My Mother-in-law makes the best cookies. She used to ship them to Afghanistan when my husband was there so he felt like he had a piece of home with him. Now, I have the recipe! Yey :). It reminds me a lot of my grandma’s recipe, and you know, I can’t quite make them like she does, but my {step}daughter and I have sure tried :).
Chocolate Chip Pudding Cookies
2 1/4 cups unsifted flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 pkg (4 serving size) Jello instant pudding (vanilla or any flavor)
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 (12 oz) pkg chocolate chips
Mix flour with baking soda.
Combine butter, sugar, brown sugar, pudding mix and vanilla in large mixing bowl. Beat until smooth and creamy. Beat in eggs. Gradually add flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and nuts (optional). Batter will be stiff.
Drop by tablespoons on baking sheet. Press out to help flatten.
Bake in preheated 375 degree oven. Bake 8-10 minutes.
I get teased a lot about being the Queen of Random. Yesterday at work probably was no different!
I walked into one of my co-worker’s office’s and asked her if she had photos of her with her grandkids.
To most people, that’s totally random and out of the blue. Heck if someone walked up and asked me that I’m not so sure I wouldn’t look at them like they had flipped their lid. BUT… It might not be random to them. Let me walk you through how I got there… Shall we?
Sometimes the joke in our office is my boss is the phantom. He’s in his office one minute and the next, he’s gone. Almost like he vanished into thin air. So our big boss, R, came by to talk to him, D, and of course D wasn’t in his office. He walked off for a few minutes. In fact, sometimes I’m surprised they don’t run into each other in the hallway. So eventually D came back to his office. I got up and was walking down the hallway and I saw R. I looked at him and said, “He’s in his office. Run!” And of course R laughed at me. In my head I was thinking, Run don’t walk. Do Not Pass Go. Do Not Collect $200. Get to his office now or he’ll be gone. {I hope you realize that do not pass go, do not collect $200 is in reference to Monopoly.} So I continued on my way down the hallway.
But that got me to thinking about playing Rummy. I love that card game. I used to play it all the time with my Grandma S. And now I’ve taught hubby to play it. So I was thinking that we need to play it again, soon! We’ve talked about playing it with Tbug but he’s not sure she has the patience to learn it. I point out to him that I was playing that at her age, but he thinks we should start with Go Fish first. But back to the story at hand… thinking about my Grandma S. And me, being the picture person I am remembered this picture.
And Sadly, I got to thinking about how few photos exist of me and my grandparents. All 4 of them. I still have one grandma left, and probably out of all my grandparents, I have the most photos with the two of us together, partially because we share a birthday so there are a lot of birthday photos of us. And truthfully there are very few photos that exist of my grandparents in general.
Then I got to thinking about Tbug. My mother HATES having her photo taken. Really, there are very few photos around of her. I took this recent one of her, and she’d probably disown me if she knew I took it, but sometimes, you have to sneak them in on her.
So when I asked my co-worker if she had many photos of her with her grandkids, that is how I got there. Very strategically.
So I guess my point to this whole post is, even if you don’t like having your photo taken, Sometimes you need to suck it up so that your kids and grandkids and great-grandkids can all know who you were.
Remember Trisha Yearwood’s uncle said it best, “Pictures aren’t for today, they are for tomorrow.” I agree Uncle Wilson!
This last weekend we were out driving around looking for tractor & baler parts. It was about lunch time and we passed by this restaurant. It has been there since February of 2011, but we’ve never eaten here. In fact, we were discussing that amongst ourselves when we passed by headed west. On our way back east we talked about it more and dad turned in the driveway.
He said, you know, we’ve seen this for quite some time now and never tried it, partially because your mom won’t let me, so let’s try it, what do you say. Well hubby and I were up for it so in we turned.
The post title really should be Is It Really Better Than Sex Cake, but I was afraid if I put that I might get weirdo’s looking for who knows what and I may still, but at least I tried right!?!?
But I know there are also a LOT of different recipes for Better than Sex cake. In fact I learned this Sunday night when Pokey thought it was one thing, but in fact has pineapple in it and he’s not a big fan of pineapple. Sorry Pokey!
A few years ago I saw Paula Deen make this and knew I just had to try it! Let’s just say my mother, my father, my grandmother, & my grandfather loved it. In fact my grandpa requested it for one of his birthday’s.
Once I met hubby I shared with him and now he requests it too 🙂 At our house, it’s a real keeper!
