Sloppy Bird Food

Today began with an unexpected discovery. This may not be a discovery to you,  but to me, I can go weeks without opening some of my kitchen cupboards or at least when I do open them I know exactly what I want and where it is located, so everything else in the cupboard escapes my comprehension. Whilst moseying through one of these not so frequented cabinets I discovered something that made me question what other treasures might be hiding there-in. Are you ready to know what this discovery was? Hold your breath. The excitement may take the wind out of you…Here it goes:

 

A box of instant Cream of Wheat

 

Okay… You can breathe now. I know. You won’t be able to sleep tonight for all your excitement over my “discovery”. Forgive me for the insomnia.

Cream of wheat seemed like the perfect beginning of a day. There is nothing like a warm bowl of comfort in the morning with a cup of black tea. I sat down to enjoy said porridge when the wubs interrupted my simple, momentary morning bliss with his blunt observations.

“When I was in the army they tried to feed us that stuff.” I looked at the cook and said, “What is that? Sloppy bird food?”

“That’s grits son. Most of America was raised on this stuff”.

My reply?

“It’s not grits it’s Cream of Wheat.”

His?

“Is there a difference?”

Mine…

“I don’t know, I’ll have to google it.”

 

You know you’re looking it up now aren’t you? When you find the answer would you let me know?

 

 

Then I moved on to bigger and better things.

Saturday is the do the shopping get ready for the rest of the week day for me. I always try to do a little couponing before I head out into the wild blue yonder of the overly saturated with ads, commercialistic, competitively marketed circus of retail. Sigh…I tell myself in the car on the way to the next store to actually calm down. I have conversations with myself in my head.

 

“Jesus wouldn’t want you to scowl at the person who just cut you off with their shopping cart for the third time. You shouldn’t  be irritated with the person parked with their cart across the aisle, oblivious to the rest of the world as they take ten minutes to decide which can of diced tomatoes will be making the journey home with them. Your shopping cart is not a weapon as much as you would like it to be. Think happy thoughts. Rain drops on roses and whiskers on…Oh my Gerd! You didn’t just use your dirty hands to go fishing around in the Winco bulk bins…were they washed or did you just pick your nose? …Brown paper packages…Move it!...Tied up with strings…Shopping’s not one of my favorite things…”

You get the idea.

 

I did score 6 candy bars for only .03 cents each doing the following deal at Rite Aid.

Hershey’s, Mars or Nestle Single Serve Candy on sale $.67
Buy 3, Get $1 +UP Reward – limit 4
(4) Skinny Cow Single Serve Candy Bars $.67
(2) 3 Musketeers $.67
Use (2) BOGO Skinny Cow coupons from 4/28 SS insert
Use $.50/2 3 Musketeers coupon
Pay $2.18, Get $2 in +UPs
$.03 each after coupons and rewards

 

One of the skinny cows is missing from the pic. I had to cheer myself up from all the shopping. Don’t judge until you experience Winco at 12:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday. Madness I tell you. Madness.

 

I then came home and unloaded the car and got to work.

Eating veggies is important so they say. Trouble is I needed a sly way to sneak them in to my husband’s diet. You know the “meat and potatoes” diet. It’s all the rage here. Well at least for the wubs it is.

I made snacks for our church’s youth group and one of the things I made was ranch dip. Just a hidden valley ranch dip mix stirred in a container of sour cream. Apparently months of eating said snack has hooked a certain wub to the idea of eating vegetables ranch dip.

 

Now the oh so smart thing (thank you very much) I have been doing is cutting up veggies so he can take them to work with him and have something to eat with his dip.

 

My trick is working ;n )

 

Then I got to making enchiladas for him. He finally got a roto-tiller that worked from the shop that couldn’t seem to fix his. They loaned it to him and he has been a happy camper up in the backyard all afternoon. He walked out the door with a big smile on his face. I asked him what the goofy grin was about and he said “I get to till the earth.” Seriously girls. This one is mine. You can’t have him. What man says that? He’s amazing…yup.

 

AND…he buys me roses.

 

 

Mine. Mine. Mine.

 

 He deserves these.

 

And these. Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies (so much for the veggies).

 

Then I made these.

 

Mini vanilla almond cupcakes with coconut-lime butter cream. I’m obsessed with this icing I tell you…obsessed. I made the cupcakes just so I had something to frost with it. ;n )

Happy-ness.

Old friends, left-overs and rototillers

Guess what my favorite thing that happened this week is?

My best-y from college visited me! I haven’t seen her in about two and a half years. That is way too long folks.

Way.

Too.

Long.

She remarked at one point that my name was in all caps in her phone. It’s in all caps because she entered my name in her ancient flip phone that only allowed her to enter names in caps. What was even more precious is that my first name is in caps in her phone and my last name isn’t. " ‘Cause I got married", she said ;n ) She changed my last but not the first. I think that is THE SWEETEST THING EVER!! Every person needs a friend that still has your name in their phone in all caps ;n) I love you Mardi… you are the sweetest and you live too far away.

 

I had some left-over Coconut Lime Buttercream so I tried a new coconut cake recipe.

 

Next time I make coconut cupcakes, I’m leaving out the shredded coconut…don’t like the little “crunch” in my cake. But they still tasted divine, heavenly and delicious!! Coconut lime icing is still on the top of my favorite thing to eat list. Don’t tell my hips that the presiding ingredient is butter. They might just ignore you.

I made a big lasagna on Saturday ‘cause we were expecting friends. Alas, one of the poor friends got sick so they had to cancel. I was left with a dilemma. The wubs doesn’t eat lasagna. I know crazy right? He’s not big on the tomatoes and avoids things made with the little red nasty’s yummies. I fed it to my besty. She likes litte red yummies. So do I! It was pretty good. And so were the cupcakes!

Then we sat down to watch “Puss In Boots”. I own it. I know it shocks you that I should own such a movie. I’m sure you have to pick yourself up of the floor from the surprise. Best-y had never seen it and I was happy to share.

While we were watching the movie I kept seeing the wub’s white t-shirt fly by the window out of the corner of my eye. Curious about the commotion, I tracked him down.

I snapped a pic of him. He can’t resist posing. If you put a camera in front of him it will most likely turn out like this:

 

He was ripping out the fence out back and trying to haul his Dad’s rototiller up the steep incline that is our back yard. He waited two and a half months to get the thing from the repair shop he had it running long enough to get it to the back yard and the thing stopped running! After two and a half month of waiting and $170.00 Wuby was a little grumpy. Understandably. Now he has to haul the thing back and wait and wait and hope that they really do fix it this time.

Stupid rototiller. Can you see the almost 90 degree incline he was heaving that thing up? Sheesh!

I returned in doors to find my real feline friend was entertaining my bestie as well as the animated one.

The day ended and I went off to work the next morning wishing I could spend a little more time with my bestie…then my oil light came on and my car started vibrating…It was the excuse I needed. I took my car into the shop...after I had coffee and breakfast with my best-y ;n )

Turns out it just needed an oil change

As well as a $600 break job. Grrr….