The Next Chapter

I haven't mentioned here that this past weekend was J3's region wrestling tournament, where the top 4 finishers move on to the state sectionals. He went to the sectionals last year and missed out on moving on to the final state tournament by one place, so he had high hopes for this season. He was seeded 2nd in his weight class, so his first match was against somebody who wasn't very good.

It takes him awhile to get into it mentally (he is such a head case), so he usually doesn't do his best in his first match of most tournaments....he doesn't usually lose, but he does always look pretty rough no matter what his opposition is like. This time, the kid got him in a headlock right away and as he was rolling out of it, the kid ended up on J3's shoulder and twisted and turned it all out of whack and he ended up getting pinned. In his next match, he tried to wrestle and they had to stop the match several times because his shoulder hurt, so finally they stopped the match and he had to take the loss due to injury.

And that is that. The end of his season and the end of wrestling for him.

He was pretty bummed, so while he had to stay at the tournament for the rest of the day, DOTR decided that Monday and Tuesday would be good days to visit Alabama and Ole Miss, so he got on the computer and set up the tours. They left early yesterday morning for Tuscaloosa, then ended up in Oxford for the night. They'll be back tonight. We don't have school next Monday and Tuesday, but since he's not wrestling anymore, he can't miss baseball practice (if he can throw, that is) so it was now or never.

Perfect timing....time to move on to the next thing and decide. Hotty Toddy? Or Roll Tide?

Party Time

We went to a Super Bowl party last night in the 'hood (as we've all taken to calling a loosy goosy group of people who live nearby since we don't have any subdivisions around here like most of metro ATL) and the menu was BYOB and BYOA (appetizer).

Last spring when we had the huge retirement party for our friend, we supplied most of the food but a few folks brough appetizers and I was thankful since that seems to be an area where I have little imagination. I can sit down and whip out a dinner menu with no problem, but other than crackers and cheese or a veggie tray, I'm not much for the dips and such. Someone brought a hot buffalo chicken dip to that party and it was deeeee-licious, so I decided that would be my contribution to the BYOA party.

I consulted allrecipes.com and found a recipe right away. The thing I love about this site is that you get even better ideas with the comments section. The recipe that was featured was supposed to be in the crockpot all mixed together (the one from our party in the spring was baked and all mixed together and was a weird orange color) but I didn't want to do that for a party that wasn't at my house....no plug ins on a dining room table. Somebody else also brought buffalo chicken dip, but since mine was gone and the other one wasn't.....well, I'll share this recipe since I'd say it was a success. And by layering, as per a commenters suggestion, no weird orange color.

Buffalo Chicken Dip

2-8 oz pkg cream cheese, softened
1 cup bleu cheese dressing
2 cans chunk chicken, drained and shredded
3/4 cup pepper sauce (I used Red Hot because that's what I had in the house)
1 1/2 cups cheese, shredded (I used colby jack)

Mix together cream cheese and dressing. Layer in bottom of 8x8 pan. Mix together chicken and hot sauce; layer on top of cream cheese. Sprinkle cheese on top of chicken.

Bake at 350 20-30 minutes until cheese is melted and you see bubbling around edges.

I served it with frito scoops and celery sticks. At the party in the spring when I first had this dip, they used crackers.

Redecorating update

Things are moving along again after being stalled over the holidays. My long awaited new red sofa for the basement finally arrived this week, and the furniture arrangement that worked in my head looks horrible IRL so I'll have to call the cable company to have the wiring moved for the tv so I can reorient the room. Sigh. It's always something.

