She's Walking!!

Here is Emma Mae being a genius. Just ignore the mess around her. I'm too busy blogging to clean anything up.

Here she is showing you her amazing new ability. Go ahead. Say what you will. I'm ready. I know that you will probably mention my excellent directing ability, maybe my feet, and I'm sure you won't leave out that she is walking around with a crayon in hand. Speaking of that I am now realizing she probably still has it out there...

Chicken Tetrazinni

This is one of my family's favorite recipes. I got the recipe off of the food network website. I love Giada. She makes fabulous recipes. I took her recipe and made it easier on myself. She would probably be mortified at my adjustments, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

The first thing you do is brown the chicken. You don't have to get it all the way cooked. You just have to brown it on both sides. While your chicken is browning, start a pot of boiling water for your pasta. Cook the pasta a little less than the specified time on the box, it will cook more in the oven. After the chicken is mostly cooked, take the chicken out and add fresh mushrooms. You can add one or two of those little 8 oz packages. I think she uses 1 lb in her recipe. I've done it with both. But you MUST use fresh mushrooms. You sautee those for a few minutes until they are good and tender. Then you add a chopped onion to the mushrooms. It's okay that the bottom of your pan is getting a little brown and crusty.

Let the chicken just hang out for a few minutes while the mushrooms and onions are sauteeing. When those things are almost done sauteeing, add a little minced garlic. I use about 2 or 3 cloves. Then you chop the chicken into little bite size pieces. I do this because I will eventually have to anyway with the little ones.

I deglaze the pan with about 1/2 a cup of white wine. Here's where it gets a little tricky. In her recipe she makes this fabulous cream sauce. I use Bertolli alfredo sauce. I use it because it is easier to just pour that in than go through all of the trouble of making the sauce. If you want to make the sauce, I have done it before and it is very good that way, too. I really can't tell the difference.

Add all of the pasta and sauce together in a 9x13 dish. Add some frozen peas. I use about half of a bag. After that is mixed in the dish, add some italian breadcrumbs and grated parmesan cheese to the top. Pop in a preheated 375 degree oven. Bake for about 40 mins.

This was my plate and I ate it all. I was in the clean plate club so I got my nestle drumstick for dessert.

I promise that your kids will be as happy about this dish as mine were. If they aren't sue me. People have sued over less than this, maybe I should be careful.

**I make no guarantees on your kids' happiness over this meal. I reserve the right to be wrong about how great this meal is.**

I do not recommend ever letting your kid eat this meal with just her hands. It turns very bad very quickly. But this is also another testament to how good this meal is.

That was for you, Elizabeth.

Here's What I Think

Do you believe that when your number is up, your number is up? When it's your time, it's your time?

I have thought about this a lot. It seems that these thoughts are following me around. The straw that broke the camel's back was last night on david's blog. He is very nervous about his impending surgery. Rightly so. Any type of surgery can potentially be fatal.

Here's what I am learning. I can't change what has happened in the past. I can't change that the last thing I said to Laura was sort of snippy. I can't change that I didn't go see her house when she called me on more than one occasion and I was too busy wrapped up in my own drama to go. I can't change that I didn't try to spend more time with her. I can't change that there were times when I knew something was going on in her life and I didn't take an active role in helping her. I can't change any of those things. I wish I could but I can't.

Here's what I CAN do. I can change the future. I can be better with my friends and family. I will still be making snippy comments, but I will be saying I love you after all of them. I can make the time to do things that are important to other people instead of thinking about how busy I am. I can live my life like there is no tomorrow and try not to have any further regrets. If I have learned anything from this tragedy, it is that we are not all promised tomorrow and we should be good to each other.

Let's not waste anymore of our time worrying about anything that we should have, could have or would have done. Let's do the things we can and try to forget those others.

Where Are My Little People?

It's happened again. Someone has recognized my enormous talent. Working mum has seen fit to award me this because I either make her "laugh, cry, think or sigh". Was she laughing at this? Did she cry at the absolutely pathetic writing here? Did I make her think with my powerful writing skillz here? Or did she sigh at the pure depth of my knowledge here?

However it happened I am immensely thankful. Working mum is a teacher. Knowing that she reads my blog gives me added pressure to spell things correctly, make sure I use prepositions and verbs correctly and use my quotations in appropriate ways. Sometimes I really do wonder if she is reading my blog with a red pen marking in the margins of her brain what all I have done wrong. This fear sure makes me work harder, though.

Here are the rules as stated by Working mum herself:
"Pass the award on to five blogs that make you laugh, cry, think or sigh (notice the poetry?)"

So, I pass this award on to the following hard working blogging people:

gigi
casdok
david
erin
aramie

Gigi gets this award because she has the ability to make me do all of those things. And she started me out in this whole blogging thing, so just know that she will get one every single time I do. I'm nothing if I ain't loyal.

