I’m too old to be acting this way

 

Yes, that’s who you think it is.  And why am I blogging about Bono?

Well, tomorrow night I will share a stadium with the man and his relatively unknown band. 

I am so stinkin excited, I can barely do anything else.

I’m charging the camera, empting the memory card and  playing U2 all day and in general getting myself psyched up beyond rationality.

I do feel like a grown woman with children shouldn’t be this giddy over a concert, but I just can’t seem to help myself.

All I can say is… Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel!  

So.  Who would you go positively ape over seeing in concert?

Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict ~ Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Therefore I shall contribute my portion.                                             (I’m reading an Austenite book so I thought it appropriate.)

“Speaking of eyes, I feel more than just Edgeworth’s on me.  I look around the table and see that the heretofore poker-faced Mr. Mansfield has paused in his methodical shoveling of food to catch my eye and raise his eyebrows in what appears to be mild surprise.”  (pg. 58)

This excerpt was taken from Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict by Laurei Viera Rigler.

You may well know that  I enjoy perusing a Jane Austin novel in an effort of being diverted, and when I found this book most economically at a resale shop, I was quite thrilled.  I must say it has been entertaining thus far.

And may I ask what you are reading?   Do you care to participate in this game?

No Regret (My First College Essay)

Regret comes in many shapes and sizes. I can cite a ton of small examples which induce this slightly guilty feeling on a daily basis. Consider the following mundane examples: I regret not getting up 10 minutes earlier this morning (only because it made me late). I regret forgetting to set the DVR (missed a season premiere). I regret eating two scoops of Breyer’s Hershey Bar with Almonds ice cream. Okay, it was four scoops but I am only sorry about the extra two (no need to detail the effects of too much ice cream).

Thankfully, there are very few big things I regret. Looking back, I see situations I’d have handled differently. There’s a list of conversations I’d like to ‘do-over’, purchases I wish I hadn’t made, and friends with whom I would still like to be in contact. The flip side to these regret-filled memories is the life lessons they have kindly and sometimes forcefully bestowed. Was each scenario a life-altering event? Not by a long shot. Sometimes it’s the simple lesson that even if the generic brand of Pop-Tarts is cheaper, it’s not a smart buy if no one eats them. So I regret purchasing food which will ultimately get thrown in the trash but I no longer wonder if we could save a bunch of money by switching the brand of our morning meal.

I married the love of my life when I was only 18. Fast forward 16 years and four kids, we’re still happily married. I do not regret marrying young (not an endorsement for teen marriage). I do not regret having children when I was only a young whippersnapper myself (again not an endorsement). I have no regrets I chose to invest my time and energy in what mattered most to me—my family.

I thought I would graduate high school, get married, and start college. We discovered the expenses of living ‘on our own’ so full time employment became a necessity. I thought I’d take night classes and eventually pursue my goal of being a teacher. Instead we signed a mortgage, built a house, and had a family. So my half-heartedly laid plans went awry. I still became a full-time student, but kids and budgets and laundry and cooking were my professors and home was my classroom. Did I mention I have no regrets? Although I really can’t say I thrived off of the diapers and dishwashing, I do not regret one minute spent with my kids.

I’ve been asked about my decision to return to college at the tender age of 34. What I’m asked most often is why now? The easiest answer is my youngest child started Kindergarten this fall. My job description underwent a complete transformation and I didn’t like it. Instead of enjoying days at home with a bubbly five-year-old, I now only had the t.v. and computer to keep me company. So with these changes the old dream of being a teacher, which I thought had retired long ago, began to creep back into my thoughts. And along with those thoughts, probably the best lesson I’ve ever learned about regret came slinking in as well.

I have never regretted trying.

The Highly Sophisticated Title: Chicken Bog

 

My early childhood was spent in the Low Country of the great state of South Carolina.  (Great in spite of producing shouting congressmen and brilliant pageant contestants and such as.)

Part of this Low Country upbringing included almost weekly doses of Chicken Bog.  The more fancy name is Perloo (per-low).  Or you can just be descriptive and go with Chicken & Rice.  I’m accepting of them all.  In fact, when the kids ask what’s for dinner we usually go through all of these names, in that order before I get the “Ohhh, yeah.  That.  Yay!”

