Monday, February 8, 2010

Menu Plan Monday--AGAIN!

Well, I'll keep it short...I did find the world's best Mac'n Cheese recipe, from Fine Cooking, and have made it twice. Not so hard and so rewarding to make something everyone ooh's over.

But today was Pancakes and Bacon! Costco has a new mix from Krusteze that is whole grain, with flax seeds. They were pretty darn good. Made a big batch and put some in the freezer.

Tuesday: I'm thinking Baked Potato Soup with Salad.

Wednesday: It is pizza night at Awana this week, so we'll be eating there! Yea.

Thursday: Salmon Patties and french fries

Friday: Chicken Parmigiana or Fettucini Alfredo from Pioneer Woman. Depends on whether I can find chicken in the freezer or not.

Gotta go watch the weather now, but at least I have a basic menu plan down for the week. What about you??

Winter blues

Well, the firefighter came and plowed out our driveway for us--first time ever to have that done. And it is appreciated. The piano teacher came zooming up the driveway in her little sedan, lamenting about customers cancelling. She said this is nothin' compared to northern Illinois. We must have gotten about 8" last week. It is pretty, I'll say that. And a ton more coming in tonight.

But I'm done with it. And now the Colts have lost. And Handyman is in Connecticut, via truck, not plane. And then there's this...in my chair, in my office, this morning...and on the floor. (Okay--I took the picture on my phone to send it to Handyman and then I cleaned it up and I don't know how to send it to my computer.) IT was a mouse, in a couple of pieces on the floor next to my chair and IN my chair, was barfed up more mouse with a big wet spot and a pile of erp. Aren't you glad I don't know how to send it from my phone. I'll be happy to send it to your phone if you like...

This never happens when he's home. Either the vermin sense his missing presence and they stridently march in, or the cats are just lazy when he's here, thinking he'll cover for them. Either way--it NEVER happens during the day. And that means, mice are running around here at night!

Where's my Lysol? Where's the sun? It's 8 degrees this morning and I have the Superbowl Blues. My favorite commercial--probably the Google ad, followed by the Underwear in the Office people. The Who (who I never liked, never listened to and was shocked that they were chosen), was undoubtedly the WORST halftime show EVER. They should have gotten Garth Brooks or Tim McGraw AND Faith Hill or Billy Joel and Elton John or someone who could sing! And what's a pinball wizard? That was the only song I had even heard of.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Do Something Good for Yourself

Just want to say I am really getting a lot out of the Darren Hardy, Success Magazine e-workshop Designing the Best 10 Years of Your Life. I heard about this through I'm an Organizing Junkie, and although I am behind the schedule, I am doing the worksheets and watching the videos and I have learned a lot about myself.

One of the first installments talked about whether you want the next 10 years of your life to be just same-old stuff or something more significant...and I'm wanting to really achieve things in a lot of areas of my life.

If you want to turn up the heat on your plans, goals or just get some heat going under your kettle, I urge you to sign up and catch up. It's never too late to make a success of yourself.

Do Hard Things!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Annual NFL Wacky Name Call-Out

I have blogged about this previously, but in honor of the Superbowl coming up, I will revisit the amazing variety of wacky NFL names...this year, we in the name-appreciation field pay homage to the NFL's missing: Plaxico Burress (currently serving time in federal prison for shooting himself in the leg with an unlicensed handgun, at a nightclub.)

Let's begin with the AFC East:

The Buffalo Bills have: Gibran Hamdan, Justise Hairston, Marshawn Lynch, Richie Incognito, Kawika Mitchell, Jairus Byrd, Drayton Florence, Leodis McKelvin and Ashton Youboty!

The Boring Old Patriots are the least represented in the Name-Bowl with: BenJarvus Green-Ellis, Tully Banta-Cain and Adalius Thomas.

The Dolphins have: Lousaka Polite (sounds like a greek restaurant entree), Ikaika Alama-Francis, Akin Ayodele, Channing Crowder, Vontae Davis, Yeremiah Bell, and Gibril Wilson.

And the Jets--who I will not disparage here, even though their coach tried to trash-talk the Colts before he was handed his season-ender...but I digress. The Jets have: Jerricho Cotchery, the infamous D'Brickashaw Ferguson (whose mother liked the movie the Thorn Birds, so much that she butchered a character's name and gave it to her son), Ropati Pitoitua, Sione Pouha, Lito Shepherd, Kenwin Cummings, James Ihedigbo, 2 Marques and 1 Marquice.

The NFC East Cowboys (how they got in the "East" is beyond me), have: Tashard Choice, Martellus Bennett, Montrae Holland, Flozell Adams, Igor Olshansky, Junior Siavii (which reminds me of Junior Seau of the Patriots, whom I didn't even mention because it seemed boring in comparison to all the others), DeMarcus Ware, Cletis Gordon, Orlando Scandrick and Shaun Suisham. Those last two have pretty ordinary first names, but combined with their last names, I felt the rhythm of the two names together warranted mention. Just my own personal choices, of course.

The New York Giants are a veritable gold mine for name aficionados like me: Rhett Bomar (wonder what movie his mom liked?), Gartrell Johnson (need a standout first name when your last name is Johnson), Madison Hedgecock, Ramses Barden (might as well go for early history ruling figure, all-powerful Pharaoh considered a god by his people), Domenik Hixon, Sincorice Moss, Hakeem Nicks, Darcy Johnson (an Austen fan, like me, I'm sure), Bear Pascoe (really?), Guy Whimper, Sha'reff Rashad, Mathias Kiwanuka and Osi Umenyiora. Wow.

The Philadelphia Eagles are no slouches with: Eldra Buckley, King Dunlap, Fenuki Tupou, Juqua Parker, Brodrick Bunkley, Moise Fokou, Omar Gaither, Chris Gocong, Joselio Hanson, Macho Harris, Asante Samuel (although I have heard this name so often during games, it seems very "normal" to me), Quintin Demps AND Quintin Mikell (what are the odds of that?) and Sav Rocca.

I'll wrap up today with the Washington Redskins: Colt Brennan, Ladell Betts, Rock Cartwright (must be Hoss' cousin), Quinton Ganther, Santana Moss (mom loved the guitarist, I bet), Brian Orakpo, Kedric Golston, London Fletcher, LaRon Landry, Graham Gano and my personal favorite, Antwaan Randle El!!

The highlight of my Christmas this year was an Antwaan Randle El bobblehead, in his IU uniform. (Only I thought it was going to be a Droid phone). I love Randle El trick plays--and I probably have three of the only girls in the US who could tell you who Antwaan Randle El is!

I'd love to go on and on with the NFL Name Bowl--we haven't even mentioned OchoCinco yet, but chickens need let out. Handyman is home from his Superbowl Tour and has a great picture of himself with the Lombardi trophy. But I don't think I can post it--he might get in trouble or something.

Happy Superbowl Week!