Casdok and David are recent visitors to my blog. I'm sure they thought that I am a crazy person. But them visiting gave me the opportunity to visit theirs. Those were two of the most eye opening blogs I've seen to date. I just hope they can see that my only hope with my blog is to inject a little humor into life. Certainly not to offend in the process, though. Anyway, check them out because you could learn something. And what was my motto? "Learning is always good" Whatever, I just made that up.

Erin is a very crafty person. Who knew? I was very surprised by her talent. She's really got this blogging thing down.

And Aramie. I award you this for all of your hopes and dreams of making this a better world to live in.

Thanks again, 'little people' for making all of this possible.

You Be The Judge

The other day, Josh and I took the kids out to breakfast. Jackson and his cousin Noah ran outside without us to get into the car. I chased after them while Josh was inside getting a refill on his drink. As I was coming back in, a total stranger stops me and we have the following conversation.
Big stranger man: Is that your husband in the blue shirt?
Little me ( I only say little because he was soo much bigger than me): I'm not sure what my husband is wearing, maybe it's a blue shirt.
Big stranger man (who I have now noticed has gold front teeth): He was calling for Jackson?
Me (who is now becoming concerned): Yes, that's him.
Big stranger man (who now that I have noticed his teeth, I can't stop staring at them): He looks just like Big Show from the WWE!! (and he continues on his way, laughing hysterically)
As all of this is happening, Josh is starting to walk up to us. I tell him that the man said he looks just like Big Show. He says," I know". Now Big stranger man is in his car and he is calling out "BIG SHOW" and waving to us like he has just met a celebrity.

Now, this is not the first total stranger who has mentioned that my husband (pictured above) has a striking resemblance to "Big Show". The first time I heard it, Josh explained to me that he hears it all the time and that Big Show is a wrestler. (those of you not familiar with the underbelly of American culture known as wrestling, please do not say you learned about it here) It is your job to now let me know if this man was completely false in his assumption that my husband looks like Big Show.
(If you wanted to learn more about wrestling (why would you) click here to be transported to the website where I found this picture.) Is it legal to use parenthesis in parenthesis?

The picture of Big Show was not really big enough to tell, so click that website to see it clearly.

Memory Lane

Will you join me on a walk down memory lane? I'm sure that this will not be tons of fun for everyone but it will bring me much joy. If you are in one of these pictures, please explain what was going on. If you are not in one of the pictures but it is your family member, please tell who they are to you and what you think is going on. I may be the only one who thinks this is fun, but who cares? It's my blog, right?

Well, I hope y'all got as much of a kick out of that as I did. Unfortunately, there will be no prize for the winner. Unless you consider getting a good look at Leah 14 years ago with a butt cut a prize. I'd like to make some introductions.

Firstly, everyone meet 'carlston'. 'How do you do? Nice to meet you.' She was sweet enough not to mention the fact that I had a giant crush on the man that she is standing with. I had totally forgotten about him until I came across this picture. Wherever he is I'm sure he is full of regret for letting me get away.

The next picture is an old shot of my dad holding me. I put that shot up there as a test for him. He says he reads my blog...My mom also professes to read my blog. She is the one looking on in the blue dress and great haircut. Thanks a lot, fibbers.

Yes, Christon. That is a shot of our extremely good looking husbands at their graduation.

Then there is the group shot. Yes, that was a talent show. I have about 20 other shots of random people doing their talents. I couldn't believe little Jessica on the end. She's a mom, now. Wow, time flies.

The last two were taken at the Judd's home. I had recently been to a school dance and I wanted to finish using the roll of film on the camera. So, I just took some random Judd pictures.

There was no real point to all of this. I can't believe I got a new visitor on a day when I was being goofy. You know it's really not usually this nonsensical. As I was saying on another blog, my blog is really important social commentary.

And The Winner Is...

I thought long and hard about the best way to pick a winner. Remember that I had very bad luck with the random number drawings? I decided to just draw out of a hat. Jonathon selected the winning paper. The person's name on the little piece of paper is the winner.

I would also like to mention that my son does not have any physical problems. I asked him why his face always has to be goofy in pictures. He said 'because I like to'. If that is the image that he wants out there, who am I to stop him? Have I dragged this out enough?
The winner is...





Harmony, it looks like that slow dial up was worth all of the trouble in the end. Congratulations! Which one do you want? The Mickey or the Minnie? Sorry that you didn't get an award. If I had thought about the patience it requires to even sit near a computer that has dial up, you would have been #1. I hope this makes you feel better.

Thank you, everyone who took part in this drawing. I wish I had enough Mickeys for everyone. Next time I will just get something small for everyone. Maybe it is because I'm from the south but I sure hate not having something for everyone. Lesson learned.