offensive to others and thus I have been working on it since I realized it oh 8 years ago.  Slow, very slow progress.  So there was this song "My stupid mouth" from the first album he released that I loved. Here are a few lyrics the rest are super good too, but you'll get the gist:
My stupid mouth
Has got me in trouble
I said too much again
To a date over dinner yesterday
And I could see
She was offended
She said "well anyway..."
Just dying for a subject change

Oh, another social casualty
Score one more for me
How could I forget?
Mama said "think before speaking"
No filter in my head
Oh, what's a boy to do
I guess he better find one soon

Ok so I loved this song and pretty much loved every song on: Room for Squares, Heavier Things, and Continuum, and the instrumental on Continuum was so bluesy and dramatic I just loved it.  Well then the a song was released for "The Bucket List" movie called "Say"...basically he turns over every thing he said in "My stupid mouth".  I won't go into all the lyrics, just the line that makes me crazy "Its better to say too much then never say what you need to say again".  If you have ever said too much you regretted it...if you've ever held your tongue...you probably did not regret it.  So then I made a mistake and read an interview in a magazine that I will not name and could not finish becasue I was so disgusted...and then the first song on the new album was released "Who says" here's a few lyrics...

Who says I can’t get stoned, turn off the lights and the telephone
Me in my house alone, who says I can’t get stoned
Who says I can’t be free, from all of the things that I used to be
Rewrite my history, who says I can’t be free

that's enough...I just guess what he's rewriting himself into, I'm not a big fan of.  There, I've said it I feel better. I still love his old stuff, just have little respect for him.