The Tuesday Ten

1. I made this last night:

Rotisserie Chicken In The Crockpot

--1 whole chicken, skinned (4-5 pounds) *Mine was over 6 lbs and I don't recommend skinning the bird in front of your children while they are eating breakfast, at least they don't recommend it!--2 tsp kosher salt (if you'd like it as salty as the ones in the store, add another 1 tsp.)
--1 tsp paprika
--1 tsp onion powder
--1/2 tsp dried thyme
--1 tsp Italian seasoning
--1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
--1/2 tsp black pepper
--pinch of chili pepper (probably not necessary)

--4 whole garlic cloves (optional)
--1 yellow onion, quartered (optional)

The Directions.

In a bowl, combine all of dried spices. Rub the spice mixture all over the bird, inside and out. Plop the bird breast-side down into the crockpot. *I like how the recipe says to plop the bird in, I like the word plop.
If desired, shove 4 whole garlic cloves and a quartered onion inside the bird.

Do not add water.

Cover and cook on high for 4-5 hours, or on low for 8. The meat is done when it is fully cooked and has reached desired tenderness. The longer you cook it, the more tender the meat.

I cooked mine for 8 hours on low, it pretty much fell apart in the crockpot, probably shouldn't have cooked it so long; my crockpot seems to run a little "hot" and cooks things way faster than recipes say - the chicken was a little dry. I found the recipe here.

2. I read this last week:


It was good. Nothing earth shattering or very thought provoking but it was a nice story. I say read it.

3. I want my blog to be like this. I have been reading her blog for a year or two and I just like her.

4. We did this yesterday:



We finally busted out the Easy Bake oven that Nalani got for Christmas. We tried to do it a few months ago but we ran into a problem - it does not come with the 100 Watt bulb that is required. It isn't easy to find regular 100 Watt lightbulbs these days! Yesterday it took us 39 minutes to bake 8 bites of cake. 8 bites of nasty cake with nasty frosting. 15 minutes to warm up the bulb and 12 minutes per cake to bake, we made a yellow cake and a devils food cake. We are going to try the pretzels next, I am sure they will be delicious.

5. There was still swim lessons today, even though it was raining. It smelled like poop at the pool.

6. This is what I had for lunch today:



Yep, that's a large Coke and large fries from McDonald's. Shouldn't have had it but I did, and I liked it.

7. I got my haircut today. Walked right in and sat right down at Great Clips. I always go there, but always get a different person. Today I had a new girl. I have had my hair short for some time, I came in with it short and left with it shorter but she still found it necessary to tell me that I would have little hairs all over me when she was done. Ummm....I know this, it happens everytime!? I think I like it. I will do a big reveal when my new glasses come in!

8. The kids and I rented this today:



I don't know if we will watch it tonight or tomorrow morning. Just some time before 9pm tomorrow when the movie box will charge me another $1. Big spender.

9. I am trying to get ready for a yard sale that will occur in 18 days. I currently have all of the contents of my craft room piled on the floor as I purge and sort. Last night I spent a few hours sitting in the middle of it wondering where to start. Then I went to bed.

10. I am working on my second year of doing a picture a day with Becky's Project Life. We are pretty much at the halfway point of 2011 and I haven't been doing the best at taking my picture a day. I am now recommitting to following through with it. I will even try to post my picture every day or maybe Seven on Sunday or something. You have my word, all 7 of you.

Got a new set of peepers!

I have had a glasses prescription in my purse since last September.  My vision benefit renews July 1st so I thought I better get my glasses that the insurance will pay for before they won't pay anymore!  I wanted to go look at frames this weekend when Husband was home so I could have a somewhat reliable person to critique them, but we never made it.  So today my 7 and 11 year old fashion consultants and I headed out.  This is what we decided on:

They aren't as dark as the picture shows, they are a "violet rose" shade - pretty daring for me!  They will arrive in 7-10 days and I will show you what they look like on.

Card Swap

I participate in a card swap every once in awhile.  It is a great way to get some really nice homemade cards and not have to come up with a bunch of creative ideas.  I made 13 of the same card, 12 other people are also making 13 cards; I will get back one of mine and one of each of theirs.  13 different cards and only one idea!  The theme of this swap was all occasion cards.  I was going to keep mine a secret until we all got the cards back but since Jenny posted hers I thought I might as well show mine too!  I will post all of the cards that I get from the swap soon!

