Blogolalia

Monday, March 31, 2008

Taking a page from The Crock Pot Lady, who is my new hero, I going to try to use the crock pot more than once a week. I’m not quite sure I’m ready for daily yet. Baby steps.

First, I’m going to try her Red Wine and Cranberries Pot Roast next time I do a roast. Looks delicious.

Second, I forgot to thaw any kind of meat for tonight’s dinner. What to do? Crock pot!

Today’s experiment:

6 frozen chicken thighs
1 bottle General Tso’s sauce

Put chicken pieces into the crock pot. Season with salt. Pour sauce over the chicken. Set pot on Low, 8 hours.

When ready to eat, I’ll cook some rice in the rice cooker and will add some frozen broccoli to the crockpot. I figure in the time it takes the rice to cook, the broccoli will have warmed. Maybe I’ll add it a bit earlier than when I start the rice, just to be sure.

I’ll let you know how it tastes later, but it smells yummy right now.

There’s a new, really bad quality, video up at WC.

And I just added new pictures, including this one:

Saturday, March 29, 2008

We get to meet the Sleepy Baby tonight! I’m very excited.

We’re heading over to have dinner with Beth and Tim - our annual get together. At least up to now our meetings have been just once a year.

Beth requested chili and I’m happy to oblige, especially with the new crock pot. I don’t think I’ve ever made the same recipe twice. It’s still the basic chili recipe I use, but I always manage to switch something up because of the ingredients I have on hand. Today’s additions include chipotle peppers and some roasted green salsa. Oh, and this time there wasn’t much liquid, so I added a bit of veggie stock. It smells good, so I’m hoping it’ll taste good, too.

I need to remember to take my camera to get pictures of The Baybee.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

My new hero, courtesy of my BIL, Denis.

We tested the new slow cooker yesterday with mixed results. The cooker worked perfectly. The meal I put into it was less than stellar - my own fault. Since it was only edible by putting the contents into a flour tortilla I will not share the details. OK, here are the details:

2 cups uncooked white rice
1 can black beans, drained
6-8 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 can Ro-tel
1 cup vegetable stock

Set cooker for 7 hours on Low.

The meat was tender, but looked nasty. The rice was super sticky - we determined later than rather than the regular rice used, I should have used Basmati rice and less stock or no stock. And I should have added one more can of beans. And seasoned the whole thing. So we sliced the chicken and wrapped it all up in tortillas - a dash of salsa, sour cream and cheese and it filled the stomach. But we both agree it won’t be repeated.

Next up in the new slow cooker - BBQ pulled pork with homemade buns (leftover from our hamburgers a few weeks ago) - tomorrow! Woo!

And don’t think I won’t be hunting for recipes at that A Year of CrockPotting blog.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Happy belated Easter. He is Risen!

The weekend was a full one and good.

Friday I worked hard and it paid off - no work had to be done yesterday.

Saturday we had a long day at Marmie and Pop’s house since the Cooties were in town. The morning was spent discussing our Disney trip. We got some things accomplished. Other things are still to be worked on, but we’re in good shape I think.

Then Uncle Bill came over and we had our Easter feast - the requisite lamb roast and accompaniments. There followed a lovely early birthday celebration for moi - I received a new crock pot, The Apologetics Study Bible, a great etagère for my jewelry display, and a gift card to Borders.

Clean up ensued and then we all trekked to church for Easter service. I think it was fantastic - they switched up things with the message pretty much at the beginning (it followed a great video and drama/recitation of Scripture). Then we worshiped in song and rejoicing as some folks were baptized. It was powerful to have a baptismal service on Easter weekend. I think this may be how we do Easter services in the future. Anyway it was really crowded for a Saturday night.

We headed straight home after a slight mishap with Jesse falling onto his forehead on the marble floor after the service. He’s fine, there’s not even a mark, but it was a bit scary for a minute since I didn’t see what happened, just the reaction of the folks around him who saw it. After such a long, loud day we all were exhausted and crashed to bed.

Yesterday Beau had his normal parking duties at church, so he headed over there just before 7:30am. A bit later, after feeding Jesse breakfast, we headed over to Marmie and Pop’s for a little more time with the Cooties before they hit the road for home. I ended up watching High School Musical with my niece and nephew. It was cute and I liked it better than I expected.

The afternoon was lazy, with a nice long nap. I woke up long enough to see Davidson beat Georgetown, which was fun. Then Beau and I watched the latest installment of John Adams on HBO before going to sleep.

Today is a less busy work day than I had expected, but it will still be a long one. So it’s time to get back to work.

Friday, March 21, 2008

It took me a second. Hilarious and very clever.

