Not Just A Quote

I came across this during my Pinterest browsing. It's so great. I needed to hear it.

Morning Commute

My hubby was transferred to work in a refinery a looong ways away, and today is Day One of him commuting almost 3 hours every day. He woke up at 4am and got ready to head out (work starts at 7am) and I couldn't help feeling sorry for him. I'm very grateful for his sacrifice to drive out there and back every day in order to support us and feel blessed to have married such a dedicated, hard-working guy. I plan to take this opportunity to double the efforts on my side and improve my "wifey-homemaking" skills, starting with making a better effort at cooking dinner. Philip will probably arrive home around 7:30pm, work on homework for an hour-ish, and then be in bed by 9pm every day for the next 4 months.

Sigh.... it's gonna be a long fall. 

1.5 hours there, and 1.5 hours back home.
Maybe we should just move to San Antonio. 

Vessel Monitoring System

For no good reason our boss asked Dale to make a YouTube video promoting a new VMS (vessel monitoring system) that we don't have yet, but will probably purchase at a discount rate from the company and then resell at a higher price. Dale's getting pretty annoyed with our boss' weird antics (this is a useless project) and made this video to send to him. Hopefully he gets the point... this isn't happening.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7q5FTmZz0gk&feature=youtu.be

At 1:05 in the video you can see me laughing hysterically over Dale's right shoulder.
Today was a good day.

Cheez-Its Chicken

So I think I've almost perfected my Cheez-Its Chicken recipe. I saw an idea of it on Pinterest long ago but I only browsed through the pictures and didn't really read the ingredients list. That's nothing new, this is the same method I use for everything I cook. It's like art. To me, following a step-by-step recipe is much like a color-by-numbers activity... someone else's creation and not your own. Making dinner last week I finally decided to record what I do since I was sure it would turn out delicious. I was not disappointed.

Ingredients: 5 boneless chicken breasts, 1 egg, cayenne pepper, 2 cups of Cheez-Its, 1 package of cream cheese, 1 bag of shredded cheese (any kind you'd like).

Does this chicken look a little strange? That's because I had it marinating in a lime juice and cayenne pepper mixture for an entire day beforehand. Yum. I highly recommend it. 

Step Fun. I mean, Step One: Take your two cups of cheez-its, put them in a zip-lock bag, and crush them to a powder. Finer = better. 

Step Two: Beat egg and add Cayenne pepper to the mix if desired. I like my spices :)

Step Three: Microwave the cream cheese to soften it. Do it in increments of 30 seconds. 

Step Four: Once cream cheese is soft and malleable, add in the shredded cheese and mix it up. It will turn into a thick, doughy ball of stickiness. If this is too challenging, add a small quantity of melted butter or olive oil to soften, or microwave for another 30 seconds. 

Step Five: Take chicken breasts and split open about 3/4 of the way. It helps to press down with flat hand and come down to eye level with the chicken, that way you make sure to cut it correctly. 

It should look something like this. Like open wings. 

Ready for the messy part? 

Step Six: Dip chicken into egg mixture. Make sure its completely coated all around. 

Step Seven: Coat thoroughly with Cheez-It crumbs on both sides. You will get it all over your fingers, its inevitable. 

This is a messy job. 

Step Eight: Be Prepared. Take a baking sheet, cover with aluminum foil, and spray with cooking spray. 

Step Nine: Spoon cream cheese mixture into chicken. I was a little too generous with mine and it oozed out while baking, so maybe use about a good sized spoon-full. Fold it well into the chicken. 

Step Ten: I use two toothpicks per chicken breast to keep the folds in place and the insides from spilling out during the baking time. It's easy to pull them out afterwards. Arrange (hopefully neater than I did) onto baking sheet. Cook in oven at 350 deg F for about 45 minutes. 

I should have mentioned... this makes for twice the amount of cream cheese stuff than what you need. I always spoon my leftovers into a zip lock and use them next time... this is a weekly meal at our house so it never lasts longer than that.

Regretfully, we were too excited/famished by the time I finished this meal to stop and photograph our food before we ate it. I can attest that it is delicious, simple to make, and goes with pretty much any side you can think of. Hope you like it!
Hubby's Quote: Why are you giving recipe secrets to everyone out there? We are going to open a restaurant with this! (he says that every time... its that good)

Washing 'Chine

I think I broke our old washing machine the other day...? I had a small blanket and 4 pillowcases in there (not even half full) and halfway through the rinse cycle it started making very loud banging noises. I Googled and YouTubed possible problems and fixes and never came up with anything. Philip tried taking it apart and checking for broken springs or couplings and there wasn't anything wrong with those either.
We ended up at Best Buy on Saturday and picked out this one here. It's a high efficiency washer so it doesn't have that rotator thing in the middle.
So far I love it. It adjusts the water level according to how much stuff is in there, and yesterday I easily fit a fluffy king-size comforter in there without a problem. It also plays a rather melodic tune to let us know it's done washing stuff. Only negative aspect so far: it locks the lid as soon as you hit Start, so I have to make sure to hunt down those socks under the bed before I start a cycle.
Also, off to the side you can kind of see my growing stockpile of laundry detergent. (I'm addicted to buying laundry detergent. Don't ask) The shelves they're sitting on I purchased from Walmart ($13!) out of necessity because their old shelf (seen above the WD) couldn't take the strain any longer.

