Sorry, I’m a day late on sharing my Proud Mommy Moment, but yesterday’s post needed to be said. It was what was on my heart.
Last weekend I woke up every morning (remember mini vacation) wanting Biscuits & Gravy. Finally I’d had it. I couldn’t take it anymore. First thing Sunday morning I got up and started making biscuits.
After the long night at the drive-in, I didn’t make Tbug take a shower when we got home at 1ish-am. So when she got up first thing Sunday morning I made her take a shower. When she got out of the shower she came into the kitchen to see what her daddy and I were up to. I was walking around gathering the ingredients and she wanted to help. So Miss Tbug followed the directions and made biscuits. Very very little help from me. In fact, I showed her how to press the dough out, but for the most part, she made the biscuits.
Once we placed the biscuits in the oven then she asked if she could help make the gravy. I told her that was her daddy’s area, she had to talk to him. She jumped in right in and started helping.
Wow, one of these days I’m going to be able to have her cook and I won’t have to do anything. How cool is that. She did a great job and she’s becoming a GREAT cook in our kitchen!
I’m not sure if you remember back to when I said I found recipes that were my great-grandmothers or not, but I found this list of Table Equivalents she clipped out of the newspaper. The newspaper is old and tattered and like I stated before, my grandma said it was probably cut out in the 20’s-50’s.
Table of Equivalents
One pound of butter or shortening equals 2 cups
One pound granulated sugar equals 2 cups
One pound brown sugar equals 2 and 2/3 cups
One pound confectioners sugar equals 3 cups
Three tablespoons cocoa plus 1/2 tablespoon shortening equals 1 square chocolate.
One cup all-purpose flour less 2 tablespoons equals 1 cup cake flour
One cup sweet milk plus 1 tablespoon vineagar or lemon juice equals 1 cup sour milk
One cup sour milk plus 1/2 teaspoon baking soda and only 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder required in recipe equals 1 cup sweet milk.
Two tablespoons flour equals 1 tablespoon cornstarch.
You know as bloggers, we put ourselves way out there. Do you see something wrong with my playlist? Can you tell my Playlist was Christmas songs?
Can you tell my Playlist was Christmas songs? I’m just ready for the Christmas holiday season. I like Christmas! And no, it isn’t totally because I’m ready for cooler weather. In fact, very seldom do I complain about the weather because everyone wants what it isn’t. If it’s cold they want warm. If it’s warm, they want cool. I say just go with it because it’ll be what you want soon enough. Besides, I’m a warm weather girl :). Now if Christmas could only be in summer. ha! Santa would run around in swim trunks. Scary thought! Moving on!!
Recently I’ve been working on doing some redesign on my blog I guess you could call it.This is just a “fun” thing for me. A creative outlet. I would like it professionally designed, but well… so far I just haven’t done it. So I’m working on it myself. If you have any ideas/suggestions, let me know. But I thought I would share with you how to change the width of your posting area & side bars today. Especially since blogger changed a while back.
Step 1. From the Dashboard, click on the little down arrow and click on Template.
Step 2. Next click on the “Custom
Step 3.On the left select Adjust Width
Step 4. You will now find these bars in front of you.
By dragging the bottom two bars back and forth you will change the width of the outside sidebars to your blog. The smaller the left and right sidebars are the bigger your middle section will be. You also may choose to only have a two column blog, leaving one of the sidebars bars at 0 px.
The maximum entire width of your blog on Blogger can by 1000 px, but remember if you make you blog this big the entire blog might not fit on everyone’s computer screens and they will have to scroll over.
This how to tutorial improves you blog! If you have any questions or would like to know how to improve other aspects of you blog let me know.
Now I’m going to go back to dancing around listening to my Christmas Music.
My weekend started early last week. Hubby had a day and a half of vacation that needed to be used up. Kind of the use it or lose it thing. I had 3 1/2 days, so we decided to take 1 1/2 days of vacation together. So we both went to work on Thursday morning and went home at noon to start our weekend!
When I walked in the house on Thursday afternoon hubby was snoozing on the couch. haha! We got caught up on White Collar then we decided to head out.
In Springfield they have a cheap-o movie theater. Basically it’s the movies right before they go out of theaters. We decided to go there. For $3 a person we got to see Snow White & the Huntsmen.
I liked it! Hubby was afraid it wouldn’t be my cup of tea, but I actually liked it. It did keep me on the edge of my seat a bit, I’m not in to scary movies, but this didn’t just horrify me, just kept me on the edge of my seat.
When we left the theater the pavement was wet. I’m not sure what that was…. j/k it had rained. We just really haven’t seen that in so long I wasn’t sure. ha! There was severe weather all around Springfield. The last I heard they got 1 1/2″ in about 45 minutes.
