Recipes & Holders

One of my pet peeves is when I use recipe cards. I thoroughly enjoy them, and I have my recipe box organized. What always angered me was having the recipe on the counter while cooking. Either the card would get ruined because food would splatter or drip onto it, or it would find some other magical way of being destroyed.

Welcome to my love of 3M products. I adore post-it notes and their hooks. I have one of their decorative hooks on the front door, and we use their hooks at Christmas-time as well. The adhesive holds like super glue, but it isn't permanent and releases completely when pulled off without damaging the walls. So, I figured there had to be something for my recipe cards....and there was.

Now, I can put the recipe on either side of my stove depending on what I'm making, AND I have stuck one over the main counter for when I prep there such as for pastries or the Crock-Pot.


Whoo-hoo!! Total success!!

End of a week!

Oh! Thank-fucking-GOD!! This week is almost over, and the entire nasty part of the busier than ever, dealing with assholes, never-ending crap actually has ended.  Well, at least for now.


Typically, Ken and I are able to deal with the crap that is dealt to us because we don't actually have to go through it in the same day.  Well, that all ended today.


Ken had to deal with his ex-wife at Family Court Services today in order to attempt to "reach a decision" in regards to Brian leaving California to live with his mother in Texas.  I will ask Ken to write in this blog in order to preserve the crappola that his ex stated during mediation in order to ensure that one day, Brian will be able to read it for himself - hopefully once he has come to the conclusion that he totally fucked himself. 


In the meantime, it's been very difficult for Ken to hear that his last son also doesn't want anything to really do with him because of the bullshit their mother fed them.  I hate that I was used as the scapegoat for part of it, but after being raised with my parents, it's nothing new to me. What's unbelievable to me is Brian's willingness to give up a tuition-free college education for life because he cannot live with his father and his mother's happiness is more important.  I would love to smack the kid in the forehead.


I got to spend the day being grilled during a deposition regarding my wrongful termination case against two former employers.  I was as prepared as I could be for the first one, and I did fairly well, but the second one completely blindsided me - I had no idea of the personal and professional attacks that were going to be thrown my way.  Ugh! 


The headache Ken and I both had by evening just sucked.  Add to that, Brian came to spend "extra" time with us just increased the amount of crap that we were stuck dealing with.  Fuck! Brian's holier-than-thou attitude is stifling, and he "demanded" that Ken watch some stupid video with him as well as "hear him out" about how our life is just not appropriate.  My favorite part was Brian attempting to prove to Ken why he refused to compromise himself or his beliefs by living with us, but he was demanding that Ken compromise his beliefs to acknowledge that Brian was totally right.


I managed to pull myself together in order to make supper.  I wanted to keep things simple, and since Ken has made a kick-ass smoked tri-tip last night, he really wanted some more of it tonight.  When we went to MCAS Barstow to renew the tags for the vehicles yesterday, we stopped at the Commissary to do our grocery shopping.  I picked up some really fresh Romaine lettuce, Spring lettuce, and Spinach along with some crumbled Feta and Blue Cheese.  Added from home was the dried cranberries and walnuts with some of the meat and a Lite Raspberry Vinaigrette dressing.  It was AMAZING!!!!  Ken was complete satisfied with his supper, and I was really happy to be able to create such a wonderful salad for us to enjoy.  Even Taylor has some of the salad and enjoyed herself.

Soooooo tasty!!!  I am so glad that I am finally learning how to make some delightful dishes!!

Sunday Breakfast and Packing

It is the day before our Del Mar Summer Beach Getaway! I cannot begin to express my happiness that this day has arrived, and I will be even more excited tomorrow as we take off. Ken and I are both looking forward to some relaxation time as the girls splash and play in the water.


To prepare for the trip, I wanted to go through the refrigerator and make sure that all things perishable within a week were consumed.  The girls didn't see a problem with that since Mama has to cook some crepes to use the mascarpone cheese and plain yogurt.  I was very excited to use Dave's homemade Red Currant Jam in the filling and as the sauce (we still have the Black Currant jam). The girls weren't sure about the jam since it was "different" but since it came from Dave's, they all figured it would be OK.