The Tuesday Ten

I must be busy, or boring - no posts since last week's Tuesday Ten!
This weeks Tuesday Ten is a special weekend baseball tournament edition and quite a bit more than ten!  It was quite an experience!

1. We had been on the road for about 30+ minutes when we meet a teammate going the opposite direction.  They were headed back home to get his bag with all of his baseball gear.

2. A little back story - I am usually VERY good with directions, I can always get us anywhere, however back when I was a senior in high school I applied to and was accepted to two colleges - Sacramento State and Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo.  One of the main reasons why I chose to attend Cal Poly is because it has one freeway, Hwy 101 - the same freeway we have here.  Sacramento has WAY too many freeways going way too many directions.

3. We got lost.

4.  We had to get on I-5.  I believe I didn't start looking for a way to get on to I-5 until we were past it.  Mapquest led me astray. It left out the important bit of info about getting on I-80 Business Loop to access 5.  We went for a really long time on I-50, waiting to get on I-5.  A REALLY long time.  Like 9 miles outside of Placerville long.

5.  My husband is an assistant coach.  We were almost to Placerville.  The other assistant coach AND all of the team gear were dropped off at the wrong field.  And left there by his wife that had another kid to get to another field.

6.  The head coach was at the correct field.  With 8 players, 2 without cleats, no assistant coaches or gear.

7.  The wife came back to get the other coach.  They got lost trying to get across town.

8. We all arrived 5 minutes before game time - gear, coaches and players.

9.  Lost the first game 11-7, should have won but we fell apart one inning.  Went to a sandwich shop that took forever and cost a fortune.

10. Tied the 2nd game 5-5, the umps just walked off and said it was a tie.  Ummmm, OK I guess. We really wanted to win.

11.  Checked in to hotel.  Find out Head coach and his family lost their car key, their only car key, they had their little clicker button thing but the key had fallen off their key ring. Can't find it anywhere.  The people at lost and found tell them to pray to St. Sebastian, check the ignition and to check back tomorrow.  All very helpful suggestions.

12.  $250 later they have a two new car keys and get to the hotel 3 hours after everyone else.

13. Uneventful evening of swimming in the pool, dinner, sleep.

14. Very crappy hotel breakfast.

15.  Lost first game of the day 10-8 but it was against a team that had beat everyone else by 10+ so the boys did well.  The teams are all 11 years old.  There were boys on that team that made our coaches look small.  Guess there is nothing to do in Galt except eat, and play baseball.

16. The family that had to go back home to get their ball bag back in #1, well they now locked their keys in their car.  Call to locksmith 2nd time this weekend for our team.

17.  Second game of the day we won 26-1.  The first half of the 1st inning took 40 minutes.  We batted through our line-up 2 1/2 times.  We have been on the other end of that before so we felt bad for the other team.  One of our boys hit a grand slam.  Very hard to celebrate when you are whipping the other team so badly.  But at least it was a happy ending to one heck of a weekend!

Wish you could see the scoreboard a little better in the picture!

Tuesday Ten......on Wednesday

1) I don’t know why but it made me chuckle that The Lytton Springs Salvation Army Store has a “Preferred Customers Club”

2) Do people even think about what they are donating to charities? Do you really think someone wants your half-used tube of boob cream for breast feeding moms? Or how about taking the family photo out of the frame before putting it in the donation box.

3) Another helpful hint on donating - no one wants your home video on VHS of “Hawaiian Vacation 1997” it took all I had not to pick that sucker up. And then of course there was “Kelly’s Mickey Mouse Club Tape” I soooo wanted to buy that, just for the sole fact that Kelly told me “Do NOT Touch” right on the label.

4) Yesterday when I was at the Salvation Army store I saw a lady pull up to the donation truck and unload a bunch of boxes. She then pulled in to the parking lot, grabbed a cart and started shopping. If she just got rid of that many boxes I am thinking she really shouldn’t collect stuff up again!

5) I do not like things that boast that they are “20 minute Workouts” - they lie. You have to do them for 20 minutes every.single.day, not just 20 minutes once and you are done. Not a fan.

6) I am the coolest mom on the All-Star team because I gave all the boys free nachos after practice. We have to use up the snack shack cheese sauce and chips!

7) I am not good at accessorizing. My scrapbook pages don’t have much embellishing, my house isn’t very decorated and I don’t wear jewelry, scarves etc. I wish I was.

8) It looks hot out today but I haven’t been out, I just turned on the AC and stayed inside.

