HANGMAN PART II

After this discovery in Tully's backpack,
I went looking for the rest of the game pad...

It looks harmless enough.



But in the hands of an 11-year-old...



Okay, KETCHUP is still pretty harmless, and it's Tully's favorite food item in the entire world...



I had to ask Tully about this one... apparently, a 'TOCO TOUCAN' is an actual animal:



I have no clue:



NES ISN'T WORKING ??



THIS TRIP WAS BORING - pretty self-explanatory.



LET'S KILL MATT - I asked Tully if he had any actual murderous tendencies towards this 'Matt' person, and he said no. Whew.



How to make an innocent word dirty... hyphenate it. URA-NUS. Whoops. I think they were going for UR-ANUS. Woooot!



Now, keep the UR and add AN AHOLE. Oh, yeah, now it's getting badass.



How do you top that? Keep the URA and add FUCKER to it. Ummm, Tully, I think we need to have a word about this one...



Classy how NOW U SUK MONKEY ASS is accompanied by a hangman labelled as 'Senior Presidente George W Bush.'



HELL NO!!



Having a quick word with my potty-mouthed-progeny. Parenting is always interesting.

He is a sweet kid most of the time...

Don't Panic Dinners...

I'm going to cooking club tomorrow - I made Cheesy Chicken Bundles in March and they were really good - I promised to share the recipe, so I'm posting it here -

Cheesy Chicken Bundles

Makes 6 servings Preheat: 350

1 cup bread crumbs
½ cup cheddar cheese, shredded
½ cup Parmesan, grated plus 1/4 cup for topping
1 t salt
¼ t pepper
6 boneless chicken breasts
½ cup butter, melted plus 2 T. butter melted for topping

Mix together bread crumbs, cheeses, salt and pepper. Dip chicken pieces in melted butter and then in cheese/bread crumb mixture. Roll the breast up to form a little bundle.

(To freeze: wrap each raw chicken bundle in plastic wrap and then place in freezer bags. Thaw and follow baking directions below.)

Place in large, shallow baking dish. Pour remaining butter on top and sprinkle with remaining Parmesan. Bake, uncovered, at 350 for 1 hour, until chicken is crispy.


It's from the book "Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer". I like it a lot so far - a girlfriend lent it to me, and I'm putting a lot of miles on it!

Tomorrow I'm bringing Chicken in Raspberry Sauce - I haven't tasted it yet, but it looks good:

Chicken in a Raspberry Sauce

1/4 cup mashed raspberries (you can use fresh or frozen)
1/2 cup raspberry preserves
1/2 cup pineapple concentrate
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 Tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
6 boneless/skinless chicken breasts

~Place all ingredients in a freezer bag and mush. Label and freeze.

To serve: Thaw chicken completely. Place chicken and sauce in a large baking dish. Bake covered at 350* for 30-40 minutes. Serve chicken with pan juices over top.

I'm also bringing Hashbrown Casserole to go with it. Everybody loves Hashbrown Casserole!

I even found a blog about doing freezer meals...

Breakfast at Denny's

I rolled over in bed on Saturday morning and mumbled to my husband, "I want Denny's for breakfast."

My husband, who is usually Mr. Fit & Healthy, said "Yes!" and I was stoked. My kids do NOT like breakfast foods (they were totally switched at birth) so I haven't been able to go clog my arteries in a long time!

I got a Grand Slam... oh, yes... you can say I'm disgusting all that you want. Two eggs over-easy, 2 strips of bacon, 2 sausage links, hash browns, and I got a couple of biscuits instead of toast.

I woofed it down so fast, there are no pictures of my food.

My husband was still making his way through his breakfast. I had finished everything but my biscuits!




My biscuits... at least I don't put any butter on them. Not like that helps much...



Shane grabbed the camera to take pictures of me... in action:



HELLO SCARY-Saturday-morning-no-makeup-greasy-hair-woman! I shot him a pissy-face.



And then this happened.



I have no clue what is going on in this picture. But breakfast was YUM.

Blurry Art

I have a tripod. I TRY very hard to take steady pictures. I just suck.

