Black Belt Living

So, Where Are You?

Today I'm throwing my blog over to my readers. I challenge everybody to take a second or two to leave me a comment and let me know where you're from and what brought you here. Just for today, please don't go away without saying hello! If you have your own blog or website, please add a link and I'll come and visit you this weekend. Hopefully some other people will too.

You get to hear a lot about me, so just for today I'd like to hear more about you. 

And for my regular commenters, you're not excused.  

Have a great weekend!  In fact, you can tell me about your weekend plans as well. Now click on that link right below here.  Thanks!

American Idle

Tuesday night the sixth graders performed their annual Sixth Grade Play. This year's performance was "American Idle", which was a parody of American Idol, only the judges toured the country looking for America's Biggest Slacker. 

It was actually a bit controversial, as a handful of parents didn't like the theme. Evidently, they felt that such a theme was beneath their overachieving little darlings and didn't set a good example for the youth of today.  Give me a break. It's a parody, people!  I swear some people have nothing in the sense of humor department and have no ability whatsoever to poke fun at themselves in any way. 

Shannon scored one of the lead roles, as Handy Jackson....the slacker high school janitor judge. She did a great job, but she was afraid that people would think that she didn't know her lines, because so many of her lines included phrases like "Uhhhh......", "Yo Dawg....." and "Dude.......". Here she is with "Brian Seacrest" (who really did a great job as well!).

All of the kids did really great and pulled it together in the end, despite people not atttending rehearsals, illness, and all sorts of other problems. It was really funny. Some of the kids in her class have some real comedic and acting talent, for sure!

I'd include more photos, but I've been having trouble with the lovely little spinning color wheel on my Mac these days, and it's taking me forever to edit photos.  I guess I need to move some files around this weekend. The lighting was really rough in the auditorium too, so they're not the greatest. Oh well!

I can't believe (okay, I think I'm in total denial!) that there is only three days of school left. Yes, their last day is Monday, how weird is that? Shannon doesn't seem that excited about moving over from the elementary school to the junior high school, but I bet that will change once August rolls around. The way this year is flying by, it'll be time for school to start before you know it. 

So that's basically a wrap on grade school....not much more to do but attend the goodbye breakfast on Monday and then the kids turn into America's Biggest Slackers for about eleven weeks. I wish I could do that!

Recipe Tuesday on Wednesday - Hot Chicken Salad

This is one of my mom's recipes that I remember eating as a kid, and it's just as good today as it was back then! I've lightened up the recipe quite a bit, and you don't miss those fat grams one bit!

Mom's Hot Chicken Salad

 

• 2 C diced cooked chicken
• 1 can reduced fat cream of chicken soup
• 3/4 C reduced fat mayonnaise
• 1 C diced celery
• 1 C cooked brown rice (white is fine too)
• 2 tsp minced onion
• 1 T fresh lemon juice
• 1 chopped hard boiled eggs
• fresh ground black pepper
• 1 1/2 C croutons, crushed
• slivered almonds

Mix all ingredients, except croutons and almonds, and place in baking dish sprayed with cooking spray. Sprinkle on crushed croutons and slivered almonds. Spray the top with a bit of cooking spray. Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.

I know this sounds really simple, but believe me, it's really really good! There's something about the lemon juice in there that really makes it a bit different. 

Hope you're having a good Wednesday. Yesterday really felt like Monday and isn't it nice that it's wasn't. This week is going to fly by! Last night was the Sixth Grade Play and Shannon had a big role and did great. Pics up about that tomorrow!

As for tonight, Go Red Wings!

Hope in the Garden Springs Eternal

I was talking to a friend on the phone last night. She asked me what I had been doing all weekend, and I told her that we worked basically all weekend finishing up our lawn and garden chores. We put in literally hours and hours of work this year getting the place all shaped up. When she called me a "gardening goddess", I nearly spit out my Crystal Light. 

The truth is, I detest gardening, and it gets worse every year. I only do it because everybody else in my neighborhood seems to love it (or pays somebody else to do it for them) and I don't want my yard to look like The Clampett's yard. We all have those neighbors, you know the ones I'm talking about. I would rather do my gardening work than be that neighbor. It's all about priorities, of course. 

This time of year it's not so bad. The lure of the lovely plants at the garden store suck me in with their crazy color and bug free foliage. I don't even mind planting much. It is nice to see some color in the yard after the long winter season.  And I really love my roses and peonies, they are spectacular every year, and I don't need to do much to get them that way. 

Sadly, it's all down hill from there.  My roses, have only been blooming for about two weeks, and the spider mites are attacking them already.  My pink vinca plants have been eaten down to nothing already by some kind of bug. Grrrr.  Clay soil, blazing hot summers with no rain, spider mites, japanese beetles, tomato worms, critters of all kinds, and the damn deer have really put me off on the joy of plant care. I don't even bother with hosta or impatiens anymore. They're just deer snacks. Two years ago, when it was super dry, the deer even ate my roses, big nasty hairy thorns and all. They didn't care. 