Now, traditional Chicken Bog is made with sausage, as in the Polish kind.  My mom is a WV girl & hearing the recipe just used regular breakfast sausage and her family is eternally grateful.

So here is my family recipe that is a twist on the original, but in my opinion (usually the correct one) it’s even better.

You will find very little measuring in this recipe.  Isn’t that what family recipes are?

Crumble (can you use that term for meat?) sausage into a pot of water.  Add your chicken and boil until cooked through.  The chicken will float when done.  Even if it’s a little underdone, it will be cooking with the rice for another 20 min later.  I usually add salt, pepper and some sage at this point.  I also use frozen chicken breasts and they work fine.  That’s good because I am allergic to handling raw chicken.  Not really, but it’s nasty, right?

Because of my allergy, I cut the chicken into bite sized chunks after it’s cooked.  Oh, I have also boiled a semi-frozen sausage tube & then cut it once it was cooked.  It makes no difference.

I pour the broth into a measuring bowl so that I can get the liquid/rice ratio correct.  Most of the time I have 6 c broth so I’ll use 3 c rice.

This is what it looks like when you add it all together to cook the rice.  Salt is very important to this recipe.  If you didn’t salt before do it now.  Sometimes, if I don’t have a good color to my broth, I’ll add a few tablespoons of butter to up the flavor.  Stir this together, cover and cook on med heat for about 20 minutes.

Once you have no more liquid in the pan and your rice is done, you my friend have made a South Carolina Classic.  If your rice still has a bite, just add a little water and cook a few more minutes.

This was one of my favorites growing up and I’m happy my kids like it as much as I do. 

Be sure to go check out the plethora of recipes in the Grocery Cart.

Welcome to the Low Country. 

Now if I could only get Country Cousin’s BBQ, my life could be complete. 

Can you get better than filet-o-fish? In a word, YES!

 

I love me some filet-o-fish from Mcky-D’s.  My daddy and I both share a love of the fried fish sandwich.  You just can’t fight genetics, but who’s trying?

Anywhooooo.

We were taking our lunch break from school today and I decided to pull out the fish filets.  You know, bland, boring lunch.  Gabe whined that he didn’t want that so I offered to make him a sandwich.

AHA!

My muse was smiling on me.  She whispered, “Why not make a fish sandwich?” in my ear. 

O.  MY. 

Let me just say, that I’m wondering where my brain has been vacationing all this time.  Why has this never occurred to me before now?

Easy as, well easier than pie by a long shot.

All you need are frozen fish filets, burger buns, american cheese & tartar sauce.  What self-respecting girl doesn’t have this on hand at all times?  (Ok.  Me, but that’s not the point.)

Cook fish according to directions.  Put cheese on top & pop back in oven just long enough to melt the cheese. 

Serve on bun with tartar sauce.

I had the strange urge to julienne potatoes & fry them then cover them in salt, but that was more work than I was willing to commit to.  Let’s not go crazy here.

Sorry I don’t have a pic of the final product.  They didn’t last long.

Enjoy the Things you Love this Thursday!

Things I Love Thursday - Snack Food!

Bananas, coconut, macadamia nuts...do you need any more temptation? I certainly don't! These new Quaker granola bars, True Delights, are exactly what their name implies. Delightful. We've tried the above version and the dark chocolate raspberry almond (I think that's what they were, there is no remaining evidence).

These are the type of granola bars I hide in the 'special' cabinet for only me and hubby! I would never denigrate or demean them by putting them in the low class, dare I say common, communal snack box. They deserve a place of honor in my undisclosed location. (Before you judge me remember I have two teenager boys who annihilate our food supply on a daily basis. This is purely a matter of self preservation, well, okay gratification might be a better word since I'm obviously not going to waste away to nothing.)

However these puppies are also not a 'cheap' option. I've been hoarding some $1 off coupons and waiting. A couple weeks ago Harris Teeter doubled coupons up to a $1...yay me...and so I scarfed up on a four boxes. I'm sorry to report I wolfed, I mean delicately snacked on, the last one yesterday.

If you like a taste of de islands, man, den you definitely want to go you grab a box!

For more Things I Love Thursday island hop on over to Diaper Diaries!

