The ‘Roaches are Coming!

What follows this sentence is not for the faint of heart.

Last Saturday night, I was making chicken salad and talking to my roommate (A real social life is something that I am working up to). We were deep in an intense discussion of techniques for preparing a sweet potato, when all of a sudden something scurried under our kitchen table.

Let it be known, I’m not jumpy when it comes to bugs. In fact, most of the time I like to save them. An ant wants to crawl across my foot? Sure, think of it like a foot bridge.

Daddy long leg wants to say hello? Come on over! You’re cute and have the long legs I wish I had.

Did you know that Daddy Long Legs are known as Vibrating Spiders? When it feels threatened it vibrates and makes it really hard for the threat to focus on it.

It’s brilliant. I should try that when my boss is trying to give me something else to do. If you can’t find me, you can’t give me more work.

But this? This was not just a bug. This was a cockroach. I’m not sure why, but they just give me the heebie-jeebies. It may have to do with they are one of the most resilient species on this planet, their hard shell and adaptive capabilities have enabled them to live through most of our planet’s life. They have seen everything. They know everything. They know if Atlantis existed or why the dinosaurs died. I bet they have a conspiracy and cockroaches are going to take over the world. The Mayans know it too.That’s why the calendars end this December. I could be the next Paul Revere.

The cockroaches are coming! The cockroaches are coming!

I can assure you that in that moment, I was not thinking all of those thoughts. The main thought that crossed my mind was, that’s a really big cockroach.

Human nature has us programmed that when we are in threatening situations to either fight or flight. This is why girls scream and run away when they see spiders, bees, or other small animals that may, you know, kill us.

My theory is that my instinctual nature is defective.

God, I would like a refund.

My response to my sight was, “I think a cockroach just crawled under your chair.” My body froze, I was neither fighting or fleeing.

Her eyes widened and she flew out of her chair. “Where?”

“What do we do?”

“We can’t kill it! It has eggs on its back, and then we will have an infestation!”

The cockroach had run behind the refrigerator. Then up the side of the refrigerator. Then down the side of the refrigerator. Then onto the counter…

“Not the chicken salad!” My instincts were back. At least my maternal instincts to protect what I have worked hard to cultivate are intact. Hopefully I don’t have to fight or flee before I decide to procreate. I moved my salad aside. Colleen had armed herself with two solo cups, and handed me two of my own.  I didn’t even know we owned solo cups.

Fellow canines. We have a red alert.     The humans have finally lost their sanity.

The chase started. The cockroach scurried about and we chased it all we had. Colleen’s dog, Colbie, laid and watched the epic scene with her head in her paws. Sometimes I think those movies that show the dogs taking over the world because they are that much more sophisticated than we are may not be too far from the truth.

The ‘roach was fast, but there were two of us; and our longer legs could cover more ground. Finally he (she? How can you tell?) was cornered. The counter and the wall had him trapped. Colleen and I poised our cups for capture. He moved, we anticipated. He scurried, we trapped. The cockroach now has a new home out of doors, and away from my chicken salad. It was exhilerating, it was terrifying, we had fought evil, and defended our homeland. And the dog watched.

How was your Saturday night?

Kale Sweet Potatos

I have discovered that I really like kale. This started on Thursday when I had my first Nashville farmers market experience (where I discovered that I am capable of spending way too much money on food).

I bought this kale (which was actually heirloom kale, created by the Barefoot Farmer, which is totally a brilliant marketing strategy if I’ve ever heard one) but then realized that I had no idea how to cook this kale. 

Thanks to pinterest I found a variety of awesome recipes, so I modified a couple to make my own easy version of Kale Sweet Potatos!

