Meal Challenge-Tomatoes

Robynns Ravings has a new blog called the 30 day Throwdown. She challenged us to eat healthier and think about the foods we were eating. I took the challenge and added a small weekly challenge among a small group of on-line mommies I hang with. This weeks challenge was to use tomatoes in a meal.

Pictured above is fresh from the garden tomatoes. Honest! I walked out my garage, picked the tomatoes off the vine, cut them up and popped them in the pot. See the potatoes? They were dug by Jon from Grandpa's garden. (Digging potatoes is hard work! He even broke the wedge that was attached to the back of the tractor and had to weld a new one. Good thing I married a Handy Man!) We have a huge box in the rabbit room full of dirt encrusted potatoes. The green beans were picked and packaged by Grandma from their garden. After taking the picture I added store bought onion, carrots and corn.

This is a brisket. I marinated this piece of meat for 24 hours in a mixture of Worcheshire sauce, lemon juice, horseradish sauce, beef broth, Canadian Seasoning, and Liquid Smoke. The mixture was inspired from The Pioneer Woman's recipe for brisket marinade. After marinating, Jon popped the pan of meat and marinade in the oven and cooked at 300 for 4 hours. The key to brisket is long marinating time plus slow even cook time. Brisket has a lot of connective tissue and the slow cook time breaks down the connective tissue, giving you a tender piece of meat. Brisket also has a lot of fat. Cause brisket comes from this part of the cow...

I like cows.

Anyway, back to the tomatoes! Cut up the meat (cutting lengthwise with the grain of meat), tossed meat and vegetable mixture in a pan, added the marinade juice from the meat pan and stovetop cooked on medium heat for about 40 minutes. Doesn't it look delicious?! This dish is divine with buttered bread. Yum! And the Jack Daniels was looking so lonely in the fridge since it was left over from my Anniversary getaway in July. So, I enjoyed it with the meal while my kids ate PBJ's. I'm not kidding either. Kids refused to eat this meal. I was heartbroken.

Peace and Meal Challenge Met!

Fast Friday

Pretty Flowers for a Pretty Lady!

Peace and Happy Weekend!

I love

I love roller coasters!!! Kings Island has some amazing roller coasters. This is Firehawk (check out the link for a front seat point of view ride). Notice I'm not wearing shoes? The ride flips you over on your belly and you ride like you are Superman flying. It's amazing! And completely possible that if you ignore all the warning signs, you will lose everything in your pockets and anything loose shoes, hats, sunglasses, items stuck in your cleavage, etc.

And of course...
Peace and Hydraulic Love!

I love

I love my little girl! Of course! The Canon camera is a favorite and my hands feel empty without it. I do believe I have a future photographer in the making.

Peace and Happy Shooting!

I love

My sister, Janne, and I spent an entire day at Mitchell's Salon and Day Spa in West Chester, Ohio (get the tour!). It was divine. Should have taken pictures, but I didn't. Instead I basked in the pampering and luxuriated in the divine scents.

We got this package:

Transform your skin, nails and hair. Includes our Euphoria Facial, Therapeutic Full Body Massage, Paraffin Whirlpool Pedicure, Manicure, Deep Restructuring Hair Treatment, Master Haircut and Finished Design, Makeup Application and Lunch. Full Day Package
(substituted the massage for highlight and skipped the makeup application)

First we were shown to the "private" dressing rooms where there were showers, bathrooms, and a sink with all types of goodies for our use on the counter. We were given locker keys and upon opening the lockers we found beautiful white robes and those funky flip flops they give you for pedicures. We were told to take off everything but our panties. Upon questioning her the lady said the Esthetician needed access to our decolletage. (Honest to goodness, I'd never heard that word pronounced before. It just rolled off her tongue beautifully) But since I'm private like that, I kept my bra on and and figured she could just work around it. I then went with my gorgeous esthetician, I mean she was a piece of bite size cuteness with her long wavy brown hair, beautiful skin and just gorgeous features and curves...beautiful curves. Sorry! She took me and I dipped my hands in paraffin wax and she wrapped them in plastic. Then it was off to get my facial and hot stone massage. MMMMM!!! Divine.

Following the relaxing facial, I went and got my hair highlighted. Janne and I met back up under the hair dryers and snacked on fruit and cheese and just kicked back and loved the time together.

Manicures were next and I elected to keep my short stubby nails and get a pretty pink nail color painted on them.

Pedicures finished our day and it was wonderful. The lady looked at me odd cause I requested clear polish for my toenails, but I'm simple like that. The color on the fingernails was enough for me.


The day was perfect and Janne and I had the most amazing time. We need to do this everytime she comes to town.