The priority and bulk of my budget was spent in the den, and we're still waiting on one chair (the library chair with the Colefax and Fowler fabric). It's supposed to be here soon. The ottomon was taken away for refinishing and the cabinet maker is fixing a lovely spot on the back of the bookcase that was removed for wiring when the tv sat there, along with repairing a lot of nicks and adding a nicer finish to the whole built in. I have hung about half the pictures in the room but we go back to work next week looking for accessories and lamps. I am ready for this to be done so I can move on. I really don't have any pictures because nothing looks very "done" except the removal of wallpaper and new paint. I'm rearranging the furniture in the living room and dining room, and we also came to the decision to recover a huge chair that I've never really liked--it was the first thing I bought for this house, along with the somewhat matching sofa that I'm also getting really tired of working around. Taste and style change in 12 years, but not sure if I have quite enough in the budget for the sofa, too.....must save some for the kitchen. Here's what it looked like before we painted and took down the wallpaper.

In order to move on to the next stage, I have to do some major shifting of furniture that also requires some painting, etc. Yesterday J2 was here with her boyfriend (they've only been dating for about 6 months, but it seems like forever....another post for another day....I think we'll keep him!) and he offered to paint my back hallway and laundry room so I can keep the momentum going. I did not say no!

Hopefully I will make some progress this month....DOTR turns 50 on February 27th and I'm planning to have a few people over for dinner. I promise to post some "after" pictures then.

And just because this post is so boring, here are some "before" pictures of my kitchen (well, not the actual Before before...those are the ones with the blue and white plaid wallpaper I inherited when I moved here). The tile countertops and backsplash will soon be gone.....thank goodness.

Here's a reallllly old post when I bought the new stove a couple years ago (I apologize for the crappy picturesin that post...I was new to blogging then....not that these are a whole lot better! )

Step away from the television

Oh boy. I must stop watching crap tv. It's opened up a whole new world I never even thought about before.

Yes, of course I'm speaking of "Little Miss Perfect" and "Toddlers and Tiaras". I've seen multiple episodes this past week (when I should've been painting my laundry room and back hallway) and the only thing I can say is that it's worse than a white trash wedding. I can't look away.

Let me first confess that MOTR is a pageant veteran. I was in a state teen pageant twice at ages 15 & 16. However, we had a speech and talent competition, interview and formalwear was to be "age appropriate". There were over 100 contestans from all over the state and the winner advanced to the national pageant (which the state winner my second time around then won and was also the IRL younger sister of my Kappa big big sister). It was held in a huge ballroom in what was then the nicest hotel in Omaha. There were no mamas backstage doing hair and makeup and no "coaches". I was one of the talent finalists both years and in the top 15 when I was 16. Then my pageant career was over, although in college I briefly considered getting into the Miss America program for the scholarship opportunities. I have an itty bitty little trophy....one of three I earned in my life (the other two are Salutatorian of my graduating class and Grand Champion of the Style Review at our two county fair.....this was back in the dark ages when you only got a trophy when you did something special). In college, I worked for the pageant as stage manager, Star Spangled Banner singer, and general go-to girl. It was fun...I did it a few weekends in the summer in some of the surrounding states. I'm still in contact with the pageant owner, although she has moved on (she owned several state franchises and lives in Atlanta and I swear, one day we will get together for lunch!) to other ventures. This is where I met Bobbi Eakes back in the day...I think she's on All My Children now. Anyway, I digress. Back to the freak show.

I don't think most average people even knew there was such a thing as this scary kiddie pageant world until the JonBenet Ramsey thing (and to totally veer off the subject again, if you want to leave a teddy bear at her grave, let me know because I can take you there--she's buried in the cemetary behind my church and across the street from our middle school...I drive by it about 10 times a day). I know I had no idea and frankly the whole thing freaks me out.

