I've been slacking

OK.

This is the MAIN reason I came into my blog.  To blog about THIS specific topic.  Then I noticed all the new things, and I got sidetracked.  But, I'm back on-track now, so let's do this!

Awhile back, I posted that I would be making Friday for me "Pay It Forward Friday" and that I would then blog about it.  Remember?  I went into the big long schpeal (did I spell that right?  Is it even a word??) about how I wanted to be one of 'those' bloggers.  A blogger that blogged with a purpose.

I started out, much like I usually do.  Raring to go.  Sort of.  I think my first post was late, and I really didn't have much to blog about.  I don't know if I put too much pressure on myself, or if I just suck at blogging.  I'm not sure which it is, but it's definitely one of the two.

That being said, I still, desperately, want to continue with "Pay It Forward Friday" but I think I'm going to need help.  I know for sure that I have at least one faithful reader, but I have a lot of followers.  So, if I forget to talk about my PIFF (that's my official abbreviation for Pay It Forward Friday) then let me know.  Comment me, or email me (if you have my email) and keep me on track.  I've got a lot going on (you know, being a wife,  a mother of 2, AND  a full time nursing student) and sometimes I need a nudge.

If, after another unsuccessful attempt at blogging my PIFF experiences, then I suppose I'll be forced to throw in the towel.  On the blogging part anyway, not necessarily the actual process of PIFF.

So, I apologize for my lack of effort.  I promise to try harder to remember to post my experience of PIFF.  But I'd still really like to hear from my readers (if there is more than just one).  Are you participating in PIFF? How it going for you??

Until Next Time ...
~A

This could prove to be interesting ...

The last time I posted I was having trouble adding pictures.  Well, let me rephrase that.  I was having trouble getting pictures to go where I wanted them to be.

I sign in tonight, to blog about a specific subject, and what do I find?!  A whole bunch of changes.  I've already been playing around.  On the side of my page -----> over there, though you as a reader can't see it, it tells me this -Improved image insertion and positioning - WOOHOO!!  It's as if someone heard my frustrations, and did something about it!

We'll have to see if that's true.  I'll have to go back and edit my Thanksgiving post, and see if I can't finally put in a picture of what our cooked bird looked like, without having to sign away my first born child to do so.

Until Next Time (which actually will be in a few minutes, cause I still want to write about my original topic)
~A

Thanksgiving

Or maybe it should be more aptly named, The Chaos that is Thanksgiving. I think that would fit for most people that are trying to host Thanksgiving dinner for their families.

I do have to say, however, that ours was pulled off rather successfully. My sister-in-law and I hosted Thanksgiving for our families. Her parents,

my husband's mother, and then of course our husbands and children. The rest of my family, though I wish desperately they could have been with us, are back in California.

We, well, not really we, mainly my brother, took a huge risk this year. My husband and I decided that for an early Christmas present, we would buy my brother a turkey fryer. He'd desperately been wanting to try a deep fried turkey, and we figured with Thanksgiving just around the corner, why not do it now!

Having tasted a deep fried turkey myself, I knew exactly what we were going to get. A juicy, plump, tasteful, delicious (are you catching the drift) turkey, rather than

the dry meat that you get when you oven bake it. It truly is an art however. Not that anyone ever would, but if they did happen to say that deep frying turkey is an easy thing to do, don't listen to them.

There are a lot of safety precautions that one needs to take. Don't believe me? Hit up youtube and type in deep fried turkey gone wrong. You'll see what I mean.

We were going about this the right way, well, minus the gloves. You'll notice that in the picture I'm sure.

Here's your step-by-step. Well, here's OUR step-by-step.

1. It's VERY important that your oil be the right temperature. 350 degrees to be exact

I'm not sure why this step is so important, but apparently it is, and who am I to question the deep-fried-turkey-masters!?

2. Once the oil has reached the perfect temp (350 degrees) slowly, and I'm seriously emphasizing the word S-L-O-W-L-Y, lower the turkey into the oil. Seriously. SLOWLY. If you think you're going slow enough, you're not. Go slower. It should take you almost 5 complete minutes to lower the turkey into the oil.

3. Once your bird finally been submerged completely into his spa like atmosphere, you let him cook, completely attended. Yes I said attended. You have to stand there, and watch him. The entire time. You let the bird cook, in the 350 degree oil, for 3 1/2 minutes per pound. Our bird was 18 pounds, so he cooked a little over an hour. When it's time to remove your bird from the oil, you're going to think you've ruined dinner. He's going to look burned. He's not. Trust me.

