Mandy and Jace

So, I know I should have done this at the beginning of the year but honestly I really wasn’t thinking about it then. I have lots of goals I want to reach by the end of the year and I have come to the realization that if I don’t tell someone about them, I won’t get them done. I have already conquered one goal but the rest I haven’t even thought about yet. So here is a list of my goals for this year.

Read more books
Learn to drive a standard transmission
Bake more breads
Learn to shoot (and look like Angelina Jolie doing it)
Learn photoshop
Climb the alpine tower at Lone Tree
Eat more candlelit dinners
Find a piece of seafood that I can stand to eat

I’ll post my achievements as I get them done through out the year. I’d love to know what your goals are, and if you don’t have them I encourage you to get a piece of paper out and write some down. You never know what you can do until you try and the pride that comes with conquering your goals is priceless.

We are back at Monday and it is complete chaos around our house. Boxes everywhere and there is no organization whatsoever (hint, hint). My organizational OCD is on overload right now and I think my brain may explode at any minute. Other than that everything is great!

We are taking turns cooking this week. You can tell who’s making what by just reading the plan. Naturally, my dish is the easy quesadillas and Jace’s is the harder looking one. I’m ok with that though, I’m just happy he’s willing to cook for me and he’s great at it.

Here’s this weeks meal plan.
Tonight: grilled chicken and pineapple quesadillas
Tuesday: chicken paella
Wednesday: probably leftovers
Thursday: take out after practice
Friday: date night!

Lately, I have become a big fan of soups. I usually eat some kind of soup for lunch at least twice a week, sometimes three or four times. I found that soups are very low in calories and they fill you up more than just a salad. While I am fine with just chicken noodle, when I have time, I like to take my Saturday afternoon to let a big pot simmer on the stove, then eat it through the week. It also makes the house smell amazing!

Chicken tortilla soup
1 red bell pepper, julienned
1/2 onion, julienned
1- 1 1/2 cartons chicken broth
1 can diced tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato paste
Velveeta cheese
Salt, pepper and fajita seasoning to taste
chicken, cooked and shredded (optional)

Heat a Dutch oven or pot to medium high heat. Cook the onions and peppers down until very soft. Pour in tomatoes, a carton of chicken broth, and the tomato paste.

Cook for several hours and add more chicken broth as needed. Using a emersion blender or regular blender, blend until smooth.

At the end of cooking put in little bits of velveeta to the desired thickness and taste and add chicken.

I hate to admit this but I hate thunderstorms. I don’t know why but the mere mention of a thunderstorm in the area makes me nauseous. I think I’ve figured out what makes them so scary. Tornadoes. I am terrified of tornadoes. The funny thing is I remember exactly what started my fear. When I was in 2nd grade my teacher thought it would be a fabulous idea to call in a local weatherman to talk about tornadoes. He showed us this horrifying video that showed all the damage they cause. He gave death statistics and all, TO 2ND GRADERS! From then on I have these visions of little me getting carried off by a huge tornado and being thrown into another county or I see a photo of me with my beautiful Louboutins sticking out of my head (at least the red sole would match the blood). If I could just remember who the weatherman was I swear they would be getting a nasty letter from me.

So, Friday I went home for lunch and happily turned on the Private Practice episode that was on the DVR and ate lunch. All of a sudden the clouds opened up and God said “I hate you, Alfalfa”. Not really, I just had to throw that in there; I looked on Facebook and saw people talking about tornadoes in the area. Trying to be calm I turned on the TV and saw, lo and behold, they were heading straight for me, and I was alone. Panic hit and I immediately called Jace at work, balling and squealing. He told me to go in our downstairs bathroom and wait it out. SURE! I’ll do that! Just go have a seat and wait, cause that’s doable. I grab every pillow on the couch and our duvet and run into the bathroom. After a couple of seconds just sitting there I decide that maybe I should have some other things in there, you know, JUST IN CASE I DIE.

So, a normal person would grab a flash light, water, food, or even a radio. Not me, of all things the only thing I could think of was the Mac and my iPhone. Apparently my subconscious wants everyone to know that I’m a Mac and not a pc. Oh and the cat, I tried to get her in there but she was preoccupied and couldn’t care less if I died or not. Anyway, after sitting there for a while I emerge from the bathroom and see that everything was OK. After the scare, I had my brother come get me and I sat at mom’s house until the flood of the century was over. Turns out that Midland still doesn’t have good drainage. Huh. Maybe we should do something a couple of years ago to prevent cars floating away in Scarborough draw? Nah, that’s too much work.

Needless to say I’m alive and breathing. I’m sure if there was an actual tornado I would die of a heart attack before the tornado gets me. For the out of towners, here are some of the photos of the flood.

I don’t have much of a meal plan this week because we are cramming a million and one things into the next two weeks. Despite the stress though, we will be making Jambalaya again and I will definitely put the recipe up. It was a big hit last time we made it, and we had tons of leftovers that were even better a couple days later. Here’s the plan.

Tonight: slow cooker drip beef sandwiches
Tuesday: Jambalaya
Wednesday: dinner at the church
Thursday: take out after practice
Friday: date night!

Happy eating!