Both of these shows follow the preparations for these "extravaganzas" and I see the same things over and over. Slobby, overweight mom dancing around living room (ever notice how they all have those same puffy couches, too?) showing 3-6 year old how it's done. Practice, practice, practice. Taking small child to manicure, spray tan, modeling lessons at Tammy's Tap and Twirl, and saying over and over that "we wouldn't be doing this if she didn't love it" while the little girl whines and cries. Then confessing that they've spent upwards of $30,000 on pageants.....so far. It goes downhill when pageant weekend arrives, when we see a plethora of slobby overweight moms and grandmas (you'd think they could throw on a decent outfit) in cheesy hotel conference rooms, constantly running back and forth to their rooms to change clothes. Cut to meltdown of kid screaming she doesn't want to do it, mama getting ticked off and running from the camera to the bathroom for a little "attitude adjustment". There are about 5 kids in every age group at the most. Some of these people have driven for hours to get to these things--the one that stands out is the family that came from Pennsylvania to Louisiana with a 3 year old. Seriously.

Then we have crowning, where they all line up and you can't even tell them apart because they all have on basically the same dress with hair that's curled and sprayed with at least two cans of Aquanet. They're all wearing those fake teeth (flippers) because your natural smile isn't big enough and heaven forbid you have a tooth missing. There's the age catagory queen presentation, and it's good if you don't win that because it means you've been pulled to be super duper ultimate supreme queen of which there seem to be various levels that nobody understands. I'm just wondering about the judges who sit there and score these kids.....how do you become an expert on that anyway? Yikes. I could go on, especially about the creepy guy who shows preschoolers how to "sell themselves" on LMP, but I won't. I'm getting kinda queasy just thinking about it.

Somebody, please, take the remote away. It's a freak show and I can't stop looking.

My New Wheels

....and as a Toyota owner since college, no I'm not a bit worried.

Injury Report

Or, you know you're getting old when you hurt yourself with your own purse.

You might remember that I took a spill in the driveway on my way back from the mailbox when we had our little ice storm a few weeks ago. I evidently put my right arm down to break my fall (my feet went out from under me, so I was face up to the sky) and my wrist was very sore and looked a little wonky, for lack of a better word. Being self employed, we always opt for the "see if it gets better in a day or two" before visiting the doctor unless it looks like it's obviously broken or you've passed out from the pain. It felt much better in a day or two, so all was well. That is until I picked up my purse and went to slip it over my shoulder, at which time I bent said wrist backwards and sideways causing enough pain to see stars. This was about 3 weeks ago and it still hurts. Nor can I pick up anything (which is not such a bad thing when there's furniture to be moved, boxes to be carried and laundry to be toted to and fro). So it's injured reserve, wrist, purse incident.

My second injury is even better. I have an enormous wound on the inside of my leg just above my ankle. It's about the diameter of a tennis ball. Sadly, it's even a sorrier story than the purse injury. I was cooking a Lean Cuisine meal in the microwave, picked it up by the corners, dropped it because it was hot and the plastic came off and splashed very hot sauce on my leg. The blister was quite impressive. I even had to buy the extra extra large bandaids. So my second stay on injured reserve is leg/ankle, orange sauce burn. I'm even limping a little.

The excitement here....well, it just never stops.

Lethargy

Don't you feel it? Everything is so blah. Lewis Grizzard used to call these two months in Atlanta by the names of Janu-weary and Febu-ugly. It rains every other day. And it's cold. Yeah, it's a wet cold.

I cannot even begin to imagine how I would feel if I was in Nebraska. My brother says people are walking around like zombies. He's ready to suck it up and buy an SUV. And it's not even as bad at his house in the SE part of the state as it is in NE Nebraska where my parents live. No wonder everybody is on Xanax and Paxil (long story for another day....).

Last night I ventured out to the lamest mall in the world to see if they could fix my glasses (another long story....) and I walked around a couple of stores that had so little merchandise I wondered if they were going out of business. I am not kidding. Belk (aka Blek...ick) was so barren I expected to see big signs that said "everything must go!" The little tiny rack with bathings suits on it convinced me they must not be closing, but you'd never know by the way the place looked. It was downright sad.

I still have an envelope with a couple hundred dollars in it from Christmas that I haven't spent because I don't see anything I want.

I think that pretty much says it all. Blech.