I'd post a picture here of the bird once it came out of the oil, but getting the two pictures here, where I wanted them, was a complete and total pain in the ass. So I'm not doing it again. If you follow me on facebook, you can look at the pictures there. If you follow me on facebook, I'm sure you've seen them already. Why would you want to see them again?!

**side note**  I'm LOVING the new picture placment options!!!  YAY!!!

There's got to be an easier way to get pictures, WHERE I WANT THEM TO BE, into my blog?
Isn't there?!

Oh well, I'll figure that out another day. It's midnight. I have to be up in 6.5 hours ...

until next time ...

~A

I want to share ...

My sister-in-law and I are teaming up to make Thanksgiving dinner this year. Last year I made my first ever Thanksgiving dinner all by myself. This year, since we've moved to a new state, and we have absolutely no other family up here, and since we are living with my brother and sister-in-law, we're doing Thanksgiving together.

Phew .. that was long winded.

OK, back to my story. One of the things, or desserts we're making for Thanksgiving, is a Cream Cheese Filled Pumpkin Roll. Now I don't know about you, but I'm NOT a big fan of pumpkin. Well, lets be honest, I don't like pumpkin at all. I will make pumpkin pie every year for my husband because he loves it, but I don't touch the stuff.

When my sister-in-law said we were making the pumpkin roll, I honestly thought it would be something else that I would make, but wouldn't eat.

I've never made anything like a pumpkin roll before. It's always been beyond me how you roll cake without breaking it. I will admit, that I was excited to try it. I love cooking. Anything that has to do with cooking. It's relaxing if you want to know the truth. I just wish that I had that financial means to cook without limits. Wouldn't that be nice?!

This is quickly becoming a long story. So let me try to make this long story short. Our pumpkin roll didn't roll without breaking. So I went online, and consulted the all-mighty "google" trying to find out what we did wrong, so we didn't make the same mistake on Thanksgiving day.

I came across this blog. A blog written by a woman named Lana. Lana blogs about the things that she cooks, and includes pictures. LOVELY!! DIVINE!! STUPENDOUS!! Those are just a few of the adjectives I'll use to describe the contents of this blog.

I can't wait to try some of her recipes!! Hopefully I don't get in trouble from Lana, for linking her blog here. But I'm excited about it, and I want to share it with my readers. So, without further adieu ....

Never Enough Thyme

Enjoy!!! And I'm going to steal something else .. and use a quote from Alton Brown ... "Good Eats!!"

Until Next Time ...

~A

I'm Confused ...

Do you remember the Whitney Houston song "Greatest Love Of All"?

The opening line in that song was this;

"I believe the Children are our future. Teach them well,

and let them lead the way. Show them all the beauty

they possess inside. Give them a sense of pride, to make

it easier ... "

I was reading the newspaper this morning, and thought of this song. One of the stories in today's paper was titled

"Schools budget crisis fuels old debate; Some question whether the district can still afford its alternative schools."

I go on to read the article, because I have a child in school, and I know that there are 8 school locally that are on the chopping block. I've not heard which ones, but I want to make sure my daughter's school isn't one of them.

Apparently the Eugene School District needs to cut $30 million from their current budget. $30 million. That's a LOT of money. I understand why the thought of closing 8 schools is even thought of. What I don't understand is how this is good for our children.

Someone proposed the following ... eliminate 104 teaching positions. Wow. Really?! What's that going to do to our children. All this is going to do is force class sizes at the remaining schools to be larger. They're already over 30. How is that going to help!?

What will be the point of a public school system at all!? I could do a better job homeschooling. That way I'd know my child was getting the one-on-one attention that EACH and EVERY child needs from their teacher. I'm nervous for my daughter. There is a LOT I'm going to have to think about before the next school year starts for her.

IF the school sites that are proposed to be closed, actually do close, my daughter's school will be one of the sites that take some of the students from the closed schools. Meaning the student to teacher ratio will be out of control. Currently at her school, as with many schools nationwide (I assume) the student teacher ratio is 28-30:1. 28 to 30 students, for every 1 teacher. With the proposed cuts, that ratio will become at least 40:1. That's unacceptable.

