Crock Pot Take 1

Today I tried out my new Crock Pot! There's good news and not so good news...


The good news is:
1) The house didn't burn down
2) The dogs didn't find a way to get on the counter and get into the crock pot
3) The house smelled pretty good, and dinner was ready when we got home (well, it only took a little while to get the green beans and biscuits ready)
4) That brown stuff on the side of the pot was actually pretty easy to get off :)


The not so good news:
1) The chicken tasted kind of funny (I think it may have been the wine... perhaps I should have gone with a "cooking wine"... I'm not sure)
2) The chicken was kind of dry and chewy


But, all in all, I am excited about starting to use the Crock Pot! I just need to find a better recipe, I think.

Here's the recipe I used:
6 Boneless skinless Chicken Breast
Black Pepper to taste
1/2 cup Lemon juice
1/2 cup Garlic cloves, crushed
1 teaspoon Seasoned salt
1 teaspoon Poultry seasoning
2 dashes Tabasco
1 cup White wine

Generously pepper chicken breasts.

Combine with other ingredients in Crock Pot.

Set on low 7-8 hours or high 4-5 hours.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

Anyway, in other news, we had a good weekend. Rented a couple of movies (Hancock and No Reservations). Got some shopping done. Went to church. Jason washed the cars and aired up the tires :) What a sweetheart!

And now, because I can't think of anything else to write about... here's a random picture from my phone:

Only in Texas...

...can it be 81 degrees at lunchtime and be snowing by bedtime.


On Sunday, Jason took me downtown to Spaghetti Warehouse for my birthday dinner. We had planned on going on Saturday, but we were stuffed from lunch and cake! We had a great time and then walked around downtown for a while. Jason decided Sunday is his new favorite day to go out to eat because it's not as busy. Isn't he handsome :)


This is not what I wore to my birthday dinner:


We finished decorating the house. Here is our tree in all it's glory:


And we managed to get the lighting just right in the living room and get all the dogs to look at the camera at the same time! Good enough for Christmas cards :)


Tonight we found a pretty good place for tamales.


Even the tamale aficionado approves!


We also got all the aforementioned Christmas cards addressed and ready to mail!

What a great birthday!! :)

First, I found my hat! Then, since Jason was in the other room doing secret birthday stuff, I had to celebrate by myself. So, I ended up taking a million photos of myself on my phone in celebration (actually, the total ended up being 28, coincidentally). Hooray hat!!!


Then , my sweets came in and we took a few pics together:


Then we went over to my brother's house and got to celebrate with my parents and nephews and niece! Mom and Jason took most of the pictures over there, so I'll have to post some of those later. Plus, Jason got a few pics of the kids that are cute, and I don't want to post them without asking my bro and sis-in-law (they are getting back from their cruise tomorrow).

We had lunch, played "Ticket to Ride" (Jason won!!), ate cake and ice cream and enjoyed the visit!! Mom and Dad got me a crock-pot, which I am totally excited to start using!! Need to go look up some recipes...

Then, when we got home, I got to open the cards and gift that my sweets got me. The dogs got me a card and reminded me that I'm 193 in doggy years (which makes 28 seem REALLY young) :)

And Jason had ordered a customized jigsaw puzzle that we put together together (that makes sense, right?). I love it! It's one of my favorite pictures and I can't wait to get a frame for it and put it on a wall!!!


It was a great birthday! I love spending time with family!!

Here's a picture of Jason's new hair-do (I'm the stylist). I'm still not sure he likes it, but he's being a good sport about it. He's a cutie, isn't he?


That's pretty much it for the day. I was hoping for a Missouri win over Oklahoma, but pretty sure it wouldn't happen. I was prepared for the OU win, but it really does make me sick that they were ahead 55-21 with 5 min. left in the game and their starters were still in. Seriously? Classless. Something about being the first team with so many games over 60 points... which translates to the team with the least class of all time. Bleh. Hope the Gators win the National Championship!!

Oh, and I don't have to act my age yet, do I?

Has anyone seen my hat?

I made a hat a few years ago. I like wearing my hat in the winter-time. I can't find my hat. If you see it, can you tell it that my ears and my noggin miss it dearly?

Jason has been on a blogging spree lately. There have been 5 days in December and he has 4 posts. I feel like a slacker :-P

On the other hand, I am currently attempting to accomplish an un-slacker-ly goal of rowing (on the rowing machine) 100 km between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I'm currently up to 16 km and probably needing to kick it into high gear sometime soon.

I thought I had more to say, but my brain has apparently leaked and I can't remember what it was. This must be a symptom of almost being 28. That's tomorrow. I'm excited about going to see my parents and nephews and niece! My brother and sister-in-law are on a cruise, so we're going to have a party at their house :)

Gonna go play cards with my sweets, right now. I'm going to try to keep my blogging ideas in my head next time... maybe my hat will help... where is that thing?

It's December!

I haven't blogged in a while, so this will be a bit of a catch up post.

Thanksgiving was good and having an extra long weekend is always nice.

We ended up going to a high school playoff game on Friday night and got a look at the future UT quarterback. He was pretty good and it seems like he'll be a good fit for the offense. The fans we sat in front of were... interesting? No, annoying is probably a better word. Their team could do no wrong and the refs were "trying to give the game to the other team". As an impartial observer who was originally pulling for their team to win (they are closer to home and the team that has the future UT QB), I found myself hoping that the other team won just to spite the poor sports behind us. Does that make me a poor sport?

My high school alma mater won their game this weekend too and is one step closer to back-to-back state championships. Woohoo!

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Begin College Football Rant

And then there's college football... sigh. In a system where "every game counts" apparently games played on October 11th, 2008 don't, in fact, "count". Beating Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl almost always means a trip to the conference championship game... except this year, there was another good team in the Big 12 South. Now, ultimately it was up to Texas to finish out their gauntlet with a win in Lubbock. They almost did, but they didn't. It was a three-way tie, but the top two teams in the BCS rankings (and the only two who had a shot at the National Championship) were Texas and OU. And Texas beat OU 45-35 in the Red River Shootout.

Sooners like to say "but we beat Tech soundly and they beat Texas, so it doesn't matter that Texas beat us". Well, if you really wanted to use that logic, we've already beaten Florida (Texas > Arkansas > LSU > Ole Miss > Florida), but that's not how it works. Heck, if it was, all we need is for Florida to beat Alabama and we should be declared the National Champions.

But it is what it is. Now all the Longhorns can do is sit back and watch the "Can't Beat Texas Bowl" (otherwise known as the Big 12 Championship game) and hope that perhaps Missouri can pull the upset (not likely). And when that doesn't happen, put on a dominating performance in their BCS bowl game and then watch Florida stomp the Sooners.

I hope Colt McCoy comes back next year...

End College Football Rant
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The Sunday before Thanksgiving we got a new grill. The old one was in pretty bad shape. So while we should have been cleaning the house and getting ready for company, we were putting together the grill and cookin' up some burgers. But it was worth it, and it was fun, and we got the house clean anyway (because I have a sweet husband who helps out a lot!). :)





And yesterday we got the lights put up outside:



It's December!