For several years, I've been trying to grow one solitary tomato plant. I LOVE fresh tomatoes, but evidently, the deer, the squirrels, and the raccoons like them even more than I do, and they help themselves. When I try to plant a tomato in the front (where it's sun 90% of the time), I fight a losing battle with critter control and blazing heat. In the back, I get no sun. Here's last year's spectacular effort:

That's pathetic, isn't it.  Yeah, it's okay. Go ahead and laugh.

But hope does spring eternal, right? Every May I get all excited, thinking that this might be the year I really get a decent tomato. This year I'm trying the Topsy Turvy Tomato growers and hanging them off the deck in the back. They don't get a great amount of sun, but they won't get a great amount of critters either. So we'll see how it goes. 

Not too long ago we had a world-renowned speaker in at ACME, and he was big on daily, positive affirmations. So I was thinking that maybe I'm just too negative about gardening.  Maybe instead of my "I hate gardening" point of view, I should wake up every day, look in the mirror and say, "I am a great gardener!  I will have lovely tomatoes this year! I have a green thumb! Deer and tomato worms are God's creatures and they deserve love too!". 

Maybe if I keep saying these, I'll learn to believe it.  In the meantime, I'll continue to water, water, water; weed, weed, weed; and most likely gripe, gripe, gripe. I hate gardening. 

Paella Again and the Holiday Weekend Agenda

A few weeks ago, I posted about taking photos for my friends Carrie and Maria who have started their own authentic paella catering business.  Well, the website is up now, so please go and check it out!

Maria's Paella

Next Friday we'll be hosting our own dinner party featuring all of this yummy goodness. I hope the weather cooperates, it's going to be GREAT! It seems like everybody's social lives revolve around food at this time of year, doesn't it? Barbecues, graduation parties, etc.

Speaking of barbecues, we're having a BBQ at ACME today ~ we're all looking forward to that!

Busy and fun day today too. When I get home from the office (Friday is my early day), we're getting our carpets cleaned. I know that doesn't sound sexy or fun, but believe me when you have light colored carpet and a black dog, it's worth celebrating. Just sayin'.

Later in the day we're going to see our friend's son play in his final lacrosse game, then coming home to watch our Detroit Red Wings outwit, outplay, and outlast their Chicago Black Hawks.

The rest of the long holiday weekend will include powerwashing the deck and the outside windows, finishing up my planting and the last of the gardening (have a few pots to do, and need to feed the roses and tomatoes), singing on Sunday, and just hanging out and having fun with the family.

Do you have any fun plans for the holiday weekend?

No More Heavy Metal

My computer isn't behaving today. It me took nearly 20 minutes to open Photoshop this morning. I think I need to clean up some files this weekend.  It's been nearly 30 minutes since I starting my attempt to write today's blog, so I'm just going to cut to the chase.

Shannon got her braces off on Tuesday! It seems like yesterday that she got them on. They came off six months early because she's been very diligent with caring for them, and her teeth moved really quickly. Time goes fast, doesn't it?

Here's the day she got them on:

And here are the shots from Tuesday:

Looking good, don't you think?  She's sure been enjoying some former no-nos too, like gum, caramels and corn on the cob!

So what did you think of Idol last night?  Great show for sure! I'm bummed that my glam man didn't win, but Kris Allen is great, so it's all good! I guess I should have voted, but I wasn't home.  I can see Adam Lambert being the new front guy for Kiss. That was awesome!

Is it the weekend yet?

Snoozing.......

ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz.........

Okay. This is how my evening went down last night. 

- at UC for our grad student's Capstone presentation
- home to watch hockey, which went into overtime (Wings win - yay!)
- caught the end of Dancing With the Stars Finale
- watched American Idol finale

I normally write my blog posts around 6am, but I'm sleeping in this morning (yeah, I'm writing this last night at about 11:15pm). You can understand, right?  Come next month, television and sports will be boring and I'll be writing here every day and (hopefully not) boring you to tears every day!

Did you watch American Idol last night? What about Dancing With the Stars? Are you happy that Shawn won? I am, she's a cutie and really stepped it up at the end when it counted.  And what about Idol? I love both guys, but I stick by my glam and glittery guyliner guy Adam to take it all.  What about you?

Will you hit the snooze bar for me?  Pretty Please?  

Recipe Tuesday - Mouthwatering Blueberry Muffins

Today's Recipe Tuesday has been contributed by fellow digital scrapper, graphic designer, and new friend Angela. Be sure to stop by her blog and tell her how much you love her delicious blueberry muffins! She was Tweeting about them yesterday, so I asked her if she'd like to contribute and she agreed. Thanks Angela :-)

Here they are!

Angela's Mouthwatering Blueberry Muffins

Muffins:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/3 cup olive oil

1 egg

1/3 cup milk 

1 cup fresh blueberries

Topping:

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup butter, cubed

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven at 400 degrees. Line muffin pan with muffin liners or grease the pan. 

You can combine all ingredients by hand or by machine. I used my KitchenAid Mixer for this. 

Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup white/brown sugar combo, salt and baking powder. Place olive oil into a 1 cup measuring cup; add the egg and enough milk to fill the cup. Mix this with flour mixture. Add blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture. 