Paula Deen’s Is It Really Better Than Sex Cake
Ingredients:
1 (18.25-ounce) box yellow cake mix, plus ingredients to prepare
1 (20-ounce) can crushed pineapple
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 (3.4-ounce) box French vanilla pudding, plus ingredients to prepare
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 cup flaked, sweetened toasted coconut
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Prepare yellow cake mix as directed using a greased 13 by 9 by 2-inch pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes.
While cake is baking, combine the pineapple and 1 cup of sugar in a saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium heat stirring constantly. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
A few weeks ago my {step}daughter stayed longer than normal. I heard one time that her favorite meal was lasagna. I’m not sure, she’s never personally told me that, it’s just something I heard her mom tell my husband. Anyway, the day before I browned up some hamburger for French Bread Cheeseburger for Sunday Night Dinner, but then when SND got changed to our house for a pool party and I needed more than just the pound of ground beef so shhhh don’t tell but I used 2 lbs of ground deer burger. No one knew…. well until now…. Anyway I had this pound of ground beef sitting in my fridge I needed to use up so I decided to make Paula Deen’s Baked Spaghetti. It takes a bit of time to make, so I figured on a lazy day I’d do it up, cool it off and place it in the fridge. Then the next day we baked it off and dinner was ready!
Now I must tell you, my uncle is a picky eater and he loves this stuff. I get requests at Christmas time a lot for it, yeah, it’s that good!
{Ingredients}
2 cups canned diced tomatoes
2 cups tomato sauce
1 cup water
1/2 cup diced onions
1/2 cup diced green bell peppers
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/4 cup fresh parsley
1 1/2 tsp Italian Seasoning
1 1/2 tsp Lady’s House Seasoning
1 1/2 tsp Season Salt
1 1/2 tsp Sugar
2 small bay leaves
1 1/2 lbs ground beef
8 oz uncooked angel hair pasta
1 cup grated Cheddar Cheese
1 cup grated Monterrey Jack Cheese
To make the sauce:
In a stockpot, combine the tomatoes, tomato sauce, water, onions, peppers, garlic, parsley, seasoning mixtures, sugar and bay leaves. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer, covered, for 1 hour.
I decided to share more photos from my Facebook page. I dunno, sometimes it is fun to go back and look at these. I can see a difference in myself from the first one (seen here) to the second bunch (seen here) to these. And these only go up to about April of 2010. That was 2 years ago. Dang! What’s even harder to believe is next month will have been 3 years since I went on my first date with my hubby.
Over the weekend we were talking about how long he and his friend Robert have known each other. 16 years. Dang that seems like a lifetime… ok maybe not but still, that is the age I was when I graduated high school :). But really, they’ve known each other longer than they haven’t, if that makes sense. They both turn 30 this year.
So then we got to talking about how long we’ve known each other {hubby and me} and we’re at 15 years. I’ve still known him longer than I haven’t. We met when I was 13 years old, technically we probably met before that, but I really can start to remember the obnoxious Tuba player starting my 8th grade year of school. And our friendship started blossoming in 9th grade when he’d sing in class with me. Now I wasn’t a student who acted out, but this one teacher would get under my skin and I’d sing, Garth Brooks “Two Pina Coladas”. Yes, I know very uncool of me.
Anyway moving on…. Another walk down Memory Lane
Our First Christmas together.
Trying to learn my first dSLR which was a Canon Rebel XS.
Facebook had something going around once on show yourself as a kid. This is my mom’s favorite photo of me as a child.
Just some random shot I took. We were actually moving sheep around.
An early Sunday morning after Church. It was actually very gray, my first attempt at photoshop.
Wedding dress shopping. Boy I was scared of this! They almost had to take me kicking and screaming! In fact the joke was they thought they were going to have to get me drunk. No they didn’t, but I didn’t want to go.
All we did was run run run. But… toward the end of the day, at least the “running” was on the tractor!
My uncle was baling hay down at my grandparents so we jumped on dad’s tractor and went and moved the bales into rows so that when UJ goes to load them up and take them to the house, all the running has been done. Easy as pie :). haha.
We put the bales in 6 bale rows since that’s what the hay trailer carries :).
On a bit of a side note, I overheard my grandma say one time she didn’t have a camera. At my parent’s house I still had my old Nikon camera {Nikon Coolpix 2500}. I decided to grab it and check it out and if it still worked, I decided to give it to my grandma. I charged up the battery and took it down to the hayfield with me to try it out.
