When did YOUR perception become MY reality?

This morning, I went to my friend's house for a make over. She is a really nice person who is selling a very well know line of make-up. We had a LOT of fun. My make over looked cute. I love make up...but why do I love make-up?That probably sounds silly but it's actually deeper than skin. I had to turn inwards to think about it this morning and after much thought, I thought some more...this is all from in my head:

Old people stop me and tell me how nice my skin is. I get compliments on my eye makeup from people even when I think I look like a baby prostitute. On more than one occasion as a child I had my friends' mothers tell me I had a beautiful face . My face, my skin, my eyes, my youthfulness, my pink cheeks....blah, blah, blah. Now, I'm not saying this to be boastful at all. I see myself everyday and I think I blend in to my surroundings. I am not "all about" my looks. I don't think I'm anything other than normal. But yet I love makeup. I stay out of the sun. I moisturize daily. I focus my "me time" on all of the things that other people have vocalized to me.

And this isn't just about me, and it's certainly not skin deep. Are we only good at the things we're good at because other people thought so and told us?  So we focused our energies on those things to continue to get praise? What about other things that we are good at that people don't know about? What ARE those things? Let's be real, others' acknowledgements shouldn't define what we focus on. In order to grow as human beings we need to focus on new ways to improve ourselves and (more importantly) the lives of others. So, instead of resting on the obvious, we need to turn ourselves inside out!

I'm going to put something out here that may seem simple to others, but to me it's radical thinking. I'm going to focus on the hidden things. Not the things that other's notice, but things that I notice. For example, I never thought about blogging until I decided my creative thinking was dying a slow death in front of the TV. But I have a great imagination. I'm going to focus on using my imagination in my blog. I'm going to grow my imagination and improve my writing skills. What are YOU good at that no one knows about? What are your secret pros? Please share them with others. I can promise you that the world will be a better place for it.

Unless you're really good at killing people or butchering humans or manufacturing crack cocaine. In that case, please keep it to yourself.

Slow Cooker Saturday: The Results!!!!

   I'm taking the recommendation of my blogger buddy to update my last post, but I have so much information to provide, it deserves its own entry. So here we go...   The chicken came out great! What I want to do is share the base recipe, and the additional variations that you can do for different dishes. We had enchiladas and they were so good! One thing to keep in mind, I don't really know much about Mexican food so don't expect to eat it and feel like you're in a resort in Cancun drinking cheap margaritas and silently fearing Montezuma's Revenge from the sink water you used to brush your teeth.

Shredded Mexican Chicken- Base Recipe

3lbs skinless boneless chicken breast
1 jar medium salsa
1 onion, quartered and sliced
1. Dump the chicken in the bottom of a slow cooker
2. Add the jar of salsa on top of the chicken
3. Add the onion on top of the salsa
4. Cook on low for 7-8 hours
5. Shred the chicken and then put it back into the slow cooker and stir

 Mexican Salad:
1. Add 1 packet of taco seasoning (or your own taco seasonings) to the base recipe
2. Serve on a pile of shredded lettuce with all of your favorite taco fixings (tomatoes, shredded cheese, and crushed up taco shells are all delish!)
3. I like to mix equal parts taco sauce and ranch dressing to put on top

 Enchiladas:
1. Add 1 container of Philadelphia Cooking Cream in Santa Fe to the base recipe
2. Place the shredded chicken mixture into soft flour tortillas. Roll up and place in a big lasagna pan. Make sure and squish as many in as you can but leave 1 to 2 cups to pour over the top
3. Take remaining mixture in the slow cooker and mix with taco sauce (I used a 1:1 ratio)
4. Pour the remaining mixture over the enchiladas in the pan
5. Cover with shredded cheddar (I used a TON, about 8 oz)
6. Bake uncovered in a 350 degree oven until the cheese has completely melted and the exposed tortilla shells start to brown
7. Serve on a bed of shredded lettuce

Enjoy and let me know if you try either of these. Happy barely-cooking everyone!!!!!