[via sleepy beth]

Jared at The Gospel-Driven Church reminds us of today.

Today is Good Friday. Good Friday. The day of Christ on the cross. Good.

But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.
-- 1 Peter 4:13

Rejoice in sufferings?

This is not possible except for those who see being like Christ, who see being in Christ as the greatest good, the highest value, the best pleasure of all pleasures.

Amen, brother. Amen.

Happy Easter Weekend, friends. I pray you know the joy of His suffering and rejoice in His grace.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

What a great show last night! Who doesn’t love The Beatles? Thank you Sony and Michael Jackson for releasing the catalog for AI use this season. About last night - I pretty much agree with Jaynee on her assessment of AI’s performances.

I was working on jewelry last night so I didn’t actively watching until about 9:30pm. No one sounded terrible, but there were definitely performances that stood out. My favorites were:

Chikezie - amazing
Jason - he has a really nice voice that grows on me each week
Carly - she may be the strongest woman this season, but there is one close behind her
David Cook - I loved his version of Hello last week. I loved his version of. He’s very talented.
Brooke - she is still my favorite of the women. I love her style.
Amanda - she is unique, isn’t she?
Michael - still love him. I think it’s as much because he’s older and seems more mature as much as I like his voice.
David Archuletta - aw, David. I’ve been there - it’s awful to stumble on the words from the git-go. But you’re safe, don’t worry.

Other thoughts:
Kristy Lee Cook does this weird thing with her eyes when she’s trying to be intense. It’s more scary.
David H won’t last long mostly because of his stripping background, I think.
Syesha and Ramiele are forgettable.

That said, I think this is the strongest top 12 in a long time.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

There’s a new video clip at WC.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Thinkling Jared posts on forgiving oneself. Please go read the whole post. The money quote:

You don’t need to forgive yourself. You need to ask forgiveness or grant it. You need to repent or rebuke. You need to claim the saving grace of Jesus, and I actually think that feeling burdened by your own sin is a great way to walk in awe of that grace.

Yes!

Friday, February 29, 2008

Speaks for itself, really.

[via thinkling jared]

Monday, February 25, 2008

Hilarious and adorable.

[Via Gary the Llama Butcher]

Sunday, February 24, 2008

*** Felicia is not her real name, but her preferred online name. It’s fancy!

So last night at church a friend from our previous small group that I had not seen since before Christmas came up to me. We hugged and exchanged the normal greetings and then she said, “I know a lot more about you and Beau than I thought I’d ever know!”

I gave her a quizzical look and then she said, “I was looking for your shop online ...”

And I finished, “… and you found my blog?”

Ah, the danger of having my Etsy username (and therefore my shop link) be the same as my blog domain. I’ve been thinking about making a change to my Etsy username, but the hassle of moving everything to a new account is daunting, as is the cost since I’d have to pay again to relist everything. It’s kind of silly that Etsy can’t just change a username, but in reading their FAQ I see that they won’t do it because of the potential for fraud. I guess I can understand that.

Then I think that maybe it would be easier to change my blog domain? But that’s silly since I’ve been blogging under this domain for years.

Catch-22.

Anyway, I’m totally OK with Felicia reading my blog. Turns out we’re a lot more similar than we previously thought - and we already knew we were pretty similar. Beau commented that she could be like an older sister to me and that is quite true. Interestingly, her husband is a law professor at GMU, so we married similar people as well.

Hey, Felicia! :waving:

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Riddle me this. Why have a blog if you don’t want people to read it?

There’s a blog that I read on a regular basis - almost daily. On occasion I would post a comment. Because I loved the blog, I stumbled upon the blog to share the love. I do believe this was a huge mistake. As a result, I have been banned from getting mere reading access to the blog. At first I was only banned from the home computer, but I could still read the blog from work. Today, I find that that I have been banned from work as well.

I don’t get it, but whatever. I’ve moved the link to my dead blogroll (which is invisible to you, so don’t go hunting) - pointless to keep it on an active roll since I’ll never be able to read it again.

*shrug*

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

You are breakfasty, like a pile of pancakes on a Sunday morning that have just the right amount of syrup, so every bite is sweet perfection and not a soppy mess. You are a glass of orange juice that’s cool, refreshing, and not overly pulpy. You are the time of day that’s just right for turning the pages of a newspaper, flipping through channels, or clicking around online to get a sense of how the world changed during the night. You don’t want to stumble sleepily through life, so you make a real effort to wake your brain up and get it thinking. You feel inspired to accomplish things (whether it’s checking something off your to-do list or changing the world), but there’s plenty of time for making things happen later in the day. First, pancakes.

[via my twin]