Closet Clear-Out

I somehow ended up with some extra money this week (never happens) and had a particularly boring day at work. I've been in a shopping mood lately so I headed over to Ross looking for anything which might steer me away from the usual "jeans and a T-shirt" attire. This is what I found:

Not a very impressive photograph, but that's because it wasn't meant to illustrate anything special. Total price was $45 (I shop clearance) and now I have dress slacks, a yellow blouse (I didn't own anything yellow previously), some cute cutoff jeans, summery-looking wedges (its still hot around here) and a gorgeous lace maxi dress that I purchased without even trying on, it was so pretty.

I had previously committed to a rule of "one thing in, two things out" and followed it. The following is a picture of the stuff I dug out of my closet and put into a "For Goodwill" box. For every new item that went in, two old items came out.

What came back out were 3 jeans, 1 white capris, 4 shirts, 2 skirts (one of them NEVER worn), 1 pair of black pumps that I never mastered walking around in (worn ONCE), and 1 pair of black suede mid-thigh boots that I couldn't ever figure out how to wear gracefully. I doubled the amount of the shirts coming out since I have too many. 12 pieces of clothing later.... my closet looks exactly the same. 

Maybe I just need to keep on buying clothes.... ;)

Peanut Butter Oreo Cookies

Today Dale came back from a shopping trip to HEB with nothing but coffee and a package of Peanut Butter Oreo Cookies. His direct quote was

Don't you dare try those, they're dangerous!

Nobody heeded his advice.

New to Scripture Marking

Two weeks ago the YSA started a new institute course on The Book of Mormon. Institute has become so ingrained in my weekly routine over the past 4 years that I didn't even realize I'm no longer required to attend since I graduated two semesters ago. Our current missionary couple, the Petersens, didn't seem to mind the attendance of a married couple, so we showed up anyway.
I looked at this fresh start as an opportunity to find a good method for marking my scriptures since I've been wanting to purchase a new set but don't want to randomly start coloring all over it. I spent some time reading other peoples' own methods and didn't quite agree with any. Many used as many as 10 or 15 colors to mark very detailed subjects, and it almost felt like I would be doing a word search across an entire book.
The last thing I wanted was something like "how many times can you find a mention of Jesus Christ" because then my attention would be just on that and not on properly reading the scriptures. After some thought I started to make my own little chart and this is what I came up with:

• Patriarchal Blessing: Blue. Anything that relates to promises given in my patriarchal blessing or that remind me of something mentioned in there would be outlined in blue. 
• Personal Revelation: Green. Many times I receive thoughts that have absolutely nothing to do with the lesson at hand, but on how to deal with current issues or problems that need solving. When this happens, I mark the scripture in green and write my "message" on a green post it and leave it on the page. It's a great method for me because I never remember anything unless I write it down. 
• One-Verse Wonders: Orange. There seemed to be a need for this particular reference because some scriptures just hit home right away, and they don't always fall into any other category besides snapping me to attention. 
• Scripture Mastery: Red. This choice was made for me about 8 years ago when I started seminary. The bright red color on a page always meant there was a scripture mastery on there, and it was so ingrained into me that Red = To Memorize that it's now impossible to change it. This is a good opportunity to go back and re-learned whatever I might have forgotten. 
• Golden Promises: Yellow. Nothing motivates me more into action than the promise of a prize... this applies to life in general. I thought it would be a good idea to point out these scriptures and actually get me going. 
• Did You Know?: Purple. This one is not actually listed in my chart because I didn't know I'd be using a 6th color until about 15 minutes into my first institute lesson. It quickly became apparent that it had to be put to good use and mark facts that I had previously been ignorant to. 
• Questions: Pencil. My thought process: once the question has been answered I can go back and erase. 
• Cross References - Pen. My thought process: Cross-references will remain the same forever, so might as well mark the ones I find and make life easier. 

So far I am quite pleased with my method because it makes scripture marking a lot more personal. If several people would apply it, everyone's scriptures would look completely different. I'm working hard to finish the entire Book of Mormon with this system, and when I do I'll treat myself to a new scripture set and start all over again! 

CVS shopping trip 9/8

Today I did a CVS shopping trip and was so pleased with the results that I tacked the receipt up on the wall for a few hours.  My total was supposed to be $54.38 and all I paid out of pocket was $1.66 after coupons and Extra Bucks. I was amazed that I somehow ended paying less than the price of the newspaper ($2) I was there to buy. All in all, one of my best purchases, plus I walked away with $14 in Extra Bucks (store credits) for next time! 

I now have: 3 bottles of Purex laundry detergent, 2 Bengay tubes, 3 Carmex lip balms, 3 packets of mini Hershey's, 2 Colgate Total toothpastes, and 1 Softsoap hand soap. Yay for stockpiling!