Cooking Mama (not that game).

When I was younger I was never really taught how to cook.  I mean I could cook anything out of a box but beyond that and I was hopeless.  Being married has changed that...a lot.

My husband cooks most nights because he isn't working right now, but I am sooooo tired of having the same things.  Baked chicked, backed porkchops, broiled steak, I sometimes think my husband has a 1 dementional brain...lol.  I get tired of basically the same thing over and over. 

So on my days off is when we eat something different, and that is because I cook...lol.  The other day I made stuffed peppers for the first time with no recipe.  I think I did good, and will make it again but there are some things that I will do different. 

Cooking is all about trial and error, I just made a recipe that I found over at Simply Femme while it was good I felt like something was lacking.  So next time I make it I will do some tweeking to it. 

Last winter I tried to make Chicken and Dumplins, yeah that turned out horrible and we ended up ordering out :(  There are a few other dishes that I have failed at. 

Tonight I am making Chicken and Cheese Enchiladas, this is the first time I am making them so wish me luck...lol.

My question for you ladies is how did you learn how to cook?  Did you start from scratch and teach yourself, or did someone start you down the path and you just went from there?  What are some meals you have made that have bombed? 

I love trying new recipes, and I plan on posting some in here.  Ok I think I am done for now. 

Until later!

Quickie.

Ok I am trying to make this as quick as possible.  I just wanted to share a few pictures, of course they are of Dakota my puppy. 

Enjoy!!

Here is Dakota sleeping, actually I was taking a picture of her bandana. 

She looks shocked in this picture, she is starting to get into that awkard puppy stage, sorta like what kids go through.  Gotta love the ear. 

 

I didn't want to get off of the couch to take this picture because they would have moved if I did.  Denver is on the left.  Babygirl who is a friends dog is on the right and Dakota is just wedged inbetween. 

Here is the birthday gift my husband gave me. This isn't a good picture, I can't find my digital camera, I think it is in my closet.  Anywho, I love sunflowers if you look at past post you will see pictures of my wedding, sunflowers was the 'theme'.  I was so shocked when I seen this it is so beautiful, I never knew you could get a whole sunflower charm, I always thought you would only be able to find the head of the flower.  My hubs said they had to order it.  I was kinda of worried that sleeping with it on wouldn't be a good idea thought I would break the stem off, but it is really solid.  What can I say I love it and can't stop gushing over it.  The husband done good!!

Ok that is all for now.  I am going to go get a quick shower get in my pj's and then it is Project Runway time. 

Until later!!!

Pictures and a Post...oh my!

I am going to atempt to add a picture again... Gotta ask a question though.

What is the easiest ways to upload pictures?? Through photobucket and just copy link straight into blog, or by the hyper-link thingie ^ up there??

If you didn't know I am a blonde, lol. I love me some blonde jokes and I always ready to take one for the team. I have done this before. Duh!!! I just realized that I can go back to that post and I should be able to figure it out.

Anywho, the only pictures I have of my car are on my phone and with the way the sun was shining it doesn't do my car justice. I am off for 3 days this weekend, and I plan on cleaning my car so I will take pictures then.

All of the pictures in this post are from my cell phone. So not the best pictures. 

This is Dakota about 10 mins ago, if you look you can see that her tail was wagging a mile a minute.  We think that she is husky/lab mix but really not 100% sure.  I still think she is cute.



This is her and Denver sleeping on my bed, he is a four year old White German Shepherd.  My big baby as I call him.  Denver is my Marley for those of you who have seen Marley and Me.  Look at the difference in size, this picture was taking a few weeks ago. 



Joe (my husband) sent me this picture one day while I was at work.  This was just a few days after we got her, she was so little. 



Since I added one of Dakota sleeping here is one of Denver sleeping, he has slept like this since he was too big to get all the way underneath the bed.  I guess this is good enough for him. 



Ok that is enough pictures for now.  My birthday is tomorrow and I will be 29, my hubby gave me my present last night because he couldn't wait...lol.  I was going to post a picture of it but I have to find my digital camera, because my cell does it no justice.  He got me a sunflower charm and chain, I love me some sunflowers and it is beautiful. 

Well I am going to go finish getting ready for my birthday date with the Hubs.  Actually I need to get his butt in gear, he worked out while I was in the shower and he still hasn't gotten a shower.  No smelly hubs on my birthday date!

Until later...