In order to prepare for the crepes, I used two of the eggs that Dave sent home with us as well.  They were green eggs, so I had the girls look at them before I used them. The green was very light, but they were all excited.  Jordan did ask the question, "Are we having green ham with it too?!" You would never know from the picture, but it was 80* and Jordan was wearing her sweatshirt for some reason.

I barely had enough milk to use for the crepes, but I made it work (hate when the girls are on Break - all of the food disappears very quickly!). 


Breakfast was finally ready, and everyone had a great time with it.  Since we had a full quart of heavy whipping cream, I made sure that the girls got a plethora of whipped cream on their crepes.

Jordan didn't want to cut her food before eating it, so she had a messy face.  Ken wanted a picture to show Dave that the girls LOVED his eggs and currants.  


After breakfast, I had to RUSH to my computer because tickets went on sale today for the musical, The Book of Mormon.  I have been wanting to see this since I heard about the opening in New York.  

I had really wanted to get a bunch of people together to go on the same day and time, but it just didn't work out that way.  Ken and I have tickets for Sunday, September 16th, which should work out really well since the show is at 1300.  Since it won so many awards, it was almost impossible to get tickets.  It took me 4 tries on two different computers all at the same time to get the tickets we did.  On top of that, the "best available" was in the Mezzanine, but we're in the third row, so we should be OK to see it.  If we really like it, Ken and I figured we would try the box office for another set of tickets. 


While I was fighting with Ticketmaster for the play, the girls were playing on the XBox. Suddenly, I hear Jordan scream, "Taylor! Pause the game NOW! I have to poop!!" Then I saw her running to the bathroom and the door was slammed.  


After a while, Taylor yells down the hallway, "Jordan, hurry up! We want to play."  


Jordan screams from the bathroom, "Give me a minute, Jeez! This isn't easy!"


Taylor waited a few more minutes and then yelled again at Jordan to hurry.  Jordan answered this time with, "Hey! This isn't pleasant in here. Give me time!"


I shared the conversation with Ken who immediately started snorting he was laughing so hard. 


Ken and I spent time getting our clothes ready to be packed up, and then we started putting things together in the living room to pack for the trip.  I took a break in order to do some stitching and calm down a little bit - dealing with girls and Ken was a bit stressful especially since Ken just clued in this morning that Father's Day and my birthday is in one week from today.  He finally figured out that we should plan the weekend, and THEN he remembered that we will be gone all week.  Whoops!


I laughed it off rather than getting stressed and walked into my office where I zoned out for a bit with Netflix and my stitching. It was a good call.  

Damn Bacon!

So, I was hoping to be the great wife this morning and have breakfast going for Ken.  Breakfast burritos were on the menu, so I got everything out in preparation for cooking and started the bacon.


I was chatting with Ken about the events for the day; the different options that we were looking at.  He was so excited that rather than to go the Gun Club, I suggested that we head to the BLM land in order to test some of the 20 gauge shot that he made for me.  As he headed towards the bedroom to get showered, I started putting the bacon grease into the container.  I picked it up and was going to put it back into the refrigerator.  Unfortunately, the container was slippery and I lost my hold on it. It hit the counter and my brain REFUSED to pay attention to me.  


For those of us who are old, you will remember Schoolhouse Rock! Telegraph Line:





The second example was appropriate for me today.  I KNEW that the grease was hot, but my instincts kicked in and I didn't want the mess.  By the time the information got to my hands, it was too late - I got burned on both hands!  Ugh!  Ken was amazing.  I bolted for the sink and got my hands under the water while he cleaned up so neither of us would slip.  Then, he spent the next hour doting on me to make sure that there were no blisters.  He even went and got the non-stick gauze so we could wrap up my hands to try and keep them from getting worse.


So, rather than heading to empty some shells, I spent the day in my jammies with my hands looking like this:

I couldn't hold anything, so no stitching, no shooting, no nothing!  I managed to use the remote control, so I caught up on the recorded TV shows.  


By supper time, I was able to take a shower. There are no blisters - Thank God!  The heat from the shower didn't hurt too badly, so I tried cooking again.  The menu for tonight was Chicken Cordon Bleu with rice.  Yum!


And, no - I didn't burn myself on the stove again!