My BFF's New Show and My General Distate for the Goodwill Manager Dude

I am not sure if y'all heard, but my BFF has a new show on. 

That's right.  My BFF, Tori Spelling, is hosting a new show called Craft Wars on TLC.  Did y'all catch it last night?  I loved it.  There were three contestants.  They had one hour to make their version of a project using the theme and materials given.  The first round was a duffle bag out of sports equipment.  Then one contestant was eliminated.  The two remaining contestants made a "master craft", in last night's case, a playhouse incorporating school supplies.

This is the Michael's craft closet the contestants get to raid for their projects.  Looks like craft heaven, doesn't it?  AND, the winner got $10,000.  So much fun!  All three contestants did amazing!!

I am so anxious to get some crafting done myself.  Next week I'll be home pretty much all week so hopefully I'll get something fun done.  Want to see some of my inspiration? 

Cute right?  My door has been naked since I took down my Hanging Carrots after Easter.  Actually, it was about two weeks after Easter when they came down.  I'm always behind.  ugh!  So, I need something for my front door and I just love this.  Found it here.  Love me some hydrangeas. 

Also, while I was at Goodwill this morning looking for frames, I came across a bed.  It looked a lot like this:

I immediately got VERY excited.  I called my Hubby.  I called my mom.  I couldn't get my dad on the phone.  I measured across the headboard and it was 60".  My mattress measures 59ish" so I thought it would work.  SO EXCITED!  When I asked the Manager Dude (yes, that is his official title), he said it was a double instead of a queen.  I was so disappointed.  sigh.  So, as soon as I got home I looked up bed sizes and a double only should measure 54" wide.  So, Hubby and I are meeting at Goodwill when he gets off today.  I hope it is still there.  If not, it wasn't meant to be OR if it's not there, I'm gonna badmouth that Manager Dude all over town for the next two months or until I find another bed, whichever comes later.  Just kidding.  Sort of.  I'll let ya know what happens.

Smoky Chicken Tortilla Soup

Y'all know I love me some mexican food, right?  I mean, I am pretty sure I was meant to be Mexican and not Scottish.  The most well known Scottish delicacy is Haggis.  Do you know what Haggis is?  It's basically boiled sheep guts.  SHEEP. GUTS.  No thank you.  I'll pass.  I'll stick to my Mexican food. 

 So, I am slightly obsessed with Taco Bueno's chicken tortilla soup.  It is so stinkin' good.  I've tried several recipes at home, but they never turn out that great...until now.  I actually combined several recipes to make this one. 

Smoky Chicken Tortilla Soup

2 chicken breasts

Chili powder

Paprika

Cumin

Olive oil

Onion, small – you’ll only need half

Red bell pepper, diced

Minced Garlic

32 oz. chicken broth

Chipotle Chili in adobo sauce

Rotel, 1 can

 3Tbsp. Tomato paste

Cilantro

Can of black beans, rinsed and drained

2 Tbsp. Corn meal

Salt

Sprinkle chicken with chili powder, paprika and cumin.  Heat a skillet over medium heat.  Add olive oil to skillet and brown chicken over medium heat.  Cook about 8-10 minutes per side, just enough to brown and get a slight crust on both sides.

While the chicken is cooking, in a separate large saucepan, add two Tbsp of olive oil and heat on medium low.  Cut your onion into two large slices and put into pan.  Add red bell pepper and garlic.  Cook on low for about 10-15 minutes, until tender. 

In a food processor, put 1 cup of chicken broth, cooked bell pepper, garlic and onion mixture, half of Rotel, tomato paste, small chili pepper (from can) and a large handful of cilantro.  Puree.  

I just used my shake blender.  Add the puree back into the soup.  Add the rest of the Rotel, one whole chipotle pepper and the remainder of the chicken broth. 

Take cooked chicken and let cool.  Shred with a fork and put into soup. 

Add black beans.  Put Corn meal into a small bowl and add enough water to dissolve corn meal – maybe 3 Tbsp of water.  Add to soup mixture.  Simmer for 25-30 minutes.  Add salt to taste.

Serve warm with cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips or whatever toppings you prefer. 

Yum! Now, try not to eat the entire pot of soup. Good luck with that.

Have a great weekend!

Vacation Camping

I cannot believe it is already mid-June.  It is crazy how fast time passes by, isn't it?  Hubby was on vacation the first week in June.  What did we do on vacation? 

Google Image

Um, yeah right!  I wish!  No such luck.  I may have gone to Bora Bora on my imaginary vacation, but in real life, we went camping.  You see, E, has been begging to go camping since before Christmas.  I'm not even sure where she got the idea to go camping.

When I was growing up, we went camping at the lake all the time, including vacations and lots of weekends.  When I was really young, we went in my grandparents motorhome.  We also did some tent camping, but when I was around twelve, my parents got a used bumper pull camper.  It looked something like this

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It was a used Prowler.  It was old but we loved it.  We took that thing everywhere, including the beach in Florida.  So, having been raised in motorhomes and campers, of course my ideal camping trip would look something like this

Allegro Breeze

but in reality, we borrowed a tent from my parents. 

C must have snapped this picture.  Hmmm.  They didn't tell me some fat chick came and helped Hubby put up the tent.  How sweet of her. 

The kids had a great time walking down the street to go to the bathroom.

Can you see the joy in C's face?  Fun times!

This is our view from our campsite.

This is the beautiful Lake Ouachita (Wash-eh-tah), right down the hill from our campsite.

Inside the tent, we were wall to wall beds.  After we fought with our air mattresses for a little while, we finally fell asleep around midnight.  We fell asleep with the breeze blowing through the tent, the sounds of the leaves blowing in the trees.  Then, CRASH!  Hubby got up to go check out the noise to find two raccoons playing in our trash can.  He scared them away and put a piece of firewood on top of the trash can lid and we went back to bed.  Ahhh, we climbed back on to our air mattress, covered up with the sheet and drifted off again.  CRASH!  Durn coons!  This time we just let them be.  So, after a deflating mattress and a fun game of musical beds, we finally got to sleep around 2:30.  Good times. 

I wonder how long it will be before we camp again.  Do you like to camp?