Summer Review

I always sit down here to write out a blog, but then something else grabs my attention and then I can't finish writing. I think I have ADD.

Anywho, soooooooooo much has happened since my last post. Sooooooo much!!

A lot happened this summer.

My neice came to stay with me this summer she got here on July 6th and we flew back to PA together on August 10th. We had a great time, my niece, Joe and I went to Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. We went to Dollywood Splash Mountain, we all got burnt, one I can remember how to post pictures I will. I miss her so much now that she isn't here. It was hard coming home and not hanging out with her, she is my babygirl!

While she was her we settled Joe's Workman's Comp case. We got a pretty nice chunk of change we have put most of it away, in savings and CD's. Well, we did buy something with it. Joe flew up to PA 3 days after I got there and we bought our first car a 2010 Mercury Milan. She is actually my car, and yes SHE has a name, Milly. Again pictures soon. We needed a second car anyway since Joe will be going back to work (hopefully soon).

I am so sick of my J O B, I hate dealing with whiney people all day, and I am not talking about the customers, I mean my co-workers. Oh well I have to grin and bear it. Anywho enough of that.

I have some other big news, we have a new addition to our little family. Her name is Dakota, she is white with one brown ear and the other is spotted. She has black spots all over her pink belly. She likes to annoy her big brother Denver by bitting his ears.

We got a puppy, she is actually a rescue, we think she may be husky/lab mix. She is about 11 weeks old. I have forgotten what is like having a puppy. Denver is 4 years old, he is our big boy. He no longer has accidents, or tears up my shoes. He doesn't hide everything under the bed so I can't get to it. But I love her she is so funny, but a big cry baby.

Again, pictures to come!!

I really need to remember how to do it...lol.

Well I think that is for now. I am going to go up to bed and read some more Shattered Dreams by Irene Spencer. I heard about the book over a Chic Chat. I can't keep my hands off of it, it is a good book.

Well I think that is all.

Until later.

My Sister's Battle

I have a lot to talk about but I am not putting it all in one entry but this is the best news of all so I had to share this first.

Ok, let's go back to June 10th 2009 (yes I remember the date) when my sister K called me crying, bawling actually you know the kind with snots spilling out of your nose... not a soul in the world can undertand you.

Yup, that kind of crying. My sobbing sister proceeds to tell me that her son's father had him for the weekend and wasn't giving him back to K because he doesn't think she is a good Mom.

Now the bad thing, there is no legal custody agreement, it has always been mutual verbal agreement. So J files for custody, he wants FULL custody he doesn't want K seeing their son AT ALL.

Fast forward to July 5th, the day before my niece is coming down to see me for 5 weeks. My sister hasn't seen Aidan since June 10th. J promised that he would bring my nephew to see my niece before she left for Tennessee. J calls K and guess what, J's father was rushed to the hospital 2 hours away. Guess what else?? J never even went up there to see his fater. He has a cellphone there was NO reason he couldn't bring my nephew to see his sister. Nope it was just an excuse.

Here is a litle background. My nephew is 6 years old actually just turned 6 on July 8th, my sister didn't even get to see him on his 6th birthday. See the first 6 months of my nephew's life J wasn't even there, he never came to get him. It was always that he had to work and he couldn't come see his son. It was NEVER my sister, she wanted J to see his son more. My niece's father was killed in a car accident, she would NEVER deny a father of his child.

All my sister has never wanted was J to be a good dad to his son. Yes he is good to my nephew in one way and one way only, he will give my nephew anything he wants materialistic wise but he has no clue what love is. I know this, I have known J for 14 years actually he was my friend (if you could call it that) he has alway been a pain in the hiney.

He disrespects women, even his own mother calling her the C word (heard it with my own ears) plus many others. Calls his girlfriend fat ass, this he confirmed to me. He is basiclly a wanna be, he 'thinks' he's gansta, he is just delusional...lol.

Anywho, I could keep going but back to the story.

J finally allowed K to see my nephew, for 1 hour the week before the conference for custody. I fly back to PA for a week on August 10th to bring my niece back, spend the week with my family and buy my new car. It just so happens I was going to be there for the conference.

They go to the conference and J acts like a total fool. My sister was fine because her lawyer took care of everything. Yesterday they went to court. Today my sister and J got there answers from thier lawyers. My sister has Primary Physical Custody. J filed for this and didn't get what he wanted, he though all along that a judge would find her unfit. Now he has all these rules to follow, ones that he didn't have before. Like my husband said, he tried to fix something that wasn't broke.