Ingredients

One sweet potato

1/2 cup crushed kale

1 tbsp of milk

2 tsp of garlic salt

1 cup plain yogurt

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°

2. Wash and poke sweet potato with a fork

2. Microwave for 4-5 minutes, or until it loses it’s firmness

3. Cut sweet potato in half

4. Scoop out sweet potato inside and put in a bowl

5. Mix in crushed kale, milk, and garlic salt

6. Replace sweet potato kale mixture into the skin

7. Bake for 15 minutes

8. If desired top with yogurt

9. Enjoy!

 

 

Just Fishin’

My parents are funny people. Their marriage is something I’m not sure I will never understand. They live, eat, and work together. Half the time they walk downstairs wearing the same colors without realizing it. It’s crazy, but it’s cool. It also makes for an awesome environment for two little girls to grow up in. Over the past two years, I have realized just how lucky I am to have grown up in the family I did. My parents are two awesome people, and I don’t think I could ask for anyone more to have the largest influence over my life.

Growing up, fishing was always me and my dad’s thing. My grandparents used to have a lake house, and we would wake up early in the morning and go down to the docks to fish. I remember being barely able to read, but so excited to show him that I can bait my own hook. When this Trace Adkins song came out (we share an unhealthy obsession with country music), my dad was the first to say that it reminded him of us.

So here’s to you, Dad: thanks for fishing and even more than that how to lead a good life.

I know I couldn’t do it without you.

I’m lost in her there holdin’ that pink rod and reel

She’s doin’ almost everything but sittin’ still
Talkin’ ‘bout her ballet shoes and training wheels 
And her kittens 
And she thinks we’re just fishin’

I say, “Daddy loves you, baby” one more time
She says, “I know. I think I got a bite.” 
And all this laughin’, cryin, smilin’ dyin’ here inside’s
What I call, livin’

And she thinks we’re just fishin’ on the riverside
Throwin’ back what we couldn’t fry
Drownin’ worms and killin’ time
Nothin’ too ambitious
She ain’t even thinkin’ ‘bout
What’s really goin’ on right now
But I guarantee this memory’s a big’in
And she thinks we’re just fishin’

She’s already pretty, like her mama is
Gonna drive the boys all crazy
Give her daddy fits
And I better do this every chance I get
‘Cause time is tickin’
(Yeah it is)

And she thinks we’re just fishin’ on the riverside
Throwin’ back what we couldn’t fry
Drownin’ worms and killin’ time
Nothin’ too ambitious
She ain’t even thinkin’ ‘bout
What’s really goin’ on right now
But I guarantee this memory’s a big’in
And she thinks we’re just fishin’

She ain’t even thinkin’ ‘bout
What’s really goin’ on right now
But I guarantee this memory’s a big’in
And she thinks we’re just fishin’
Yeah, aww, she thinks we’re just fishin’
We ain’t only fishin’
(This ain’t about fishin’)

Happy Fathers Day to my Padre and all the other dads in my life!

Sweet Honey Walnut Chicken Salad

I love grocery store sales. Especially when things are buy two get three FREE? You only needed one, but since you now can have three for FREE, you end up with five of whatever you were (or were not) shopping for in the first place.

Above is the story of how I ended up with five bags of frozen chicken breasts in my freezer.

Despite the wasted freezer space, it did lead to the creation of the delectable Sweet Honey Walnut Chicken Salad.

Ingredients

• One bag of frozen chicken breasts (about 2.5 lbs)
• 3 cups of mayonaise
• 1 cup of halved grapes
• 1/2 cup walnuts
• 2 tbsp of honey
• 2 tbsp of sugar

Preparation

1. Bake/grill (I prefer to bake) chicken per the instructions on the bag.

2. Cut up chicken in smaller pieces, put in a large bowl.

3. Add other ingredients

4. Mix together

5. Enjoy!

This is a SUPER easy and quick chicken salad, that you can put on anything.

Today I made a salad, tomorrow I may make a sandwich.

So many possibilities.

Fishy Fishy Fishy

I have figured out why my dating life is slow

(or some would argue – doomed.)

Last night some friends suggested that we go get sushi. There is this great place that’s super cheap and that I would love it.

Well if I’ll love it, I guess now I HAVE to go.