Slow Cooking: My lifesaver

Balsamic Chicken from the slow cooker

I have never procliamed to be a chef. Cooking is just not my thing. I don't care for the grocery store and I don't like to clean that much. However, in order to live I occassionally throw something together so we won't waste away to nothing. I'm pretty good at making food that's really bad for you so I try really hard to throw in a healthy meal every once in a while. But for me, that means chicken, chicken, and chicken. Then I get bored and we end up ordering out a bunch of pizza and  subs and un-do any good from the healthy meals. So, I'm learning to compromise by making MOSTLY healthier meals, and also incorporating some not so healthy meals so at least we stay away from ordering out so much.

Enter the slow cooker. This device allows me to make all kinds of things and not screw them up. The liquid keeps your proteins moist, and you really can't wreck anything. Therefore, I can make very healthy meals like Balsamic Chicken and great hearty meals like Beef Stroganoff. Today, I am venturing into a new world: I invented my own recipe. I'm going to call it Chicken Enchillada Salad. I'm not going to list the ingredients or anything because I might fuck it up and have to throw it all away rendering the recipe worthless, but I am excited to see how it turns out.

Today it's snowing and cold. My husband is working all day today and I know he will LOVE walking in the door tonight and smelling dinner in the slow cooker. Here's hoping it works out. If not, well, I've got wine to drown my dissapointment of a failed meal. Happy snow day!!!!

Vegas!!!

    So, I was planning on writing about the cats today but I am too lazy to get pics to post so their moment of glory will have to wait till maybe this weekend. Instead, I am going to talk about our  trip to Las Vegas .
    We went to Vegas for our honeymoon and had a blast. One of the things I remember was how nice and relaxing our flight was. Knowing that we had 2 weeks to relax and do whatever we wanted was amazing. Also, having the wedding behind us was a big relief. Not because it was bad, just because it was a lot of planning and work. It was nice to go somewhere and just "be".
    One of the first nights, Jim went to toss his cigar in the ashtray and this drunk kid comes up to him and says, "Hey man, can I have that? You're really going to throw that away?". Jim told him that he was done with it so the kid could have it if he wanted. This dude was so drunk, he thought it was a cigarette and took the biggest drag I've ever seen. Needless to say, he choked, coughed a LOT, and threw it out in disgust. We pointed and laughed at him. Aren't we nice? Well, karma returned to us the night we went to Freemont Street. We were winning money left and right. Jim was clearing mini-jackpots out of the slot machines like it was nobody's business. We decided to celebrate with fried oreos from Nathan's. During our first bite, we both proceeded to choke on the powdered sugar, blowing it all over the place. My shirt was creepy sticky for the rest of the day. Karma.
    Every morning we had breakfast at Harrah's buffet. It was so good. We would pig out so we didn't have to eat until dinnertime. My breakfasts were giant, gluttonous piles of eggs benedict, sausage gravy, hash browns and of course, PILES of pastry. Except this was no ordinary pastry. It was basically dessert that they put out for breakfast. If we needed a snack during the day we grabbed whatever was there. When we were gambling in the Stratosphere, I decided to buy a bag of those peanuts with the sweet bumpy red coating in them and a bottle of water. We were sitting at video poker machines munching away on our snacks when the worst case scenario happened. I ate a bad peanut. Not just off tasting, but ROTTEN. The rancid oil coated everything in my mouth. I started gagging and pounding my water. This guy was sitting next to me was not impressed with my experience. I looked at him and said, "I just are a rotten peanut!". He got up and left like I was crazy. Thanks for the sympathy, buddy. It took a giant chocolate chip cookie and a latte from Starbucks to get the horrifying taste out of my mouth. Worst snack ever. In fact I just started eating peanuts again this month. It only took 2 years to get over it.
    We had so much fun in Vegas. We still talk about it all the time. We're going back this October and we can not wait! We're trying to save our pennies and be good about staying out of the casinos but it's not easy. We just have so much fun when we're there, it's hard not to go every weekend. But we will be as good as we can so we can have as much fun as possible in Vegas this year.

Welcome to the Zoo Part 1: Gerri Lee

I thought today I would write a little about our pets. We currently have 4 cats and one bird. This is down from the original 3 cats, 5 birds and a dog and before that, 1 bird, one cat, and one dog. I want to write a little about each of them since they are a big part of our family. I'll start with our dog, Gerri Lee. She was inherited from my then boyfriend (now husband)'s past relationship. The first time I met her, I was a little nervous. She was a pure ball of energy and she just wanted to run and jump and hug and kiss you. She was such a sweet dog but very intimidating to me. I had a poodle growing up who was definitely a ball of energy, but a much more manageable ball. Gerri Lee was a tornado.

