It's Friday, Let's PRANCE!

Get your prance on because it's FRIDAY!

GIFSoup

Apparently this is a new workout craze for the over 60 crowd in retirement communities in Florida.  I love it! I have been known to prance around the office from time to time....seriously ask my friends.  =) And I am pretty sure this will be me in 40 or so years.

I am pleased to report that we kicked some serious boo-tay last night at our softball game, if you can even call it that. We ended up run ruling them after 5 innings.  We messed around the first inning and let them score a couple of runs, which kept us from the 3 inning run rule.  I guess it gave us a chance to get all of our errors out of the way so we'll be ready next week!

How awesome is this table?  This is my "little" brother's new coffee for his new grown up apartment.  I still can't believe that he is old enough to have graduated from college and have a big kid job.  My mom and grandpa made it out of beer bottle caps, Plexiglas, and broken down pallets.  I think it's the coolest coffee table that I have ever seen.  Perfect for a bachelor pad or a man cave.  I am thinking that there may be one on our back patio in the not so distant future.....I guess we need to get to drinking!

Speaking of Mom, it's her birthday today!  Happy Birthday, Mom!  I hope you have a fabulous day! I love you!

Now I am just hours away from a 3 day weekend filled with fun and sun!  

Things on a Thursday

Get ready.....it's time for me to release all of the random things that are on my mind right now.  This should be fun.

1. We had a bit of excitement at our house yesterday, and by excitement I mean I walked outside yesterday evening to see this:

That would be one of our pool tables (glass top) and umbrellas upside down in the pool. I guess you could say the wind was blowing a little yesterday.  Luckily the table top did not shatter, the umbrella popped back the right way and still works, and there does not appear to be any scratches or tears in the pool liner. [knock on wood]    The craziest part is I was sitting in the kitchen not 30 feet away from the pool, and could see the pool from where I was sitting.  The moral of this story is always put your pool umbrella down when you are not using it.  We usually do, but forgot to close this one after the weekend's festivities.

2. Last week I was perusing the grocery store and saw the holy grail of hot dog buns on a little table of bread products.  The geniuses at the Kings Hawaiian Bread Company have decided to not just make delicious little Hawaiian bread rolls....they have expanded their product selection to sub rolls, hamburger buns and HOT DOG BUNS.  I snatched up a package and could not wait to try them out.  I always keep a package or two of hot dogs in the freezer in case I get on a hot dog kick.  They're such an easy lunch on the weekends or busy weeknight dinner and they always come in handy this time of year. Saturday afternoon Eric was out fishing with his uncle and I found myself home alone around 11:30AM looking for something to eat  I am not lying when I tell you that I was like a little kid in a candy store when I was making my hot dog with the Hawaiian bread bun.  The hot dog was everything I had hoped it would be and I have since eaten almost all of them (not all at once).  I kinda wish I had one right now.

The hot dogs I had were Nathan's bun length, which made it even more delectable.  I was in hot dog heaven!

3. Part of the reason I am eating hot dogs on weeknights is because softball season is in full swing (no pun intended).  We started playing 2 weeks ago, and are 3-0! We got moved up to the A league this year, which means we have to bring our A game for sure.  It's church league, but we're basically up against high school baseball teams.  This is the 4th year we have played with our team, and we LOVE it!  I personally believe our success is partially due to our all-star female roster.  We have to have 3 girls on the field at all times and we probably have the best 3 fielding girls in the league.  Usually girls are your liability and are strategically placed where people don't hit the ball.  We play those spots, but we can all make plays at our spots.  Your's truly caught a line drive Tuesday night, much to the shock of the guy who hit the ball.  Those are my favorite plays. =)  After the game, Eric told me that if the guy had hit another ball like that toward me he was going to say something to him because it was not right for guys to place hit (aim) at girls.  I laughed and told him I could handle it. It's more interesting when you get to make a play, am I right?  At least I know he still wants to be my knight in shining armor and protect me!

We have another game tonight, and hopefully we'll have another win by the end of it!

Happy Thursday....it's almost FRIDAY!

Memorial Day Weekend Recap

I guess I had to come back to reality at some point and this week, and today was the day.  Awesome. [insert sarcastic groan here]  This past weekend was one of those weekends I wish could have gone on forever.  We had a ton of fun and amazing weather. I think it's safe to say that this weekend was the PERFECT kick off to Summer 2013!

