In This Crazy Life...

It's football season and Walmart has all their Razorback merchandise out. I was browsing the aisle the other day and saw these. I immediately thought whiskey! A great way to sneak liquor into the stadium. Of course the back says intended for water only. Yeah right! No one looks at this and says water.

Well... It seems that another week has come and gone without me ranting or documenting our lives. School started this week and my brain is fried!!! I've probably worked 16 hours EVERYDAY this week! Getting to school at 6:30, leaving after 5:00, coming home and then working on lesson plans while I watch TV and drink until bedtime. My drink of choice this week was dirty martinis (made with Ciroc).  Anyways...What I am trying to get to is that after all that I have just not had the energy or brain power to blog. Maybe I will get better. Nothing really interesting is happening anyways since I am working all day and night.  I have a really sweet class this year and there are only 20 kids. I'm sure 5 more kiddos will trickle in later. I do know that I am ready to find my way out of the classroom and use my reading degree and certifications. Best case scenario is that my principal would add another literacy coach position for me. Our school has about 600 students, surely we're b

I just noticed I haven't blogged about anything all week! That could be because I have literally worked in my classroom til 6:00 and then worked on stuff at home til bedtime. I was worn out!! Nothing much has happened this week. I left the dogs outside all week since I knew I would be late every night. By Friday, Hatfield had had his fill for outside and refused to go out that morning. So I left Lilly in the pen by herself, she wasn't happy. I took Perla to the vet Thursday. She wasn't scared of the vet but HATED being in the cat carrier. She cried the whole way there and back! Last night my college roommate and her boyfriend were in town on their way to visit her parents, so we all went to eat at Copeland's. It was so good to catch up and reminenince. She is moving to Malaysia this week! I guess I'll start saving for airfare to visit next summer. Kev got home late last night. We slept in late this morning with the sound of a nice thunderstorm in the backg

Made it home safely today (I did hit a baby deer on my street though. It was so sad. I tried so hard to miss it). Anyways. I don't want to think about that. All the animals were so excited to see each other. Perla has craved lots of extra attention not only from me but Lilly too. Glad to be home but sad to leave Kev behind.

Lazy Sunday morning. Then hitting up the outlet mall!

This weekend we loaded and up and went to visit Kev. I spent the good part of Friday morning cooking our meals for the weekend/week. Red sauce chicken enchiladas. Personally I've always preferred cheesy enchiladas, but I came across this recipe for on the Skinnytaste Blog. They are very spicy, flavorful and surprisingly low-fat.  Poppy Seed Chicken. My best friend introduced me to this casserole (her mom makes it). This is the first time I've ever made it and used a couple of recipes I found online. It's so simple and I only hope it tastes as yummy as her mom's. Basically you mix two cups cooked chicken (again I always use rotisserie), a can of cream of mushroom soup, 16 ounces of sour cream (and again I used nonfat creek yogurt-Fage is my favorite), 3 teaspoons of poppy seeds, salt and pepper, and a small package of cooked egg noodles. For the topping melt 1/4 cup of butter and combine with about 30 crushed Ritz Crackers. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes and

I made Kev cupcakes Sunday to take with him. I can never seem to find a cupcake carrier so I used this idea I saw on Pinterest. As you can see it worked but it was a pain in the ass to make. First I didn't have a box that fit nicely into my cake carrier. And cutting out an x to make a square was not an easy task. Yes. It's functional but not pretty and takes too much time. My vote is to hunt down a REAL cupcake carrier!

I've been wanting to try these Chicken Lasagna Roll-ups I found on Pinterest. Since Kev's been working out of town, I figured it would be a great dish for this week. I could keep some and he could take the rest with him. (I also made Mexican Cornbread too.) Eating out every meal gets old. Anyways. Here is the original recipe. I changed it up some. I mixed together 15 oz. ricotta, 1 cup mozzarella cheese, egg, thawed frozen spinach (squeeze water out of it), and chicken (I always use a rotisserie chicken). Seasoned it with salt, pepper, garlic, and a little Italian seasoning. I never measure, just add a palmful until it tastes like I want it to.  Mixture I grabbed a handful of the mixture and spread it onto the noodle and rolled it up. Leave a little space at the end so the mixture doesn't gush out when you roll it up. Once all of them are made, I poured the  tomato sauce  I made yesterday over them. I added a little water to my sauce to thin it out. The

I've been making my own pasta sauce for years now. It's super easy and way better and cheaper than the stuff you buy in the jars. Here's how I do it. Sauté 5-6 gloves garlic in olive oil. I use a bag of the frozen three pepper and onion blend. (I keep these on hand all the time.) Once those soften, I add 2 cans of fire roasted tomatoes and a large can tomato sauce (add more if you want a thinner sauce). Then I add lots of Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper. Today I added red pepper flakes too. Let it simmer. It makes about 2 quarts. I usually freeze some for another day. I'm using this tomato sauce for chicken lasagna roll-ups. I've seen the recipe on Pinterest. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Had to go to Home Depot today. Which, unfortunately, is in the same parking lot as Chick-fil-A. Oh. My. God! I had to go in the out spot because the line turning into chick-fil-a was down the street. All the controversy got them major business today. Me, I could care less how Chick-fil-A feels about political matters. If I want to eat there I'm going to eat there. Protesting/boycotting isn't going to change minds. Causing a major traffic jam and waiting 30 minutes in line to support them isn't going to change minds. I feel so sorry for the employees that worked today. They've had to work extra hard. It wouldn't surprise me if they start running out of food by the end of the day. It's hard to tell (I was trying to take pictures without causing a wreck or my own traffic jam.) but the drive thru line wraps ALL the way around the building and out into the street. It goes quite a ways down the street. This is just the best shot I could get.