Thanksgiving!

It's tomorrow. We're having the WHOLE family over to my parents' house. And when I say whole family, I mean it, well kinda. It's all of my immediate family and all of Jason's too! We thought we should call it the Wafer family Thanksgiving. So, that 9 people, and I'm cooking. Here's the menu:

Turkey (duh) but smoked on the grill by Jason. It is currently sloshing about in its brine made from apple juice, oranges, salt sugar, garlic, ginger, cloves and bay leaves.

Acorn squash: I made it a few weeks ago for just Jason and I and it was delicious. mmmm.

Green Bean Casserole: I had a dream last night that I forgot it.

Stuffing!

Potatoes: a la P Dub. I think they look great, and I'm looking forward to a new thing that I shouldn't know how to make. By that I mean, if I know how to make it, I will and Richard Simmons will have to come cut me out of my house and weigh me on a truck scale.

Cranberry Relish!

Dried Corn: I've never had this before, but I'm all set to make it! I hope it's good!

Peas and pearl onions: Daddy's favorite. Hard to find every year.

Apple and banana salad!

Gravy!

Rolls!

Pumpkin Pie: I can't claim any control over that one, we got one at the store...

Blackberry Cobbler: I can claim this one, yum.

To drink, white wine and mulled cider. YUM!


We have alternate drinks as well, I don't think I'd want to drink those exclusively. I'm just now realizing that I had a dream about Thanksgiving dinner last night, and I don't think it was good. Boy, I guess I AM nervous.

I'm going to try to remember the camera tomorrow and take pictures, then I will share. Wish me luck!

BBQ Chicken Tostadas!

I like tostadas. I make them with some regularity. I don't know what they would really be called in an actual Mexican home, but here's what I think a tostada is: Crispy corn tortilla with stuff piled on top. Usually what I pile on top is just plain chicken, cheese and jalapenos. I decided to mix things up a little and this is what I used:

2 chicken tenderloins (I started buying these because the frozen chicken breasts were so enormous, that I could have used half of one in a recipe, and it's hard to cut it in half frozen!)

Famous Dave's Rich and Sassy BBQ sauce

Corn Tortillas

Green Onion

Lettuce

Jalapenos

Sour Cream

Shredded "taco" cheese. It's a mix of cheddar and something (jack I think) with spices. I use it all of the time.

I sauteed the chicken in a pan, and then pulled it all apart using two forks. Then I dumped in the sauce, not a whole lot, but until it was covered.

I let this rest for a while. This is important because by letting it rest, it soaked in more, and was less wet. If I dump it on the tortillas wet, it makes for soggy. Eeeew. Once it's nicely rested, (I gave it as much time as it took me to set out the tortillas) put some chicken on each tortilla.


Cover it with cheese and jalapenos. Bake it in the oven at 350 for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese is all melty-licious.

Top with lettuce, tomato (if you have it, I didn't, but wished for some) green onion, and sour cream.


They were delicious. I'm going to make more.

p.s. Guess which plate is mine? Guess which is my pepper loving husband's?

R!!!

Not a mouse

Lat week, or the week before, we saw a mouse (or so we thought at the time) in the bedroom. Being the proud owners of two fully capable cats, we paid it little mind other than to comment that it was going to be gross when they put it on our pillow.

In reality, our cats are majorly useless. They looked at the tiny dark shape running about the house, but made no real effort to catch it. I couldn't stand the thought of it running all over our stuff and making it's little home in one of our cereal boxes, so once I determined that the cats were not doing their share, I bought a mouse trap. It must have known, because I didn't see or hear it for days. Then, this weekend, the whole situation came to a boil.

It's one brave little stupid thing! You know what it had been eating? Where it had been spending all its little time? Where it had left all of its little presents? THE CAT FOOD. Yes, it was eating out of the cats' bowls. It was on. I baited the trap with peanut butter and left it near the cat food overnight.

In the morning, the trap was askew, but not tripped. I left it there, hoping to get it, when we saw it dashing around Jason's desk. Tabby actually TOUCHED it, but didn't seem to think any further action was neccesary. We lost it.

A while later I heard it, under the stove crunching cat food. That was the last straw. I pulled the drawer out from under the oven. I didn't see the dang thing. So, I pulled the oven away from the wall. It ran under the refridgerator. I pulled the fridge out. HA. It was nowhere to be seen. I was on my hands and knees cleaning out all of the dust from behind there when I saw the little bugger run from under the fridge to the oven where I was.

Let me take a moment to describe how I was feeling. I'm not a bug squisher. If I find a fly in the house, I'll shoo it out before I swat it. I'll trap a spider in a cup and put it on the wood pile. I've had a mouse in the house/library before and they don't scare me. I just didn't particularly want this one in my house. The trap we bought was a humane trap. The mouse runs in and the door shuts. Then you go let him out somewhere else. So, that being said, you must picture this:

Danica and I are both under the stove, because the drawer is pulled out. I have Jason's brand new great big flashlight in my hand. I keep catching glimpses of the "mouse" but can't get it. At this point, my brilliant idea was to put the lid for the crock pot over it and figure out what else to do later. It was by the sink, okay?

Here I am half under a large appliance, with a cat, and I see the thing. It's running toward my face in a little channel under the stove. I say to Jason: "That's not a mouse". It has a looooong pointy nose and no ears to speak of, and doesn't really care when I shine the light in it's face. I try to get it, and so does Jason, but it's off.