Wordless Wednesday

End of my summer flowers....



End of summer fun...(yes, he's using his sister as a sponge, they even 'soaped up' her belly so she'd slide better)

End of an era. The baby started school...her hair did NOT look like that when she left the house. (Makes me want to sing 'it's the end of the world as we know it...and I feel fine.')

Craving a little more Wordless Wednesday? Here you go!

Fear of Failure

The day of reckoning has dawned. My doom, err, destiny is upon me. Tonight I will officially attend my first college class. Well, I’ve taken a couple other classes but one was word processing—duh—and the others were bible classes. This is the first class I’m taking because I want to and with the intent of taking more and actually pursuing a degree.

My professor posted the syllabus on the school website. I printed it out today. Not too horrible, only 4 essays and the final exam besides the other routine homework/reading assignments. The reading, the class work, the papers, the research—none of this bothers me! Especially when reading and writing are two things I enjoy.

Do you know what strikes fear down into the southern-most, nether regions of my tummy? Speaking in front of the class you guess? Nope, I’m a talker--anywhere, anytime, anybody. It’s the fact I’m going to have to critique my classmates’ (ie. 18-20 year olds) work and possibly, more than likely, form ‘study groups’ with them. I don’t want to be the ‘old fogey’ nobody wants in their group. I don’t want to be picked last in gym class (which by the way I have to take a Phys Ed credit WHAT? and I really am scared of math and science but that’s for another post on another day). And probably the most true, real reason I am wracked with fear? I don’t want to look stupid! How vain and selfish is that reason? And yet I freely admit it and almost revel in my vanity and selfishness.

Obviously my good and gracious heavenly Father already knows this character flaw of fear which runs rampant through my soul. It just so happens my niece (who is a partner in our children’s ministry at church, a very dear friend, and a couple of years older than me) has also decided to pursue her degree. She and I will be braving College Comp I - English 111, together! I cannot tell you how thankful I was to find out we had signed up for the same class!

So once I recover from the shock of it all I’ll post and let you know how my first class went! Right now I’m off to scrounge up a notebook and some pens that work for my college class debut! And to take a few more Advil Cold and Sinus, thanks Josie for sharing your germs and making mommy sick for her first class.

Maybe my prayer should be that I don’t fall asleep in class from all the drugs I’ve been popping today…..talk about embarrassing!

My Copy of Jen's Post!

I must briefly start this post by saying I was thrilled with the chance for some face-to-face BFF time today! Jen and her family popped into the area for a couple of hours--what fun!

Now if you missed the previous post, you can catch up here. My total looks a little slim compared to Jen's but still I beat the predicted six. I will have to preface my numbers by saying that only about five of the books were my choice to read. The others were required reading in school but I still enjoyed them.

Except all of the Steinbeck books and unfortunately all of my teachers felt his very depressing books were necessary to my education. If you haven't read them, just skip them please unless you enjoy depressing books with unhappy endings, especially The Pearl and...well, really all of them. But honestly after typing this it makes me want to go to the library and check them out. I wonder if I'll still dislike them 20 years later?

So here's my list! Jen's are marked with an X, and mine have an & (and yes, I know it's an ampersand..so take that BBC!)


1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen -X &
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien-
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte -X
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling-
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee – X &
6. The Bible – X &
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte – X
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell -X &
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman –
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens -X

Jen’s Total: 7 Pam’s Total: 4

11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott – X &
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy – &
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare -
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier -
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien –
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk -
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger – X &
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger - (on the wait list w/ my family)
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot-X

Jen’s Total: 3 Pam’s Total: 3

21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell - &
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald -X &
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens -
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy -
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams -
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky-
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck - &
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll – X &
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame -X

Jen’s Total:3 Pam’s Total: 4

31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy –
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens -
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis -X
34. Emma – Jane Austen – X
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen -X
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis –X &
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini -X
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres -
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden -
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne –

Jen’s Total: 5 Pam’s Total: 1

41. Animal Farm – George Orwell – &
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown –
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez -
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving -
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins -
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery – X
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy - (think I read this in school but unsure)
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood -
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding – &
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan -

Jen’s Total: 1 Pam’s Total - 2

51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel-
52. Dune – Frank Herbert -
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons -
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen – X
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth -
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon –
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens - & (it was the best of times, it was the worst of times..sigh...)
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley - &
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night–Mark Haddon –X
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez-

Jen’s Total: 2 Pam’s Total: 2

61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck – &
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt –
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold – X
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas –
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac –
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy -
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding – X
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville -

Jen’s Total: 2 Pam’s Total: 1

71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens -X
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker -
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett – X
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson -X
75. Ulysses – James Joyce -
76. The Inferno – Dante -
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome -
78. Germinal – Emile Zola -
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray -
80. Possession – AS Byatt -

Jen’s Total: 2 Pam’s Total: Goose egg

81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens –
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell -
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker – X
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert -
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry -
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White -X &
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom -
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – X
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton -

Jen’s Total: 3 Pam’s Total: 1

91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad –
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery -
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks -
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams - &
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole -
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute -
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas -
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare – X (also unsure of this one)
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl –
X 100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo –

Jen’s Total: 2 Pam’s Total: 1

Jen’s Final Total: 30/100
Pam’s Final Total: 19/100


I'm currently not reading any fluff trying to gear up for my College Comp class which starts on Tuesday!!! I'm so nervous!!!

The BBC can take a hike! (Not really, I love their Pride And Prejudice & Clatterford! )

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

I cannot believe that this is true.  I mean, I have 7 out of the first 10.  But then, I attend weekly meetings of Bookworms Anonymous (at the Library!)  haha.

I copied this from Longbrake Living.  I couldn’t resist doing this myself.  How do you measure up?

Instructions: Look at the list and put an ‘x’ after those you have read.

1. Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen -X
2. The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien- 
3. Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte -X
4. Harry Potter series – JK Rowling- 
5. To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee – X
6. The Bible – X
7. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte – X
8. Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell -X
9. His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman –
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens -X

Total: 7

11. Little Women – Louisa M Alcott – X
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy –  
13. Catch 22 – Joseph Heller -
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare -
15. Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier -
16. The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien – 
17. Birdsong – Sebastian Faulk -
18. Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger – X
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger -
20. Middlemarch – George Eliot-X

Total: 3

21. Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell -
22. The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald -X
23. Bleak House – Charles Dickens -
24. War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy -
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams -
27. Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky-
28. Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck -
29. Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll – X
30. The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame -X

Total:3 

31. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy – 
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens -
33. Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis -X
34. Emma – Jane Austen – X
35. Persuasion – Jane Austen -X
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis -X
37. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini -X
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres -
39. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden -
40. Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne – 

Total: 5

41. Animal Farm – George Orwell –
42. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown – 
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel Garcia Marquez -
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving -
45. The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins -
46. Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery – X
47. Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy -
48. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood -
49. Lord of the Flies – William Golding – 
50. Atonement – Ian McEwan -

Total: 1

51. Life of Pi – Yann Martel-
52. Dune – Frank Herbert -
53. Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons -
54. Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen – X
55. A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth -
56. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon – 
57. A Tale Of Two Cities – Charles Dickens -
58. Brave New World – Aldous Huxley -
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night–Mark Haddon –X
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez-

Total: 2

61. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck – 
62. Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History – Donna Tartt – 
64. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold – X
65. Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas –
66. On The Road – Jack Kerouac – 
67. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy -
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding – X
69. Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick – Herman Melville -

Total: 2

71. Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens -X
72. Dracula – Bram Stoker -
73. The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett – X
74. Notes From A Small Island – Bill Bryson -X
75. Ulysses – James Joyce -
76. The Inferno – Dante -
77. Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome -
78. Germinal – Emile Zola -
79. Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray -
80. Possession – AS Byatt -

Total: 2

81. A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens – 
82. Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell -
83. The Color Purple – Alice Walker – X
84. The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert -
86. A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry -
87. Charlotte’s Web – EB White -X
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom -
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – X
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton -

Total: 3

91. Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad – 
92. The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery -
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks -
94. Watership Down – Richard Adams -
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole -
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute -
97. The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas -
98. Hamlet – William Shakespeare – X
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl – X
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo –

Total: 2

Final total:  30/100

I think that’s not too bad.  I was hoping for more.  But I’m keeping this list and checking them off as I read them.  Maybe I’ll post in the future how far I’ve gotten. 