9) Why is every person on Extreme Couponing going on their “biggest shopping trip ever”?

10) I have $9.98 to spend at Rite Aid and nothing I want to buy. I have to spend it this week or it will expire. It is kind of a bummer that there is nothing I want that will give me more Rite Aid dollars back. L

My Salvation Army Shopping Trip

So today I stopped by the Lytton Springs Salvation Army on my way home from work. I do this every once in awhile to see if they have anything that I could re-purpose or craft into something cute.

Today I scored all of this:

There is a wooden frame/tray thing, 5 canning jars, a square vase, 8 styrofoam eggs and a small embroidery hoop.  I scored it all for.............ONE DOLLAR!!  That made digging through all of their yard sale bins in the heat so worth it!  I think the lady that wrote my tag up was smoking something, well actually I am sure she was.  The cashier lady also thought she was nuts to give it to me for so cheap! 

I like to use the canning jars for flower arrangements, pretty them up with a little ribbon and they make a cute little gift.  No idea what I am going to do with the styrofoam eggs, but I am sure I will think of something or maybe I will give them to Berta she could probably craft up something really cute with them.  I know you will now expect me to make something fab with the wooden frame/tray thing.  Maybe some day I will, but don't hold your breath.  I plan to do this with the embroidery hoop once I collect up enough.  And all of that for $1!

And of course my trip to the Salvation Army provided me with quite a bit of material for my Tuesday Ten, which I will get to pretty soon!

Summer

So far the "lazy days of summer" have been anything but lazy!  This coming week I will be updating you all with pictures of what we have been up to around here.  This last week we had dance recitals, baseball playoff games, homerun derby, championship game BBQ & raffle, and a belated birthday celebration.  I spent all week prepping for those things and all weekend doing them.  So now that they are all over our summer can really start!  Of course for the next 2 weeks we have practice for the All-star baseball team, every.single.night. and out of town tournaments for the next two weekends.  But really practice requires nothing from me and tournaments I just need to show up and watch games.  Let the summer begin!

The Tuesday Ten

Here are my random thoughts and observations for the week:

1.  Whatever happened to the light brown M&M?  My kids don't even know it existed!

2.  The Duggars of 19 Kids and Counting fame were on the Today show this morning.  They asked them how they make ends meet with 19 kids, how can they afford to feed, clothe, etc all of those kids? Hhhmmmm.....maybe their own TV show and appearing on shows like the Today show have something to do with it!??!  Like they are just living on a waitresses salary or something!

3.  As we all know I have a lot of toothbrushes, you can pretty much choose any kind or color from my stash in the cupboard so WHY did Husband pull out a pink one to use!?!  Now everytime I brush my teeth I have to think about what toothbrush is mine.

4. I think I am going to change the color scheme of the blog.

5.  I am taking down and boxing up all of my Pooh Bear kitchen stuff.  I just don't want to look at the silly old bear any longer.

6.  I am getting tired of the "chevron" design fad.  It is everywhere on Pinterest and it doesn't float my boat.

7. Why when I don't need one of these dispenser container things they are everywhere for like $2 and now that I want to make the bubble refill station I can't find one!?  Except fancy $10 ones!

8.  Really big dance show this week.  Rehearsal tonight and then the really big show Thursday and Saturday nights! Baseball on the same nights too.  Fun!

9.  Jaren's team won tonight - they even had a triple play.  Which I missed because I was waiting at dance rehearsal......a dance rehearsal that was running an hour behind when we got there!

10.  I think 10 things is way too much to come up with and two is too few.....but nothing else works with Tuesday......maybe I should change the day.

Graduation Cards

Here are a couple of graduation cards I made for my niece's and a family friend.  They are pretty much the same as the Coaches cards, just flipped over and made a little more "girlie".  But essentially the same card design, I figured that there was no need to re-create the wheel!

This was supposed to be yesterdays post but I couldn't upload pictures (not that it is a very good picture)!  Stay tuned for the The Tuesday Ten......which may change to the The Tuesday Two if I can't think of anything to say!

Last Day of School

Today was the last day of school.  We said goodbye to 1st and 5th grade this afternoon. Both kids will move to new schools next year, Nalani was sad to leave her school, Jaren really could care less (at least on the outside!)



First Day of School - August 18, 2010





Last Day of School - June 2, 2011

I think they look quite a bit older since the beginning of the year, and they definitely dress better at the beginning of the year!!