Thank you, Janne! Loved every minute of it.


Peace and Happy Spa Day!

I love

I love these shoes...and the floor upon which they walk. Jon did good installing our new living room flooring. These shoes have been to a funeral and a wedding. Someday, I'll pair them with some Levi's and act like I'm a supercool chick. In reality, I'm that mom and I'll probably embarrass my kids. For now, though, I'll hold onto those sweet words, "You look good, Mommy!"

Peace and Happy Feet!

My story:

I've been ignoring my blog for almost a month now. The week of the giveaway, I was vacationing. Then the week of the winner, life intervened and I embarked on a many mile, soul numbing, physically draining long ass trip. I've been back in the office a week now and on this Friday, I feel that my mojo is jumping a bit.

I saw many things on my travels:

The Mississippi was crossed four times. I love the Mississippi. It is my favorite river and is a lifetime goal of mine to travel the entire length of the Mississippi by boat.

I saw an adorable little truck in Texas that said Pest Police with lights and everything. I think if my job required me to drive a tonka toy truck, I'd have to trade in my Redneck girl badge I got from Girl Scouts.

I saw and SMELLED an entire trailer full of cattle. These weren't the pretty show cattle I'm used to seeing in my town. These cows were obviously heading for slaughtering and boy were they meaty. Smacked my lips a little bit since I was feeling a bit carnivorous at the moment. Oh and my child, James, who is 4 said to me last night that dinosaurs that eat meat are "carnivals".

Texans take pride in their state. The notary public I went to had a picture of the state of Texas inlaid into the concrete sidewalk. It was cool. Reminded me of the handprints we put in the concrete porch when I was little, but much more artsy.

My step sister stopped the local police in front of my Dad's house and talked to them for an hour. Her sister and I sat on the porch and heckled her and them via hollaring, texting and sending a few children to interrupt their flirt-fest. Cause we are like that. And whoever that was the went speeding by, please send a thank you to Becky for saving your butt a whooping speeding ticket.

On my way home the first time, my sister texted me with a picture commenting on the beautiful sunrise. I took a picture of the sunrise and said "Does it look like this?". To which, she did a duh and my Dad laughed at our silliness.

Finally, I just want to say, that Kentucky has some of the dumbest, well, let me rephrase this, oddest, ball-wacking, knuckle dragging, crazy-ass people I've ever had the pleasure of encountering. That conclusion was drawn in the four times I drove through that state based on the things I witnessed and lived through.

The nail in the coffin is the State of Kentucky's Police Department, Highway Troopers, or whoever the hell it was that did this to me:

PASSED me and a semi on a two lane highway going faster than us. We were going 77 mph. The cop went straight up the middle of the highway, barely missing hitting me and forcing the semi to take the right shoulder. You are a moron, whoever you are. And I'm thanking God there were angels on my bumper blowing your car away from mine cause I was heading to the median if you'd come any closer. Know what happens then, moron?! I would have flipped the blazer doing 70some. *SHAKES FIST*

Peace and Keep Trucking! Safely.

P.S. So sorry that this post is not picture heavy. All the pictures I took were with my phone camera and I'm ashamed to post them because of the poor quality. And I'm too lazy to hunt down Google images and worry about whether or not they belong to someone.

Not Dead!

I'm here!!! I'll have to catch you peeps later though. Three thousand and some hundred odd miles and I'm wiped. Just rolled into Cincy, stopped at work and now I'm going home to sleep for three days. Catch ya'll on the flip side.

Off-roading and Over-the-roading

From left to right, Janne, Marical, me, Jesse, Katee, Ben, James and Zack.

Pictures tell a story. I have a story of eight siblings and it can be summed up in some of my favorite words...we keep trucking. Life is life.

I'll give people a nonchalant shoulder shrug and an easy "Fine!" when asked how things are going. The juicy goods and tidbits that make the rumor mill go round and round are buried with family in our graveyard of "things best forgotten." So I'll share the details of what is known...

There are 17 years between Marical and I...a chasm in sister years. I was there, a pimply teen whispering how I hoped my ass didn't get that big when I had babies (it didn't and please forgive teen me for being so obnoxious. I've never lived down that comment and I am very careful with pregnant ladies these days. Maturity counts for something, right?) the morning Marical was born, watching our mom give birth to a baby named Marical Joy. She was a miracle and a joy to her mom and dad. Through a series of events, Marical came to live with Jon and I and our family in December 2007, a few months before her 13th birthday.

Defiant teen usually equates to tension in a home. It burst like an infectious zit Monday day with the words "Shut the fuck up." coming out of Marical's mouth to Jon.

Please excuse me while I make some decisions. I'll be back next week.

Peace and Praying for Peace.