I'm taking Whitney's words to heart. I DO believe the Children are our future. That they NEED to be taught, and taught well. They can NOT be taught well in a classroom of 40 students and only 1 teacher. It can't happen. It won't happen for my child. I will pull her out, and home school her. That will put MY schooling on hold, but that's the way it'll have to be.

I hope and pray that another solution is found, but I seriously doubt that will happen. Lord help us .. please.

Return of the Klutz

Yup. I'm back.

Anyone that knew me when I was younger, knew that I was probably one of the most accident prone people on the face of the earth. I was always on crutches for either a knee injury, a foot injury, or an ankle injury. I even decided to change it up one time and have a cast on my arm.

Well, it's been a LONG time since I've injured myself in my adult life. A really long time. I think Mikaila was a year old, maybe. She's 8 now. So, it's been a while.

Yesterday, the streak ended.

I was coming out of the Health and Wellness Building from my Medical Terminology class, walking through the parking lot, to my brother's car. Apparently, I didn't notice that the sidewalk ended, and there was a curb going into the parking lot. Oopsie. I damn near hit the ground completely.

DJ chuckled, "there's a step there Amanda" ... and I hobbled the rest of the way to the car, fighting tears. Man it hurt bad. We had to stop at the little Dari Mart on the way home to get milk, and the whole ride, it kind of bothered me. I was trying to move it, so that it didn't get stiff.

By the time we got to the Dari Mart, I could feel that it had started to swell up a little bit. NOTHING like injuries past have done, but just enough that I could feel it. I hopped out of the car to help my brother get the milk, and HOLY HELL BATMAN. The pain when I stepped out of the truck was insane!!

Regardless of the pain, I hobbled into the store, and helped DJ get the milk. Then hobbled back to the truck, again fighting tears, and got inside.

That was the way that I spent the rest of the evening. Hobbling around everywhere I needed to go, until finally I got tired of hobbling, and I went to bed.

This morning, I thought it would feel better. No such luck. I'm trying to decide if I should make the trip to the doctor.

I know what they're going to say, and what they're going to do. They're going to want to put me in a splint, or worse a cast, and then have me on crutches. Sorry, no can do. There's NO way I could be on crutches now. Not with me being in school. I would die.

So, I guess, for the time being, that I'll suffer through the pain. Lord I pray that it gets better soon ...

Until Next Time

~A

Clarification ...

I had someone read my blog recently, and she happened to be mentioned in one of my entries. I hurt her feelings, when I didn't mean to.

I'm truly sorry that it happened. I didn't meant to hurt anyones feelings. I just so happened to be talking about "Pay It Forward Friday", and she was the recipient of my good deed. That's all. Even if it hadn't been "Pay It Forward Friday", I would have driven her all the way across town, even though I wasn't going to that part of town.

Long story short, Stewie, I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings. I didn't mean to. Not that you'll EVER read my blog again (I know I probably wouldn't if my feelings had been hurt because of it) but I want to 'publicly' apologize to you.

Love ya bunches!!!

Until Next Time ..

~A

Today's thought

I was looking over the website I use for my quotes, and I came across this one. It's actually a verse from the book of Matthew.

"I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain

'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible to you."

-Matthew 17:20

Think about that. Do you have that kind of faith?! I wish that I did. I'd like to say that I do, but I can't tell you the last time I was able to move a mountain. Wouldn't it be neat though??

It's definitely something to think about.

Until Next Time ...

~A

The Cat Came Back ...

Remember that old song? That's what I feel like singing right now, only replace "cat" with "dude".

Yeah, "dude" from my earlier blog, apparently 'forgot' that we don't like him, and came back today.

I honestly thought, as did everyone else, that we were rid of him. That he'd FINALLY gotten the message (even if we hadn't been sending it out super clearly) that he annoyed the hell out of us. Apparently we were wrong.

Wonderful. He walked up to our table today like nothing at all had happened. He followed us around like that lost little puppy again, like nothing at all had happened. He just doesn't get it. I don't know how to get it through to him, other than to just outright be a bitch and tell him, that it's not OK to annoy me. It's not OK to act like you're the chocolate on a damn strawberry. Cause really dude, you're not. All you are is annoying.

Ugg .. he makes my mood so foul, it's not even funny.

That's all for now .. I'm not in the mood anymore.

Until Next Time ...

~A