Moving in with Jim, because I came home first, meant playing with the dog and making sure she peed and pooped and was fed. Then when Jim came home, we brought her in for bed, where the cats would torment her. In order to give the dog some peace, we had to cover all the holes in her crate with a blanket so the cats would leave her alone. One night, in the winter, she had terrible diarrhea. It was so bad that the smell woke us up. From that point on she was sick.

The whole time that she was sick (insert vet appointments, tests, steroids, prescription dog food, weekly trips to the vets for B12 shots, etc) she was so sweet. In the summer, she would nap on her favorite rock just soaking up the sun and in heaven. While she acted fine, she was definitely sick. She was diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease. She just kept losing weight. Her hair started falling out. The first time we took her to the vet for hair loss, he said it looked like she has been burned that's how bad her wound was. And it just happened while we were at work! It was scary.

By this point, we were both exhausted. Crating her was too stressful for everyone because she would shit multiple times during the night. We ended up building her a palace in the backyard, complete with Christmas lights, a roof, and a doggie run. But when it came time to fall asleep, I felt horrible. She was outside. All winter. I felt like the scum of the earth. We could only let her in for short periods because she couldn't control her bowels. One night we heard coyotes killing something in the woods and bought her in. But that night, she had to go back out. It was just terrible. I felt like I had to defend myself to everyone because they must have thought we were awful people. And the whole time, this poor dog was sleeping outside.

I remember when I would go to get her out for some playtime, when she would get tired, she would come stand next to me and put her head on hip and just rest. It was so sweet. And then she would jump up and get mud and shit all over my clothes and I would be mad. I wish I never got mad at her.

On April 3rd, 2010 we had to take her back to the vet because she was losing hair again. We figured we would leave with some ointment. We had to leave without our dog. She was so low in weight that she was basically starving to death. We cried. In front of everyone. The vet's staff who I had grown to love after seeing them all the time, were just as devastated. The woman who took our payment had tears in her eyes. I knew they all felt empty like we did. Worst day ever.

Two weeks later, I picked up Gerri Lee's ashes. She was buried next to her rock, along with her collar, tags, leash, and all of her toys...everything that belonged to her in this life. We also buried a part of our hearts that day. Gerri Lee, we will always miss you, always love you and we will never forget the playfulness you brought to our home. We will never again have a sweet pup exactly like you and we look forward to seeing you again in heaven.

Turkeys!!!!!

We have a pile of turkeys that come through the yard twice a day. At first I was skeeved out by the whole idea (I am afraid of giant turkeys) but at the same time, I find it sort of comforting to see them. During Xmas break, I saw them all the time and they are pretty funny to watch. They run on their skinny legs and they almost bounce when they're in a hurry. Tonight, I saw them as usual, walking around in the yard. Every night they fly up into the trees. I googled "where do wild turkeys sleep" and apparently they sleep in the trees! They are all up there now (about 14 of them) preparing for a little shut eye, or perhaps preparing for my demise. Scary and cool at the same time. Goodnight, Gobblers!!!

My first post: My Blog, My Rules

OK, so first of all I need to lay out some thoughts on the blog itself:

1. I am not an english professor. I am not here to learn how to spell better or use correct grammar. In fact, I may not use spell check. There is no spell check in my head anyways.
2. These are my daily thoughts. I may not have one every day worth telling anyone about, but I will try.
3. I am not super exciting. My blog is starting off as my thoughts on my daily life.
4. I'm pretty funny most of the time, so expect some humor.
5. If you don't think I'm that funny, don't tell me. Don't ruin my perception of self.
6. I will try to keep it clean but if I get mad I will totally swear.
7. I have never done this before and have no idea what I am doing

I am writing this because I want to try and be creative in a different way. I say alot of dumb things and people laugh but I never write much aside from at my job. So, I thought writing a blog might help me see if I can be creative with my thoughts in a different format.