It runs across the room in a bold move not seen since the days of the library mouse running from a group of children. I runs... ...toward the trap. I chase it , and herd it into the trap with the flashlight. The trap closes. I pick it up and start saying, get in the truck get in the truck get in the truck, because it is fighting like crazy. No mouse could have made this trap move like it did. If i had not held the lid down, it would have been out in a heartbeat.

We did in fact get in the truck and we drove a few blocks away to an empty place, and sent him on his way. At this point, I thought it was a baby mole. It was no bigger than a mouse, but I didn't know how little moles might be when they first set out into the world. Then I remembered possibly imaginary pictures of tiny pink baby moles, they didn't have hair when they were that size. I thought, could it have been a shrew?


I had never encountered a shrew other than in discussion of owl pellets (you know you dissected one in school too) and the taming of. So, the good librarian I am, I googled it. It was a shrew. A short tailed northern shrew to be specific. Here's what I learned and why I didn't sleep that night:

Shrews are vicious. They will eat mice and take over their burrows. They have red teeth. They are the most common mammal in Indiana and Illinois. They use echolocation, and THEY ARE POISONOUS. Yes, their saliva poisons and paralyzes their prey. It makes me kind of glad that the cats didn't catch it. Because although I'm sure they don't have enough poison to hurt the cats, it might have put up quite the fight.

It's gone, and hopefully for good! Has anyone else had a shrew??

R!!!

I promise I took this one myself:
Passin side<--------------------------------------------------------------->Suicide.

hilarious

The Lie Revealed!

And, the lie is #2!!!!!!!

The facts/lies were:

1. I'm the oldest child in my generation of my family.
2. I have visited 48 of 50 states
3. I hate radishes


I am the oldest. Indeed, I am wise beyond my years, likened to a crone whose knowledge is sought by people everywhere, the Stephen Hawking of Indiana, or not.

I do hate radishes. And this is awful, because Jason loves them. He keeps getting me to try them and it's yuck every time. They never taste any different.

I have not visited 48 of 50 states. Not only have I not been to Alaska or Hawaii (if anyone out there really want to fix this, I'm open to the possibilities), but my travel has kind of been in a line from Indiana to either Texas or Florida. So, all those states in there the most. I have been to new england briefly, and of course a few other states, but there's this HUGE gap of my presence in the northwest.

So, there I am, revealed as a terrible liar to the blogsphere. I used a strange word.

Catching up

I've been so gone lately! I'm very very sorry. To the three of you who read this...

Last week was pretty crazy. I was off, there were big meetings and Mom had surgery. I'm pleased to report that she is home and as long as she's not lying to me, doing really well, very little pain. The big meetings were boring except for the smores part. Isn't it fun to be cryptic?

The week before, I don't even remember, It is all a haze. And, you know, looking back just now, I hadn't really been all that gone, I guess. It just feels like it. I messed up my metrics with the new scheme so it looked like my blog had been abandoned. You know, dusty streets, shutters waving in the wind, an empty old saloon with swinging doors where my blog used to be. At least, on my end.

This past weekend was nothing interesting, in fact it feels like it never even happened. We got lego star wars and not only has that developed in to a black hole of time (though I love it), we also watched the whole original (better) trilogy on Sunday. Yeah.

Lies

I was tagged last week by Sarah, and i was so out of it that I didn't even notice until today!!! I'm so sorry! It was strange week, I'll update you all soon.

The rules...
1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 2 true facts about yourself and 1 lie.
3. Tag 4 people at the end of your post by including links to their blogs.
4. Have people guess which one out of the three is false.


The facts/lies are:

1. I'm the oldest child in my generation of my family.
2. I have visited 48 of 50 states
3. I hate radishes


Hmmm, I know one reader who will pass this with flying colors.


I'm tagging

Jason
Charlotte
Kara
There Are No Words



YOU GUYS BETTER PARTICIPATE!

Scariest pumpkin ever.

One of the links over there to the left is to Jorge Garcia's blog. I like Lost, it's a good show, but Jorge is hilarious. He's one of those people who you feel like you would like them if you met them in person. But, I digress. He has, posted on his site right now the scariest pumpkin carving that I've ever seen. Pumpkins, no matter how you carve them, aren't in general scary. But, he's taken my favorite painting to be scared of (not look at, goodness no, I can't look at it for that long, or it will get me) and carved it into a pumpkin.

That painting (click the link above to see it, but beware) is called Saturn Devouring His Son. I remember the first time I saw it. It was in art appreciation class and I had to turn my head away. It's a brutal topic, but it isn't the blood that ever got to me. It was and will always be the eyes. Goya captured so perfectly utter madness. A place past all rationality and beyond anything most of us have ever seen or experienced. There's desperation there too, the look of a being that is terrified by its own actions but is powerless to stop it.

It's the scariest painting I've ever seen. And I like my art disturbing.

ANYWAY, head on over to Dispatches From The Island and check it out.

Secrets that you keep

Here's an interesting tidbit. I talk in my sleep. I'll even answer Jason when he asks me something sometimes. Here's something that you might know, especially if you've been reading my twitter (called little bitties, over to the left there). I saw Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog in it's entirety the other night. It was wonderful. This leads me to what my hubby told me this morning:

Jason: Did you roll over last night, and look at me and say "balls"? You know, like from Dr Horrible?

Me: Ummm, no.

Jason: Yes you did! And when I asked you about it later, you admitted it!

Me: Really??

Jason: Yeah!!

At this point I started laughing so hard, I nearly cried. I guess I'm dreaming about Dr Horrible now.

P.s. if you get the title, you win a gold star.