A Blogging Fool! Somebody Stop Me!

As some of you may remember, I don't like to be bored on the weekends. And rain is BORING! Last time a thundercloud rolled through these parts, I ended up making 7 quarts of homemade chicken stock. Well, it happened again. I woke up on Sunday morning to some seriously overcast skies. No gardening for me! What to do, what to do....

I could work on the blanket I've been crocheting for two years...naw, Tiki is laying on it...

I could watch TV...naw, there's nothing good on...

Maybe refinish the shelf I bought off the Swap Shop (NASA Ebay) for the guest room? Naw, don't want to spend the day in the garage...

Well, we're all out of sandwich bread, I'll make our every-two-week batch...

Hmmm...while I've got the mixer primed up, I could try my hand at French Bread (pics coming of this! SOOOOOO FUNNY!)...

You know, I bet my fellow CoFR Gophers (work-mates) would like some White Chocolate Bailey Bars for St Patty's Day...

Hubby just told me that the South is rubbing off on him and he likes pecan pie...what the heck! I'm already baking!...

You know...we need to eat tonight and I have some chicken in the fridge...I'll make Granny's FANTASTIC Chicken Spaghetti...

YEP! I spent almost 8 hours in the kitchen on Sunday. Have I completely lost my mind??? Maybe, but it certainly was a satisfying day. I made my first ever French Bread (two loaves)...
HAHAHAHA!!! Is that the funniest looking loaf of bread you've ever seen?? Instead of rising UP, it went OUT. Kinda reminds me of a cooked Pillsbury Dough Boy! :-D It tastes just like French Bread, but the consistency and shape reminds me a lot of the bread you make paninis with...which might be what we do with it. :-)

...I also made two loaves of the sandwich bread that we've gotten quite used to eating...

...I made my first ever pecan pie AND my first ever homemade pie dough (RIGHTEOUS pain in the hooey rolling out pie dough. Now I understand why everybody buys premade)...

Came out quite tasty though! Even the crust. :-)This pic was taken with my phone, so it's not the best quality. mmmmm...pie....

...and I made my Granny's Fantastic Chicken Spaghetti, recipe below...you're welcome!

My Granny has always been one of those instinctively good cooks. A pinch of this and a dab of that makes perfect sense to her and I don't think she's ever cooked anything in her life that didn't taste phenomenal. This recipe was given to my Granny by her good friend Sue Finley (and all good recipes are handed out...they very seldom come from books) and my Granny tweaked it to make it her own. When I was a kid begging her to teach me to cook, she always told me that a recipe is just a starting point. You have to make it your own. I am a 33 year old adult now who loves to cook, somewhat because in the back of my mind, I can hear my Granny singing church songs in the kitchen at the only house that was permenant in my life and thus "home" and it makes me feel close to her. I hope you make it and enjoy it. :-)

Marcella Bailey Moore's Chicken Spaghetti:

1 fryer (2 1/2 to 3 pounds)
1 small can Rotel tomatoes
1 clove minced garlic
3 small onions, minced
1/2 to 1 bunch celery, diced
1 green pepper, diced
1 bay leaf (Hey Lil Boss! I used one of your Bay leaves! Thanks!)
10 oz pkg spaghetti noodles
1 small can sliced mushrooms, drained (I have to leave this out cuz Hubby hates "fungus")
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 lb Velveeta, sliced

Stew fryer with just enough water to cover. Remove chicken from pot, saving broth. Remove meat from chicken, discarding skin, etc. Tear meat into bite size pieces. Simmer Rotel, garlic, vegetables and bay leaf for 30 minutes. Remove bay leaf. Cook spaghetti in broth. Mix veggie mixture and cream of mushroom soup together, add mushrooms, Velveeta and spaghetti. Pour it all in a 13 x 9 inch casserole (or two 9 x 9s) and bake until it bubbles - about one hour. (Granddaughter cook likes to add about 10 dashes of Franks hot sauce and about 1 teaspoon of black pepper as well)

Shredding chicken is therapeutic. :-)

"Can we has some chicky please?"

Just wanted to show you that it's SUPPOSED to look revolting before you bake it!
Mmmm...chicken spaghetti and crazy, deformed French bread!
I made two 9x9s and froze one, put it in a food saver bag and stuck it in the freezer. Never hurts to have a casserole on deck in case you need it!