1. Our Memorial Day catch of shell cracker and blue gill.  

2. We could not have asked for a more beautiful day on the Middle Pond.

3. Eric and one of his big shell crackers.

4. Saturday night shrimp boil.

5. Memorial Day feast of fresh caught fish (see pic #1), homemade hush-puppies, coleslaw, and pasta salad. 

6. When you're tired sometimes dinner just tastes better laying down.  

7. One of my shell crackers. 

I guess you could say our goal this weekend was to spend it on the water, some way, some how, and we successfully met that goal with flying colors!  Between fishing trips and lazy afternoons at the pool, we soaked up as much sun as we possibly could.  Lots of fishing trips meant lots of fish to eat, which we took care of (and still are).  We stuffed ourselves silly with some amazing fried fish and hush-puppies.  I mean, who doesn't love a good hush-puppy or six. =)  Note to self: start diet ASAPAG (as soon as [hush] puppies are gone).  

The only thing that could make the sting of having to go back to the real world a little easier to bear would be another long day weekend coming up....oh wait!  I DO have another three day weekend coming up this weekend!  3 more days....I think I can, I think I can!

BBQ Chicken Quesadillas

I have several standby regular recipes that I know I can whip up any given night and they will be delicious, but I can only make those so often before we get tired of them.  It's no secret that I am always on the hunt for a new delicious recipe. Just a couple of years ago, in the pre-pinterest days (aka the dark ages) I would scour the internet for new recipes and found a few good ones, but more often than not they were just mediocre, and some were downright terrible. I tried, right?  At one point it got so bad Eric asked me (very nicely) one night if I could just stick to chicken seasoned with salt and pepper and a vegetable for dinner.  Ouch.  Plus just regular old chicken and veggies are just so BORING.  I need some spices and seasonings in my dinner!  Lucky for me I discovered pinterest a few short months later and our dinners have been much more delicious (and fun!).  Don't get me wrong I still run across the occasional loser recipe every now and then, but overall the quality of out dinners has improved greatly in the past couple of years.

One blog I discovered through pinterest quickly became a daily read in my blog roll. It's called Plain Chicken and she has some of the most amazing recipes.  Her most popular are her "Crack" recipes:  potatoes, sourdough loaves, burgers, dips, quiches.  Cracking them out means that she adds cheese, bacon, and ranch seasoning (one of the best seasonings known to mankind in my opinion). I have yet to make something from her blog that I don't like.

This weekend I was meal planning for the week (first time in a while), and needed some new ideas. I pulled up Plain Chicken to check out her weekly meal plan and was intrigued by the BBQ Chicken Pizzadilla recipe I saw. It looked easy and delicious which is right up my alley!  I had to tweak it just a bit because, but I stayed pretty true to the original recipe.

What you need:

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts

1/2 chopped vidalia onion

BBQ sauce (I used Sweet Baby Ray's Sweet Vidalia Onion BBQ Sauce)

shredded cheese: gouda or mozzarella (I used pre-grated gouda because my po-dunk grocery store doesn't carry actual blocks of gouda....I was shocked to even find gouda there)

4 flour tortilla shells

How to make it:
1. Cook chicken, and cut into small cubes. I had Eric grill our chicken while he had the grill going for dinner the night before so it had a smokey BBQ flavor.
2. Lay one tortilla shell on a flat surface and spread BBQ sauce onto shell like pizza sauce.
3. Cover one half of the shell with chicken cubes and chopped onion.
4. Cover entire shell with a layer of cheese and what ever spices you would like.
5. Place shell in warm frying pan on stove.  When the cheese starts to melt, fold in half and flip once or twice until it holds together.  Be careful not to get your pan too hot because your shells will start to cook very fast and your quesadillas will be a little crispy.
Serve immediately.

These were so good!  They got 2 thumbs up from Eric which is always a plus, and he even said to put this in our recipe favorites category.  So he REALLY liked them.  I served them with more BBQ sauce for dipping (which we really didn't use).  I also made some guacamole (because I just love guacamole and avocados have been on sale for the past 6 weeks), which I ended up dipping my quesadilla in.  But then again I will dip just about anything in guac the way I dipped everything in ranch dressing when I was in high school. =)