Then we headed off to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Zio’s. I have loved this restaurant since I was a little kid; I introduced hubby to it and it’s one of his faves as well.
After dinner we decided to go bum around the mall. A few weeks ago hubby and I found a pair of shoes we liked for him to wear to work, but we’re cheap… and they were $75. They aren’t typically what he would wear, otherwise $75 wouldn’t be too bad. So we moved on. Thursday night we were in a different store and found a similar pair for $55. Still not willing to purchase them for that price again, not his normal type of shoe so not sure if he’d like/wear them much. Then we went to Payless, found a similar pair for $16.99. Sold! Now at least he can try them out, if he likes them we’ll move on from there :).
Friday morning we woke up and decided to head to the Falls for some photo ops.
For the most part I was the model and hubby was the photographer. It’s so funny how we have our different styles, yet they are similar too.
I had to wade through the water, and silly me didn’t wear my water shoes but instead boots so off came the boots & socks and up went the jeans. I was a trooper. ha! The rocks were painful on my feet.
Then we headed off to lunch & the grocery store. We finally made it back to the house to relax and eventually start dinner. We invited my parents over for PW’s Prime Rib & PW’s Twice Baked Potatoes. The TBP allowed me to knock another thing off my 101 list so that was exciting! By the way I haven’t done much with that lately…
Saturday my Mother In Law dropped Tbug off and Tbug and I made sugar cookies. Then we went out delivering them to friends & family. Our last delivery was to grandma & grandpa (my parents). She really wasn’t dressed to ride horses (shorts & flipflops), but she really wanted to. So I ran into the house and grabbed a pair of my mom’s old boots & socks and said, you can ride in shorts. So we spent a couple hours riding horses and working on how to show a horse in Western Pleasure & Halter classes.
That evening we decided to head to the drive-in where we watched The Diary of a Wimpy Kid & The Dark Knight Rises.
Sunday we were all tuckered out so much that we woke up late. For 2 days I had been dreaming about Biscuits & Gravy so I got up and started working on that. Tbug came in asking what I was doing and she finished making the biscuits, then helped her daddy work on the gravy.
Then we all settled in and watched Gilmore Girls on DVD. We planned on being lazy Sunday, but my mom called and asked if we’d like to go to lunch with them. So we got dressed and headed to their house. Finally after lunch (which that was a whole ordeal in itself) we made it back to my parents house around 4. Tbug goes home at 5 but she really wanted to ride so I told her she had time. She and Grandpa went out to ride for about 30 minutes and then it was time to put the horses up, get her changed and head to meet her momma.
We finished off with heading to Sunday Night Dinner. Earl finally got her bathroom fixed and she was so excited for everyone to come see the new bathroom. After Sunday night dinner we headed to our house and crashed.
My mom’s job has her traveling all over the country and world for that matter. She recently went to New Orleans and I asked her to take photos. I also asked if she’d be willing to do a guest post about restaurants… And boy did she ever. I’m going to turn it over to my beautiful momma today to talk about Muriel’s Jackson Square. Take it away!!
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Lots of restaurants have a “hook” enticing patrons to dine with them rather than the competitor down the street. This hook may come in many forms: décor, menu, live music featured on the weekends or a combination of several. Last week while working in New Orleans, I had the pleasure of eating at Muriel’s Jackson Square.
They claim to be haunted!
Muriel’s history started with the original property owner, Pierre Antoine Lepardi Jourdan, purchasing the property in 1789, and subsequently building his “dream home”. Unfortunately, Mr. Jourdan had a gambling problem and one ill-fated night in 1814, lost his beloved residence due to a bad card hand during a poker game.
Vowing to never leave his home, he committed suicide on the second floor the night before he was to be evicted from the premises. Thus Pierre Antoine Lepardi Jourdan walks his home forever.
Waiters (or is the PC word servers?) at Muriel’s have the touch of fine dining captured….. as you are seated, they retrieve the fabric napkin which has been artfully folded at your place setting, and gently place it in your lap. It’s been so long since I’ve had this experience, I’d nearly forgotten how to react. For a split second, I was starting to wonder what the server was going for. Where I’m from anymore, linen napkins aren’t an option. You’re lucky to get a paper one that has been made of recycled paper products wrapped around your fork (forget getting a knife) with a self-stick paper band. Plus, if the menu mentions anything with the word B-B-Q sauce as a main ingredient, you might just find a roll of kitchen towels donning a wood dowel rod at the end of a picnic table. Guess I shouldn’t complain though; beats using a shirt sleeve or pants leg.