Enjoy the recipe and send me any old family favorites you might have! TreehuggingDoglover@gmail.com

House Hunting and Other Pipe Dreams

For someone who has never lived outside of Southeast Houston in her ENTIRE life, I have lived a nomadic existence. As the child of a single mother, we moved whenever HUD told us to, or when a nice, cheap apartment came available. Before I left the nest, I'd lived in at least nine different apartments that I can remember. From 21 till I moved in with Hubby (at 27) , I had 8 apartments. Hubby and I bought our house four months after we moved in together, which has us in this house almost six years now. We chose a small house when we were looking - it has a GREAT layout and a very open feel. The idea was that this would be our "first" house and that we would work on it and learn from the experience and move on in about five years. Did I mention it'll be six years in May? :-) I just don't have the ability to lay down roots! Even though I literally have roots growing in the backyard, I have found myself seriously bitten by the new-house bug the last few weeks. My very, very good friend, Lil Boss, was talking a few weeks ago about moving and it got me in the mood to just, you know, LOOK. :-D I had done a little online shopping and found a builder in the area that I thought looked promising and managed to talk Kris (Lil Boss) into going with me to inspect model homes. Her mom Jan, known in our group as "The Cool Mom Who Goes on Girls' Nights With Us" came along as well. I think Kris and I both fell in love with different houses (and not the ones either of us went to see - HA). Now I just have to talk Hubby into moving and Kris into moving in down the road. Midnight Margaritas and general bedlam commencing shortly thereafter. :-D
Some pics of the inventory house I fell in love with (Meritage Homes - Fredericksburg {hysterically ironic that it's named Fredericksburg as Hubby and I have talked about moving to Fredericksburg, Texas}): Okay, seriously, how much punctuation can I fit into one sentence???

Dining Room

Kitchen View 1

Kitchen View 2

Living Room 1 (sorry so dark)

Living Room 2

Master Bath with his and hers walk-in closets, separate vanities and garden tub

Upstairs game room with wet bar - in mine and Hubby's house, this would be an in-home bar area. We'll have a party, you can come. ;-)

Game room view 2

Patio off the game room

Media Room off the game room (HEY! If you're dreaming, do it BIG!)

Side-mounted 3 car garage

The "Parking Lot" as I cannot stop calling it.

*sigh*

And...Kris's Dream Home...

Sorry for the two-post post, but Blogspot was not happy about the size of all the pics. ;-)
Kris's dream home is an actual model home. They have done some FANTASTIC things with the inside of this house!
Formal Living - love the wall treatment!
Study view 1
Study view 2
Click on the pic. I'm so sad this came out so dark. "The Cool Mom Who Goes on Girls' Nite With Us" liked the arrangement over the door, so we took a pic. Damn the lighting!
Formal dining (can't really see it in the pic, but there's a lovely built-in buffet behind the table)
Fantastic kitchen
The game room, upstairs...
How fantastically awesome is the Rubic's Cube table?!?!?!
Wet bar with wine chiller
Media Room 1
Love, love, LOVE the red velvet curtains in the media room - how authentic!
Very cool "Hang Ten" room
"Kim Possible" Room (Does that say "BEER"?????)
Cool bedspread and wall art with Egyptian hieroglyphs (SP??)
Continuing the Egyptian theme in the attached bath.
Really cool wall art - totally Design on a Dime!
The Piece de Resistance! The gorgeous wall treatment around the two story family room!
Great ideas for decorating!

I had a fantastic time checking out houses with Lil Boss and "The Cool Mom Who Goes on Girls' Nites With Us" - thanks you guys! Let's do it again sometime! I saw a few houses on Plantation/Coventry that are bound to be AWESOME in person!! ;-)

The Things That Excite Married Women

So last Thursay, the 5th, my office building was having some construction repairs done and we were warned that parking was going to be a nightmare. Anyone with a company laptop should just work from home. Now, I LOVE me some work from home days. Contrary to human nature, I do not slack off considerably when I work from home. I totally enjoy the lack of cube farm noise and the fact that I don't have to get out of my PJs, do my hair and makeup, etc but I get a lot of work done usually. However, I will also do any chores that aren't too time consuming. I'll start a load of laundry or the dishwasher or whatever. So last Thursday, as I'm running around in my pajamas and I've got my iPod blaring out of my computer speakers, I decided to start the dishwasher. And five minutes later noticed something smelled "hot." Not like smoke, but definitely like something was overheating. Yep, you guessed it...the motor on our dishwasher had given out. With a full load in it. I immediately turned the machine off and kept checking the area for a while to make sure it wasn't starting a fire. That night and Friday, Hubby and I unloaded all the dishes and washed them by hand. This was the scene in front of our house for Monday's trash colleciton...

This was the scene IN our house after Monday's trash collection...

Now, I don't mind cooking dinner every night for my family and cleaning up afterward, but I was not going to be washing dishes by hand every night, so I told Hubby that he would be taking me out to eat until a replacement was installed. After doing a little comparison shopping at different stores in the area over the weekend, we went to Lowe's Monday after work and managed to fit a new Whirlpool dishwasher in the back of the Sleigh. Hubby, ever the engineer, took over the installation.