We walked over to a little restaurant, even though it was   6:30 on a Friday night there were all of maybe 5 customers. We found a booth by the wall and settled in. One of the seven staff members hanging out behind the counter brought us menus and took drink orders. The other girls I was with knew immediately what they wanted. I looked down, overwhelmed.

Here’s the thing. Raw fish SCARES  me. We can’t eat chicken or eggs because of salmonella, beef is just a terrifying meat, but there is an entire INDUSTRY devoted to raw fish? Something sounds fishy here.

No pun intended.

I scoured the menu for a sufficiently solid thirty seconds trying to find the item with the least amount of uncooked filet  possible. I ordered the Poke Bowl (pronounced po-key, as I was promptly corrected by my waiter).

The food came quickly and I observed my meal. Observed is the appropriate word of choice because it looked like my sophomore year biology project.  My  meal had come topped with not JUST raw fish. It came with a PLETHORA of raw fish, in a single bite I could enjoy the taste three different water beings at the same time.

My stomach was begging for a hot juicy burger or a fried chicken wing. Nice and cooked and not slimy.

After the initial shock of my ordered food, I looked down and realized this was not one of those super American ethnic restaurants that presented you with both chopsticks AND a fork, EVERYONE was required to eat with only chopsticks.

Guess who never learned to eat with chopsticks?

Sounds about right.

I’m never sure how unorthodox that is, that I have not mastered the skill of the chopsticks. To be honest, my life is not hindered in any way because I lack that credential, I still got into school, I have a job, and I can function in most aspects of society. However, EVERY time I end up in a CSS (ChopStick Situation), I almost always seem to be one of the ONLY ones who never acquired this skill. Was there a class that I missed? Dad, is this like when you skimped on teaching me hand-eye coordination with any sort of sports ball? Did you and mom skip the “teaching your daughter how to eat with foreign utensils” chapter in the parenting module?

The setting has been framed, this is a recipe for disaster. My friend tried to teach me how to use chopsticks, but after I flung two balls of rice in her face (chopsticks would make excellent weapons) we had fallen in a fit of laughter.

Our waiter walked by, and ever so stealthily, slid a orange chopstick helper in front of me. He gave me a wink and walked away.

That’s cute right? Hypothetically, that’s a great movie scene moment: girl can’t use chopsticks, flings rice, knight in shining armor flies in, presents her with tool to save the day, she receives sushi man’s number and they live happily ever after.

Unfortunately, life isn’t the movies, and that waiter was a little too dorky to be knight in shining armor.

But the setup was nice.

Except for one of the other key components of that movie scene, my suaveness, or lack thereof.

He presents me with the tool, and I can’t even look at him. I have fallen into a fit of laughter, and not the cute giggles, but full on bellows with tears streaming from my eyes. The rest of the table joined me in this moment of humor, but the moment was so far lost with my lack of poise.

I didn’t eat much of my $10.00 Poke Bowl, but I think of it more as paying for entertainment rather than sustenance.

It also taught me a huge lesson about my dating life:

If he wants to go to a sushi place on the first date,

I better turn and run the other way.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

This recipe has made me extremely popular with my friends.

As much as I try to make myself believe I have a thriving social life, I DO know this buffalo chicken dip is AWESOME. I learned this from my mama. Does this mean it is a family recipe?

It is super easy, and the best part is you can make it any way you want it. That also made it hard for me to write the actual recipe, because I never actually measure any of the ingredients.

Pro: You can’t really mess this up.

Con: If you’re type A… Sorry.

Ingredients:

Unbreaded Chicken Breast (Frozen or unfrozen)

Ranch Dressing

Chedder Cheese

Franks Hot Sauce

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to about 375°

2. Lay chicken in a  9″x11″ pan and bake until warm (about 20-30 minutes)

3. Take out, allow to cool, and tear or cut chicken up into pieces. It should look shredded.

4. Add a layer of cheese

5. Pour in about a half cup of Franks and Ranch Dressing

6. Stir

This is where the recipe becomes yours. Taste it! Too hot? Add more ranch. Not hot enough? Add more Franks. 