Topping: mix all ingredients by hand and top the filled muffin cups with the topping before baking. The topping should be pieces of butter not smooth.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. If using a gas convection oven which is what I used, I baked my muffins for 20 minutes and they were perfect!

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

A big thanks to Angela for playing along with me this morning. I can't wait to try these out on my own family. Mmmmmmm. Be sure to stop by and say hi to Angela on her blog or on Twitter!  

Today is a milestone day. S gets her braces off today! I really have forgotten what she looks like without all that metal in her mouth. Her teeth have corrected quickly and since she's taken such good care of her braces, they're coming off almost six months early.  More on that later this week!

Have a good one!

Monday Already!

Wow, where does the time go? It seemed like just a few minutes ago that it was Friday afternoon...in January!  

Sorry to have missed a few days last week, we were pretty darned busy with different things going on, and it just felt like a good time to take a few days off. How quickly I forgot how much taxi-driving I have to do with a kid on crutches (they're gone now, yay!).  Besides, I didn't get my photos edited from my trip to Salt Lake City. I still don't have them done. I really tried to work on them while watching the Red Wings hockey game yesterday, but I've come to the conclusion that there are just certain times where multitasking does not work, and while watching the NHL playoffs is one of them!

I do have a few done, however, and I'll give you a sneak peek. Keep in mind that I took my baby camera, so these were all done with a point-and-shoot. Overall, I am thrilled with them:

Being a choir geek and all, I think my all time favorite part of my trip was visiting the Mormon Tabernacle, where the world's best choir sings and rehearses. I'm still amazed that the choir members are for the most part composed of local residents, just like our choir. Amazing. 

A huge thanks and hug to April and Gwen for the sensational tour of downtown Salt Lake City and the drive into the foothills at night to look down upon the Salt Lake Valley. If only I had my tripod up there! They were great hostesses and tour guides and I know for sure that it's a place that I could move to, without question.  Maybe someday! I promise to get links to more pics up this week.

Last Wednesday was my birthday and we sure had a blast!  It was a rainy day, but it really didn't matter. ACME gives us a half day off for our birthdays, so I took the morning off (after staying up way too late to watch the Red Wings lose last Tuesday night in Anaheim), then had lunch with a friend, went to the office for a few hours, then to the Cyclones hockey game at night. It was fun to have so many family members and friends all attending. Sadly, all of our enthusiasm wasn't enough and the Clones lost that game and the next, and now their season is over. It was one of the most fun birthdays ever, so I want to thank everybody for their gifts and good wishes. I need to get thank yous out this week for sure!  

That's about it for now, I'm running late again, but I promise to be back every day this week. No hiding! Tomorrow I'll have another recipe, and later this week, I'll be adding my thoughts on yet another gardening season of frustration.

Happy Monday!

Recipe Tuesday - Italian Stallion Chili

As promised, here is the winning chili recipe from last week's Chili Cook-off at work!  This stuff is seriously good. Enjoy!

Italian Stallion Chili

2 TBSP. VEGETABLE OIL
1 LB. LEAN GROUND BEEF
1 LB. GROUND PORK
2 LARGE ONIONS, FINELY CHOPPED
5 CLOVES GARLIC, MINCED
1 ½  TBSP. CUMIN SEEDS
1 ½ TBSP. CRACKED BLACK PEPPERCORNS
1 ½ TBSP. CHILI POWDER
1 TSP. SALT
½ TSP. GROUND ALLSPICE
½ TSP. CAYENNE PEPPER
2 TSP. UNSWEETENED COCOA POWDER
1 TBSP. WORCESTERSHIRE SAUCE
1 Lg Can TOMATO PASTE
2 Cans TOMATO SAUCE
1+ CUP CONDENSED BEEF BROTH (UNDILUTED)
1 CANS (10-oz./284 mL) CORN KERNELS, DRAINED
1 CAN (19-oz/540 mL) RED KIDNEY BEANS, DRAINED AND RINSED
1 CUP PIMENTO-STUFFED OLIVES, THINLY SLICED
GREEN BELL PEPPER, CUT INTO 1/2-INCH CUBES
RED BELL PEPPER, CUT INTO 1/2-INCH CUBES
HOT PEPPER SAUCE, TAPATIO

In a skillet, heat 1tsp oil over medium high heat. Add beef and pork and cook, stirring and breaking up meat with a spoon until the meat is no longer pink. Drain off liquid and transfer to a slow cooker.

Reduce heat to medium and heat remaining oil in the pan. Add onions and cook until softened. Add garlic, cumin seeds, pepper, salt, allspice, and cayenne and cook, stirring for one minute. Add cocoa and stir well. Stir in Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, tomato sauce, and beef broth. Bring to a boil. Add to the slow cooker, along with corn and beans and stir to combine. 

Cover and cook on low for 8 to 10 hours, or on high for 4 to 5 hours.Add olives, and remaining bell peppers to the slow cooker and stir well. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.  Add Tapatio pepper sauce if you prefer a spicier chili.