Ooooooh....pretty!!!! :-D And NEW! No more handwashing the dishes before they go in the machine!! :-D

All the Brats took turns sniffing and playing in the box. Tiki took quite a liking to it and after a while, pulled rank on the dogs, claiming it as Chupacabre territory.
As if a new dishwasher weren't ridiculously exciting enough, when Hubby was removing the old dishwasher, the connection between the D/W and the garbage disposal snapped in two. Apparently both the D/W and the disposal were original to the house cuz the connection between them was completely rusted out. So, I got me a new garbage disposal too! WOO HOO!!!! And it came with an unexpected bonus! Here is the drain cover from the old garbage disposal...

Ewwwww!!!!!

And here is the PIMPING drain plug that came with the new disposal. Check out the stainless y'all. I'm high rolling now!!

It's occured to me more than once that the things that excite me now are very, VERY different from the things that used to turn me on. :-D

I Have No Excuse

I've just been lazy. :-) So much has happened that it is completely shameful I haven't been blogging religiously.

Firstly, the garden is just growing like crazy. I truly can't believe how much FOOD we have right outside our house. :-)
The hanging tomato plants actually have little tomatoes forming. So far, there are three little Romas hanging. The non-hanging tomato plants are getting very, very bushy and have TONS of little yellow flowers on them. It's only a matter of time!!! :-D









All of the cucumber seeds took, so we've currently got 6 little cucumber seedlings going. Ironically, I'm not a big fan of cucumbers...but I LOVE me some pickles, so I only planted pickling varieties. Hope you like pickles - if you know me enough to read this, you know me enough to get some homemade pickles in a few months! Six plant is going to make a LOT of cucumbers!
All in all, I planted 9 yellow wax bean bushes and 18 green bean bushes. All of the wax beans came up and almost all the green beans have sprouted as well. I am a massive fan of grean beans, so this is totally fine by me! Not to mention that they can also be canned and eaten a later date. YAY!
I cannot begin to tell you how beautiful I think my cabbages are. I took this photo with a macro lens to try to capture the texture of their leaves...
Also growing like weeks are my strawberries. I have them in the ground, in a strawberry pot and in the hanging strawberry bag. So far, everyone's doing quite well. The strawberry pot might be outgrowing the others, but as it's an early-season variety, that might not be because the vessel is superior.












And last (photo-wise anyway), but certainly not least, the three little corn plants are finally showing. We planted a variety that has both yellow and white kernels on the cobs. Where Hubby grew up in Pennsylvania, there are corn fields EVERYWHERE! I think he's a little excited about growing some corn down here in Texas.
In other garden news, we have our first bloom on the jalapeno plant. :-) We've had several salads from the flowerbed lettuces (just grabbing a few outer leaves from each plant so that hopefully we can continue the harvest). I also noticed the other day that deep in the broccoli leaves, the flower is forming. :-) I really wish I'd planted more broccoli, but I guess I can drop another on in the ground when this one matures.

Hubby and I spent this past weekend cleaning up all the flowerbeds around our house. All weeds were pulled, new top soil laid down and, in the "curb appeal" beds up front anyway, new seedlings planted. After killing myself creating that big bed up front last year, I'm a little surprised that it isn't more dear to me this year. I put some new annuals in and I think it looks really nice, but my heart's not up front this year. I'm way too excited about the vegetable garden in the back to care about the flowers up front.

You might remember that a while back, Hubby created a compost bin for me using chicken wire. Alas, that didn't work too well. All the dogs and the rat that lives somewhere back there found that thing to be a veritable buffet. Every time I went outside, I had to pick it up off the ground where they'd knocked it and shovel everything back in. We even tried staking it in place. Unfortunately, 80 pounds of Golden Retriever can still knock over a staked chicken-wire compost bin. Fortunately, our curb-side trash can has just been on the verge of death for at least a year. The lid blew off two years ago, so we can't cover our trash, and since the can had no wheels, it got drug to the curb a lot and had developed several large holes in the bottom. So, Hubby and I went to Home Depot and bought a fancy shmancy new trash can with wheels for our trash. Hubby took a drill to the old can, adding aeration holes and we moved it behind the plantain trees to act as my new compost bin. So far, so good. Maybe Abbey's been trained well enough that trash cans are off limits and she'll leave it alone.

I have at least two other blog entries that I really need to get in gear and post, but this one is pretty lengthy, and it's getting kind of late. Stay tuned for news on our other adventures in a few days. I PROMISE not to get all slackery on you again. :-D