7. Once you approve of your creation, place the dip back in the oven until the cheese is melted (5-10 minutes)

You have now completed Buffalo Chicken Dip!

Serve with chips, on a sandwich, on a salad, or on a wrap! This dip is sure to be the hit of a party or make a tasty lunch.

Brushing Elbows

I thought the whole socializing at the water cooler part of office life was for the movies. Guess what? That’s a complete lie, it’s totally real life. Why? Because full time jobs are TERRIBLE.  Eight hours is TOO long to focus on anything. Seriously.  I can’t focus on anything for five minutes at a time.

College doesn’t even prepare you for this. In college you only have to sit through fifty minutes (maybe an hour and a half) of a class at a time (and trust me that’s painful). But then, you walk across campus and think about a completely DIFFERENT topic. Don’t like your professor, no problem. Just deal with them for an hour a day and they’ll be out of your life in a few months time.

Don’t like your boss or the project your working on? Sorry. Because you have to sit and deal with it for eight hours at a time.

I’m really going to have to reevaluate this whole real person/full time job/moving past age ten transition. I think I would like to go back in time.

One order of childhood please?

One other aspect of my life resembling that of an actual human being is it gets a lot more boring. There’s a lot less room for awkward encounters or out of this world experiences; the phone calls home have gotten a lot shorter, I have a lot less to report!

Don’t worry, life still throws me a curve ball (I hate that analogy. Mostly because I am so terrible at sports I’m not even sure I could catch a straight ball. I should be dead according to sports analogies.) every once in a while.

Last night I was at Calypso (my more entertaining of my two jobs), it was my first shift off the training label. Which is scary. It’s like being a student driver without the student driver sticker.

Now no one else knows to LOOK OUT FOR ME. I WILL mess up your salad.

Anyways, it was the end of the night and a couple walks in. They were super pretty people, a lot like the rest of the south. They were the kind that makes you feel like a balloon and in need of a hair brush or a mascara wand by comparison. It’s frustrating.

I greet the couple, and the woman looks at me and I am taken aback by how familiar she looks. How do I know her? She looked like she could have gone to Vanderbilt, maybe I had a class with her. But then I looked at the guy she was with, he looked familiar too.

As I drilled the back pockets of my brain to tell me how I knew these people, I realized that the man had asked me twice what was vegan on the menu.

Uh.

They didn’t tell me that in training.

Where’s that darn student driver sticker?

I turned around and fortunately my coworker saved my back and started rattling off all of the vegan options on the menu. I stayed next to him, halfway so I could learn the vegan options, but more so that I could place these people. I knew them from SOMEWHERE.

I watched as they took a seat in the front corner of the restaurant and I turned around to my coworker, who handed me their ticket so that I could make their food. “They look so familiar to me. I think I know them from SOMEWHERE.” I said under my breath. He looked at me and just started laughing.

What?

I made their meal and started cleaning the refrigerator. She must have sat in front of me in Geology. There were a TON of cute blonde girls in Geology.

Seriously though. I had major issues with geology.
Never again. Stupid rocks.

The man came up to the counter ready to pay for their meal. I took his card, making the small talk common between the payer and the payee.

I looked down and almost dropped the card.

The name on the credit card reader said:

D. Shepard.

Then it clicked. I looked at his face again, it fell right into place on my TV (or in my college lifestyle, laptop) screen. This was Dax Shepard, I knew him from Parenthood. His acting ability and extremely handsome smile on my iphone had helped pass by many elliptical sessions at the gym.

I looked at the girl again and then it clicked, it was Kristen Bell.

No, I hadn’t had Geology with her, I had only watched every season of Heroes with her. I watched the couple leave, and endured an hour of well deserved harassment from my coworkers for my ignorance.

I brush elbows with fame and don’t even realize it.

They are pretty obnoxiously adorable.