Enjoy.

U SUK BA_ _S

Cleaning out my sweet little Tully's backpack after his field trip last week, I found a crumpled up piece of paper from the little 'Hangman' gamepad that he had brought with him.

Here is what a typical 11-year-old's game of Hangman consists of:



Nice one, Tully...

Benefits of Living in the Desert

We bought our 24' round Intex pool in 2005... we used it Summer '05, Summer '06, but then it had to take a break for Summer '07, as I can't deal with it alone... it's my husband's project!

He hasn't even been back a week, and it's already set up!



May in Central New Mexico means temps in the high 70s and low 80s...



You sure as heck won't catch ME in the pool for another month or so. Brrrr.



But the boys are loving it, and have been swimming every day.



Lotsa swimming = kids that sleep really well and are HAPPY! Their dad being homw from Iraq is adding to the joy.



The skinny zero-bodyfat teenager is the first one out of the pool... lol...

He Bought Me Dirt For Mother's Day.

So I have this little dirt patch by my front door. When we bought our house, there was an evil bush planted here - one of those 'anti-burgler' bushes with huge thorns and not much esthetic appeal. I took it out over a year ago, and its been yuck-looking for a while...

Last month, I got the bright idea to put a little raised flower bed there... I bought
the wall-building bricks,



And a bunch of flowers,



But it pretty much stopped there, cock-blocked by school, kids, etc. When Shane got home and asked for Mother's Day gift ideas, I just asked for help with my 'project.' So on Sunday, we got to work! Yeay Shane!



The hardest part for me was the wall-building. These bricks are heavy and scratchy and Shane showed them who was boss:



I was then MORE than happy to take over, and I planted all of the poor flowers that had been waiting for ages in their little plastic pots...



TAH-DAH!!



I love it. And it was pretty much free for my husband, since I had already bought all of the shizzle... he did have to buck up for a couple of extra bags of dirt, since I hadn't bought enough, but he was totally okay with that...

Never Worked Harder...

Grades came out today... Wheeeeeeee!

I am such a grade monger.

I seriously busted my ass this semester... finally taking one of my needed sciences this summer (Biology+Lab)... I hope all of this ass-busting is worth it some day.

OHMyGoodness!

The latest is that my husband will be home on WEDNESDAY. Gulp!

And YES, he'll be home FOR GOOD! Swoooon!

I can't count all of my chickens yet, though... he could get held up somewhere along the line... we shall see!

Here are some piccys from the Osprey Combat Dining Out... we had a much better photographer at last year's Pave Low Combat Dining Out, but maybe we can remedy the situation next year...



The mannikin is some sort of training aid for when they do hoists...

And me with Samatha - don't ask me why I'm grabbing my own ass:



Samantha is a bit short and/or I'm a bit tall - I need to pose with people 5'8" and above only from now on... at least when I'm standing. I hate looking like a hunchback!

How I Know He's Still My Baby Boy

My son called me after school yesterday, wanting to be picked up instead of taking the bus... the bus was delayed, and he has a free pass to call me once in a while for pick-up when he just doesn't feel like taking the bus.

When I got to his school, he was sitting near a big pine tree. He hopped in the car, and we chatted about his day on the way home. He still talks to me about most things. He talks about less and less as he forges through teenager-dom, but he still talks to me...

This morning, as he was putting his water bottle in his school-bag, I heard him grumble about the contents of his bag... then I heard him fly out the door with a "Bye, Mom!"

When I came downstairs, this is what I found on my couch:



I hope he's never too old to collect pinecones...

Butterflies and Pink Hair

I try and blame the camera... it is a bit shit... but the photographer is pretty shit, too ;)



At least you can see some of the pink-ness.




Some last minute miniatures I made for the tail end of class:



They have real butterfly wings! Not really that exciting.



Ahh, well...

I am enjoying my Twittering still. Get on the bandwagon, peeps!! My Twitter name is VALENCY - pretty creative, huh? Give it a go. SERIOUSLY. It's worth it just to read the posts between Dooce and Blurb a.k.a. Mr. Dooce... funny stuff.