J has been such a jerk today when my sister called to tell him she was coming to pick up her son, J went off on her. Calling her a scum back, that she didn't deserve to be a Mother and that he Fing hated her. He is going to try and appeal.

I know my nephew, he loves his Mommy and his big sister. J got this idea in his head that my nephew just loved my sister because he had to. When my sister went to get him, J's girlfriend started going off on my sister. My nephew turns to my sister and said don't worry about her Mommy, just tell her to talk to the hand. He has told my sister before that he didn't like her.

On the way home my nephew was singing to my sister saying he was happy to be with his Mommy. He is where he needs to be. I am happy things have worked out this way. I would have been hot if it didn't happen this way, I paid for my sister's lawyer...lol.

Ok this is extremely long. I was going to do 2 posts tonight but I am beat. It was a long long day, so I am heading to bed.

Until later.

Bad Blogger, Bad Bad Blogger.

I really don't know why I even started this blog, the last time I was even here was April 28th, that was a little less than 2 months ago. I used to be a good blogger, when I didn't have so much going on. It's nuts I have a ton of stuff I could write about but I don't know when to find the time.

Now, I am a bad blogger. There are a few blogs that I follow but not really 'follow' in the blogger sense. I just don't comment or let myself be known, it's weird face to face with someone and I can be silly, and good and talk your ear off but when it comes to online I am so afraid to let myself go.

Do you think that is strange?? I mean online you can be whoever you want to be, but I can't seem to even be me...lol. I have always been a social butterfly, but I have issue getting close to people, you can even ask my husband...lol.

How do you go about trying to befriend someone without making yourself look like a total fool??

Ahhh I will figure it out.

I have another post I am going to do but I didn't want to put everything into one blog.

Until later

Where does time go???

I haven't been around much because life has just been insane. I will kind of start off from the robbery.

I think it was like 2 days after it happened and a woman that live across the street from us approached my husband when he was walking the dog. She seen the robbery happen but was afraid to say anything about it because she didn't want anything to happen to her ( I can understan). We told the detective but of course they haven't done anything and it is now April. We are just so frustrated that we decided to try to move on.

Since being robbed Joe and I have decided that it is time to look for a house. A few weeks ago we got a really nice check from Joe's workman's comp being increased so we got all of the retro pay. We went out and got new living room furnitre (which we really needed) and then the rest we used to pay off our debts.

Joe and I are now 100% debt free, it really feels great to be that way, even though we weren't that far into debt, it was enough to drag our credit score down. The money we had left over from that we opened a savings account to save for a down payment for a house. Let me tell you if it wasn't for the check we wouldn't have been able to do any of this.

So last week we met with the Morgage Loan Officer at our bank and he basiclly mapped out what we need to do in order to start house hunting. We had already done step one which is cleaning up our debts, but now of course we need to wait to all of that to be reported to the credit agencies which could take about a month.

The Loan Officer said that once it has gone through it will raise our credits scores to what they need to be in order to be approved for a loan. Another thing we need to wait for is, we need to have at least 3 bills that we have had for a year with good payment history (they need to be open accounts). Since we have only live down here in Tenessee for only a year and have only had bills in our name since October we may have to wait until then to fill out the application for a loan.

So it looks like we will be looking for a house sometime in the early fall. I wish it was sooner but we have to do what we can to get approved. With the way the housing market is they are really strict about who they are giving loans to. So keep your fingers crossed.

We have also decided to start trying to get pregnant again, I have been monitoring my sugar levels and have been doing a good job keeping them in good ranges. So yep we are trying to have a baby. I would really like to have my first before I am 30 years old and this October I will be 29. So send your baby dust my way...lol.

Other than that I have been working like crazy dealing with nutty customers. I am always so tired after work that I don't even get on the computer anymore. I spend 8 hrs a day staring at a computer screen the last thing I want to do is come home and stare at another.

Oh yeah I bought the ticket for my neice's trip down here. She will be here for almost a month, just shy of a few days. I can't wait to see her, my sister told me today that she thinks the may be getting her period soon... she is getting so big. I have a picture of her at work from her first Christmas she wasn't even a year old and how she is 11 and becoming a woman. Gosh, where does the time go???

My sister is coming down here to pick her up, I can't wait for that either it will be nice to hang out with my sister and see my nephew.

Well I am going to head to bed. I am off tomorrow and I plan on sleeping in.

Until next time.