Bring on the Rachel Ray!

So maybe I'm a stealer of ideas I'm not sure but Julie and Julia has inspired me to learn how to cook so I chose to do Rachel Ray recipes. My goal is to make three recipes a week.

To start this week I chose Everything Jambalaya with White Rice, Orange Bourban Chicken, and Chicken Chorizo and Tortilla Soup. Yesterday I went to Shane's parents house because Jackie was out of town helping grandma since grandpa's death. I decided to start with the Jambalaya. I guess I've spent a fair amount of time in Jackie's kitchen because I know where everything is lol. Jambalaya was WAY easier than I anticipated! All I did was brown chicken then add chorizo, brown the chorizo, then add veggies (onion, green pepper, celery) and sautee those. After that I add Chicken Broth and some hot sauce along with some worshteshire sauce and flour to thicken it up. Then you just let the sauce thicken. While I did this, I did some of the dishes in the dishwasher for Jerry cuz he doesn't know how to run the high tech washer lol. The Jambalaya turned out AMAZING!!! I loved it and so did Jerry!

Today I went for the Orange Bourban Chicken. This one was even easier. Just brown chicken, add Orange Concentrate after letting the pan cool down then let that simmer. After taking the chicken out you add 2 shots of bourban and let the sauce simmer. I also made some pasta side stuff and corn to go with it. I didn't really know about the chicken, it was too sweet as Shane said. I thought it was ok except it was really sweet. I also realized I should let it brown a little longer and simmer a little longer so the chicken cooks a little more. I am going to need to find other ways to cook it so that it can be less sweet.

That's it for the cooking bit of my blog.

I got back from San Diego/Oceanside Sunday night. It was one of the most enjoyable trips I've been on in a long time. Sea World was awesome, I wish we would have gone there the last day because it was so cool that nothing else really matched up. The beach was really cool too. The beach we went to was on Camp Pendleton so it was only for those with a military ID and their friends. They do a really good job of keeping the beach clean and it's not crowded so it was really enjoyable.

Well two hours of homework to do before bed time because I work at 5 in the morning :(

Shane's Grandpa

There's a commercial for a new show called Mercy where the new nurse is told she has to shut off a guy's machines but says he's not dead. It then cuts to a scene where the old nurses come to ask her if she wants to get coffee, she says "first I have to kill Mr." whatever his name is. The girl pulls the plugs and asks if she wants to get that coffee now. At first you think it's funny, but then not so much!

I used to think this commercial was funny until Shane's grandpa had a stroke and was put on life support. It was a hard weekend. We had to go say our goodbye's. Just like Shane said, it's not so much that Grandpa died but that Grandma and Jackie are hurting so bad. I decided that commercial isn't funny because it's totally unrealistic! It wasn't all clean and bright and nice when we went and say Grandpa. It was dark and gloomy and kinda stunk a little. There were tubes all over the place and they had to suction out his mouth so he wouldn't choke. Why is it that we take the things we are scared of we make into humor in someway? I don't know it just really struck a chord with me. I used to want to watch that show but now I kind of don't. Not that I'm offended or anything I really just didn't like that it was so unrealistic. They showed that then nothing else when the truth is that old man would've slowly choked to death, that's is what happened to Grandpa when they took him off.

Grandpa passed around noon today. I guess that means time to let go and move on to helping grandma and Jackie as best as we can!

College Football

So I have not been to a college football game since last year's first game when I was still cheering. I'm kinda kicking myself hard in the ass now for quitting! I should have waited and been at this Wyoming v. Texas today. Our town is buzzing and probably tripled in size! I am at work and watching from behind this huge window as people scurry by in their brown and gold for Wyoming and Orange for Texas. Oh man I should have gone! To make matters worse, Comcast took Versus off so the game isn't even on TV for me! What a pain, why can't another channel come to my rescue?! Doesn't it kind of defeat the purpose of playing the game on TV if most people in Wyoming don't get the channel! Oh what a pain! I guess I'll try to see if it is streamed somewhere on the internet and listen to it on the radio!

Been Sick for a Week, Cali in a Week, and onto 4th week of school

I have now been sick since last Wednesday... my days are mixing up and I suppose today is Friday so I've now been sick for over a week. My body falls in a funk and then it can't get out of the funk! I went to the doctor today, she ran a pregnancy test which was thankfully negative, but unfortunately, she said there is a good chance that I am coming down with the stomach flu which means no foods that could possibly upset my stomach and lots of fluids and then hopefully I can bypass it. Due to this and work obligations being at 6 or before almost all week, I have missed work outs all week! It's annoying because I know when I go back Monday it will hurt!

On a good note, in less than a week I will be leaving more my mini vacay with my best friend's family! We are going to Cali to visit Cameo. While we're there we get to go to Sea World! On the other days I'm not sure what we're doing yet but Cali is SO SO SO exciting! I've never been there before!

Back to the sad notes...
Shane's grandpa had a stroke last weekend and has not been coming around since then. Tuesday we got a call that he was dying and Shane went down there. They were keeping grandpa alive so his family could say their goodbyes, then miraculously sometime in the afternoon grandpa stabalized. He is still getting help breathing and now it's an issue of the amount of brain tissue that is damaged. The more damaged brain tissue the worse it is because then he will not ever be the same again. Yesterday Grandma decided that on Monday she's pulling the plug because his living will says he doesn't want to be a vegetable and wouldn't want us sitting around waiting for him to come around. I'm really scared, I don't want to be gone during all of this for Shane. I keep thinking that Grandpa will come around, but I know he probably won't and chances are that is probably better for him. Now I'm stuck because I leave for Cali Wednesday night and what if Grandpa's funeral is while I'm gone. Shane's family has become a big part of my family and I am so lost on what to do if this all happens. It sounds so selfish I feel like, of course the answer would be I have to wait to go to Cali because I can't miss Grandpa's funeral. Had I been the one to buy the ticket it would be so much easier. Cameo's parents bought me this ticket almost 2 months ago and we've been planning and all excited since then... This all presents a problem and I'm so confused and not sure what to do with the situation.

Lastly for the over week that I haven't posted, I am now entering the 4th week of school... why is it that it's already doing by so fast? I have already written 3 papers and today I'm working on 2... This is also the weekend of the Texas v. Wyoming game. I have a feeling we're going to get stomped and unfortunately I cannot find it on TV because Comcast removed the game from their network. There's a lot of people in town and the Texans stick out like a sore thumb with all their orange! It's kinda cool though all the people in town. It's cool to know there actually is a team out there that people support them so much they travel hundreds of miles to see them.

Of course my stomach hurts and I'm tired... still 7 hours and 40 minutes in my day! Well at least I went over the half way mark!

Quick one before I finish the HW!

I've been getting right back into the swing of school. Everything got way better after the Saturday horrifying episode of getting yelled at by a pregnant girl when I was trying to give her a compliment. After work Shane and I went out to dinner at O'Dwyers, I think our out to dinner times are shortly over because we need to eat a little healthier than that. My stomach was hurting really bad so I passed out and didn't wake up til Sunday morning at 9:30. We lounged around then finally went out to breakfast (see we need to stop eating like that) then headed up to the mountains. We went to the mountains to get rocks for our fountain he's building then came home took showers and went to a BBQ. We caught up with Anderlee and his wife then went home. I finished some homework and our weekend was over.

It was a pretty simple weekend, I started 6a.m. work outs with Lisa and Janel. It went well this morning and I'm actually oddly excited for tomorrow. Getting up and going means I'll actually go instead of making excuses. Ok time to finish my homework cuz I'm tired from being up at 545 this morning.