What are you reading right now?

At the moment I am reading an Advance Reader Copy of A Supremely Bad Idea by Luke Dempsey.  It’s a very funny book about birdwatching.  I never in a million years thought I’d put those two words together.  But there they are.

Alright folks.  Get reading & get telling me about it!

Dippity-Doo!

I had honestly begun to wonder if anything could bring me out of my blogging funk.

I have made notes and snapped pics with which I still hope to formulate into amazing, thought-provoking, yet humorous blog entries. Alas, still nothing was dragging me back to the creative process.

But today as I was perusing some blogs I saw a phrase that made my heart go pitter patter and my blood pressure raise a couple notches. I’m also sure my cholesterol levels elevated just the tiniest bit in anticipation. Are you ready for this? BooMama’s Diptacular…





Is there anything more enjoyable than a huge buffet table full of appetizers? I don’t know why I even asked the question because that was just stupid. Of course there’s nothing better!
I consider myself to be quite the connoisseur of sour cream and/or cream cheese-laden dips. I am also pleased it only took me two tries to get that word close enough for spell check to give me the correct spelling.

So let’s get to the point, shall we? Here’s my recipe for my most favorite dip of all time. It has bacon, it has cheese, it has sour cream. I know the French have their version of the culinary Holy Trinity, but have mercy, them three right there are mine! (Actually homemade ranch dressing would be in my true trinity but I still consider this to be a very worthy food deity.) Bring it!

Without further ado, I present to you my Diptacular entry:


Warm Bacon Cheese Spread

The Stars of the Show:
1 round loaf (1 pound) sourdough bread
1 package (8 ounces) cream cheese, softened
1-1/2 cups (12 ounces) sour cream
2 cups (8 ounces) shredded cheddar cheese
1-1/2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
3/4 pound sliced bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2 cup chopped green onions
Assorted crackers

Stage Directions:
Hollow out the loaf of bread (if you want to skip this step, this dip is also yummy baked in a small casserole dish). Mix together the softened cream cheese and sour cream, then add everything else. Shove it into the bread, wrap that puppy in foil and bake at 300 for one hour or more!

If you get impatient (not that this ever happens to me) and just can’t wait the hour, you can pop that sucker in the microwave for a couple of minutes—minus the foil of course! Or some combination of the two which is what usually does happen to me….

So hop on over to BooMama’s Diptacular and check them out…there are hundreds! I can’t wait to dig into some of this dips.

Skool @ the Hiz-ouse

 

It’s official. 

We are going to Home School our kids this year.

To some of you this may not be news or even newsworthy.  But to us this is a HUGE deal.  Well, for me.  I’m so afraid I’m gonna screw up their education or ability to learn or maybe even un-teach them things.  Ok.  I exaggerated a little. 

Our reasons for schooling at home this year are mostly selfish.  We are not coming from some noble place where we feel pulling them out of school is the absolute best thing for them.  Although if you look at it like breastfeeding and daycare, I would agree with you.  But growing up in the home of educators (not 1, folks but both parents!!!  I got away with nothing at school) I do believe in the school system. 

However. There are several reasons for this decision.

#1.  You may know that my husband is a Pastor now.  That means he works weekends.  Every weekend.  Both sets of grandparents live at least 5 hours away.  To visit family, we would have to pull them out of school. 

#2.  We could possibly be moving.  Again.  Just in the same area, but switching houses.  There are 3 different school districts within 5 miles of our current home.  I can almost guarantee that if we move, it will not be within this district.  That would have meant our kids getting into a new school, then switching schools.  Again.  I just don’t have the heart to do that to them. 

#3.  I’m throwing away the alarm clock.  Haha!  Not literally.  But it will be super nice not to have to get up at 6:30am anymore unless we are heading out to some amazing field trip. 

#4.  Field trips.  I can’t wait for that part of this journey.

So.  There you have it.  My completely selfish reasons for learnin’ them babies  my own self. 

I’m quite qualified, don’t you think?