What do you think? These are all straight out of the camera… no editing.
If I got paid for the hours I sat riding around on the fender of dad’s tractor, I’d be a millionaire!
No the tractor wasn’t moving, we were waiting on my uncle to finish baling 🙂
Think my grandma will be happy with this camera? It’s very easy to use so I hope she likes it!!! Happy Hay Season!!
Back on May 12, Lindsay (Hi Lindsay) got married! Again, I’d like to send a congrats to her… this coming Tuesday will be 1 month! Hopefully life is treating her well!
She asked me to guest blog while she was on her honeymoon. I was delighted! When I asked her what she would like me to post about, she suggested Marriage advice. I shared this post with her & her readers back on Monday May 14.
Today, would have been my grandparents anniversary; they would have been married 62 years. It’s hard to believe that they were married longer than they were single. My grandpa passed away, hard to believe!, 2 years ago this November.
But in honor of Lindsay’s new marriage and my grandparents anniversary, I thought I would share with you the advice I shared with Lindsay’s readers, in case you didn’t make it over there last month.
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Hi friends of Lindsay! Hope all is well with you! I’m Nicole
and I blog over at Life’s a Beach, because seriously don’t we all kind of secretly wish we were on one? No, just me? Ok :). I was thrilled when Lindsay asked if I’d do a guest post while she was on her honeymoon which I know she’s having a blast on! So when she asked, I said yes, but asked if there was anything particular she’d like me to blog about. She suggested Marriage advice.
Hmm… Marriage advice. I’ve only been married for about a year and a half, so I may not be the BEST advice giver, but I’ll share what I’ve learned so far.
Someone told me just before I got married that the way you react through wedding planning and especially on your wedding day will set the mood for your marriage. That right there is a real thinker!
Planning of the wedding: I was calm, cool, and relaxed {not really how I pictured myself being} and pretty much had everything done fast so the process leading up to wedding day was relaxed.
Rehearsal/dinner: Other than a bit nervous, I giggled and laughed, and even through my mother in law to be a surprise birthday cake surprise.
Wedding day: I giggled. I giggled from the minute I woke up that morning through getting my hair done to the actual ceremony itself. I giggled all day long.
But don’t be fooled… I’m not going to lead you to believe marriage is all butterflies and rainbows and roses. I think marriage is fabulous, but we have our share of bumps in the road.
Now you may think I’m crazy in saying this, but the bumps in the road actually are a good thing. They build character. They help you find your groove. They help you build a strong foundation. They teach you to rely on each other when you might not have in the beginning.
A lot of emphasis is placed on the wedding and making sure everything is perfect, but truthfully, place more emphasis on the marriage, because the only person who will know the details of the wedding weren’t perfect is you.
And your first year of marriage can go one of 2 ways…
You can be in the honeymoon phase so it’ll be all butterflies, roses & rainbows – and then reality hits like a freight train…….
Reality of living with someone will hit like a freight train, you’ll get over that period and move on to the fun part.
Either way… Marriage is a blast, so just hold on and take every day as a team and run full force at it. Take the good with the bad with the pretty with the ugly, because that’s what makes a very well rounded marriage.
So that’s my advice. Life is like a roller coaster, ups, downs and all arounds, marriage is no different! Hang on, have fun, and enjoy the ride!
Now you should know, I’ve had goats before. I’m not real crazy about goats. I prefer sheep. But!!! Kid goats (which are the babies) are absolutely adorable. And really I prefer the Boer Goats, which are meat goats, not milk goats!
So while we were sitting at the sheep and goat sale last night, my dad and hubby tried to buy me 2 goats. They were Boer at least, but they tried none-the-less.
They wanted me to hook them to a cart and train them to pull.
Then hubby was cute and said, then you could buy grass instead of gas to go to work, and since you always say grass is free, it’s a win win.
But then he pointed out, “Better hope that grass doesn’t turn into gas on your way.”
This ladies & gentlemen is my life :). But I wouldn’t trade it for the world!
So how much do y’all like me? If you said a bunch, then go to this site and vote for numbers 36 & 37 please o please! You have 6 votes! but 36 & 37 are mine! I entered these two gems
Blueberry Muffins
Beer Bread
And now about this recipe. It was in Pioneer Woman’s Cookbook. I have a 101 list goal of trying everything in her first cookbook. This crust rocks! It’ll knock your socks off!
1 tsp active dry yeast
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp Kosher Salt
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
Pour 1 1/2 cups warm water into a bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over the water.