Anyone who is friends with me on facebook may or may not have seen this post on Saturday night. As you can see Lourie/CA Girl wants an explanation :).
Back when hubby & I were dating I found an old notebook from high school. Most of the notes were between my friend T and me, however there were a couple between M & S and me as well.
April 16, 1999 T: Did he ask u out? Me: Ask me out how? T: Girlfriend? Me: No T: Date? Me: Well kind of in a way T: How? & Where? Me: He asked if I’d go to the movies
She had me freaked out. Later in that note:
Me: Before he told me that, he said he was going to the drive in either tonight or tomorrow night. Then after we got through that (I’m sure my face was as red as my Tommy Shirt) he asked me. T: His car is really big inside so that would be interesting. Would be something to think about! Me: He isn’t that way and he never said movie/me/drive-in. He just said movie T: & you said what? Or did you change the subject? Me: I told you, I said maybe? Then I said when? T: & he said what…? Me: email me your digits. Then he said he’d call T: That what he said “Your digits” & did he call? Me: Yes and no because I didn’t email them til about 7 last night T: So if he calls you tonight, call me!
And he never called.
April 21, 1999 there was a note between him & me where he asked me out on a date. Or more or less asked if we should hook up. I was scared to ask my parents because my dad had always said I couldn’t go on a date until I was 16. I was 3 months away from 16.
I would like to speculate what would have happened had I had the nerve to ask my parents, but truthfully, we never know what would have happened one way or the other. We could have gone on a date and wound up not liking each other. We could have gone our separate ways and met back up 10 years later. Or we could have fallen madly in love and been a high school romance turned marriage romance. No one knows.
Yes, I tease him but truthfully, we both had to make our mark in the world. His is on a wall in Afghanistan. Mine was on a beach in the Pacific ocean down around the equator. That’s what we had to do…
But… I’m please to announce, that 14 years after he asked me out to the drive in…
He made good on his promise to take me! 14 years later I got my date to the drive in. And, I shouldn’t have been worried, we watched the movie… LOL :).
Both were excellent movies. Although after the Colorado happenings I was a bit on edge when The Dark Knight Rises started.
Don’t worry, we had chaperones too 🙂
You may not realize this but we both have on sweatshirts! I LOVE Hoodies and after this hot summer I’m so ready for fall! And truthfully I LOVE summer!
By the end of the movie we had blankets on too!
Poor Tbug fell asleep during the second movie. Boy I wish I had a photo of how she was sleeping in her chair, but this was pretty great too! On the way home she had her head in my lap on blankets as a pillow with the green blanket over her head.
So as Paul Harvey used to say, Now you know, the rest of the story.
I decided since it seems like this was “review” week, I’d just continue the tradition :).
Last Fall while my hubby & I were in Branson we stayed at a hotel that gave us this Branson coupon thing. I went through the book and it mentioned a restaurant called Florentina’s Ristorante Italiano. We love Italian and it was lunch time so we thought we’d give it a whirl. Since then we’ve taken my parents and my {step}daughter there with us.
A couple weeks ago when we went to Branson for the day, we decided to take Tbug to Florentina’s for dinner. She’s like us… she likes Italian also.
I’m just going to overload you with restaurant reviews this week. I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Besides, this was breakfast, so totally counts as something different, right?
A couple weeks ago we decided to go to Branson. We had free tickets to see the Haygoods plus we have season passes to Silver Dollar City, so we decided to head down and make it a day. We also figured we should eat a big breakfast. We knew we’d be eating an early dinner so we were going to try and skip lunch (Tbug didn’t agree with us there…. but we still managed).
In college I always loved to eat at this particular restaurant called Iggy’s. A few weeks prior to that when we went to the Farmer’s Market with Doti, Doti and I decided we’d eat at Iggy’s for breakfast, we just drug hubby along. Well it turns out Iggy’s moved and the restaurant/building is now called Springfield Family Restaurant. We figured we’d give it a chance. It was almost just like Iggy’s.
So on our way to Branson, we knew this would be the place to eat a big breakfast!
I sometimes wonder if I embarrass people for the number of photos I take and the type of photos I take. Like I’ve mentioned earlier this week, I was out on a work trip, therefore not a lot of opportunity to cook at home. We ate out a couple times and I decided to go ahead and do my reviews now as opposed to waiting forever and a day.
Tuesday for lunch James, Lora & I went to eat at a little Mexican restaurant in Union. This is the restaurant she and her husband eat at pretty much every Friday night.
As we were walking into the building James said to me, “Should I warn Lora or should you?” I just grinned and Lora was like, What? You don’t like Mexican. That’s when we informed her about me taking photos for my recipe blog. :). Obviously, she played along… LOL :).
