Photo Challenge

I found this on one of the blogs I follow, Oil Wells 2 Cotton Bales, and wanted to jump on the bandwagon today. We are encompassed by a nice layer of clouds and the hunt for pictures will occupy my scatter brain for a few minutes. Then it is back to the to-do list..... oh how I loathe thee today. So, go ahead and do this with me.
1) Someplace you want to visit......
I want to go to France, hit up a cheese shop (I hope my aunt Irol reads this) and see the site at night.

2) Something you wish you could forget.....

My grandmother lost a battle with breast cancer. Just wish I could forget that it looms in my gene pool.

3) Something you wish you were better at......
I hate water, I can't swim.

4) Favorite book....... Going back to my grandma, when I tried to google a favorite book, this is the only one that popped into my head. If you have a child that needs a little help dealing with something like the death of a loved one, you really should let them read this. I have other books I love, but none that moved me like this one.

5) Something you wish you could change.....

My stick straight hair. I think I could rock this style:)

It's your turn. Thanks for checking me out.

Tears to my eyes

As I set here, I am still shook up from the moving article I just read.

I don't normally check out the Brahman Review, but a great friend wrote this piece. Let me start out by letting you know what an amazing writer, photographer and person she is. Christy Couch Lee owns her own company, CeeLee Communications, but she has been involved in so many publications in the past. I must say I was lucky enough to work under her during my internship at the National Swine Registry. With her at the helm, I learned more than I ever imagined a summer internship would teach me. I felt a little guilty taking money for working from her because one normally pays for an education!

The news these days preys on the "if it bleeds, it leads" newsmakers. I dare you to pick up a publication, browse an online news service or listen to the radio and not hear Charlie Sheen's meltdown not be mentioned. The trainwreck that is his life is fasinating to our society. Don't get me wrong, I am rubber necking at the wreckage as much as you are. But, that doesn't mean I like it.

Agriculture gets hit with so many bad raps and fights against so many groups, while trying so hard to produce a healthy, wholesome, safe product to feed our country. There are groups fighting to end the modern production of livestock and filling the heads of unsuspecting people with lies about farmers. They get more publicity than they should, in my opinion.

But, I want you to read the article that brought tears to my eyes and share the moving story. Why can't we have a portion of the spotlight with all the negativity? The young lady featured by Christy has a long struggle ahead of her.

Thank you Christy for this amazing piece, the Gift of Brahman!

Monday oh how I don't enjoy you

I thought I had an addictive enough personality to do a "My Obsession Monday" blog. Not so much. Or maybe it is that I don't ever change my routine? I should look into that b/c I could be followed, profiled, and plucked off by a strange man with greasy hair. Hey, he might think I am his type due to my constant inability to wake in time to recycle the styling products placed in my hair the day before.

So, my effort to change your attitudes and get lots of sponsors was thwarted by my inability to be creative. I don't want to rant about my day thus far, because a majority of you guys have all ready gotten the e-mail version! LOL.

My weekend was lame, but not a complete let down. I was able to work a benefit auction for the Safari Club. Don't accidentally refer to it as the Sierra Club, their arch nemeses and one of our many in the agricultural industry. I did find out that, one a whole, they are jackasses. Plain and simple think their poo smells like roses. Case in point- I was the bid card hander outer. They were laid out in ABC order and I dominated my ABC's pre-kindergarten. Therefore, not a daunting task. Ms. Smith came to me, informed me of her last name (that was her real name, BTW) and then as I searched my 500 badges for hers she decides to help me with the alphabet. She says "ABC, S comes after R." It took all the control I could muster to not inform her in no uncertain terms that I could read, recite my alphabet and twirl my hair at the same time. It also took me two deep breaths to not inform Ms. Smith that she looked like her product... she was a freakin' taxidermist. She looked like she had been stuff and mounted more times than Bambi's mom. Her jack it to Jesus hair had me stumbling backwards for fear I would cough on her b/c I am sure inhaling that much Aqua net cannot be good for one's respiratory system.

I also noted that their function might be the only one where the statement "nice rack" actually had nothing to do with my cleavage. That saddened me. These people came in dragging racks of dead animals behind them. Toss them a loin cloth and we had a real live nomadic tribe wondering around.

The amount of camo was directly proportional to the amount of alcohol they consumed, too. Mind you, some of it was as tasteful as I can imagine it being. Some of it was over the top. Did you know that if your husband is an orthopedic surgeon and hunts that gives you a red light to wear camo leggings in public? I didn't either. News to me. This even was described to me as a high end, black tie event. I think that got lost in translation to the local who crawled out of a tree or hole to come to town and get free booze. Good thing moonshine wasn't on the menu, or I would still be there.

Also found out they are not the laughing type. I made a few jokes, or remarks as some might call them, and got nothing. I was again mustered my patience and didn't inform them that they weren't the first doctor/lawyer that I had ever met and they weren't going to be the last. Alas, I shut up, got my pay check and skedaddled.

Sunday found KC at the grocery. I need to plan better, buy a calendar or something. There was a huge sale, a sale so big it required a four-story tall inflatable purple gorilla to announce it. I had a hankering for Orange Roughy, a wonderful fish that I hope to make as well as my mommy can, but the hankering was put to bed once I saw the line. The meat counter was insane. Insane like paparazzi swarming Kim K crazy. No one had sense, they just scooped up what they could, pushed and yelled. Honest. One lady got served before another couple. That couple mad damn good and well sure that everyone in the vicinity knew they had been waiting and she cut. I assimilate them to the loud kid in first grade who tattles on everyone and alienates themselves because they eat their own buggers. That annoying. There was a scuffle. I left. The only time I find it appropriate to fight over meat is when you are single, horny and drunk at last call.

Peace out. I should figure out how to clean my copy machine. Big day at the office:)

Birthday week

Those two words used to make me wiggle in excitement. At my age, not so much anymore. This will be my last age changing birthday. I was going to stay 30 forever, but that is so cliche. I can handle 31, since it is the same. Nothing much changed in the past year, so I am cool with being an odd number, only fitting.

Birthday week has been a mundane one so far. Now, I know I am tempting the birthday Gods to throw down some mayhem, but that isn't the game I play. Up until this hump day, I have had some random encounters with things.

Monday brought me a broken turn signal. As I sat at a 4-way stop being a law abiding, turn signal using American, I used my turn to go right. After a few seconds the humming of my signal was still in my ear, but the light was pointing left. No way. I am an airhead, but there was no way I put my signal on left to go right. I was 100 percent sure I indeed used the correct signal when I came to my next stop. Left turn, left signal, left turn completed with the signal not stopping. What the hell? And here I would like to say that I muttered that to myself, but we all know I can chat with myself from time to time.

Come to find out, I broke my turn signal. Now I can't push it down, I have to use the cautionary three blink option Larz came equipped with. I checked to see if it might be a fuse but no such luck. Now, I have to travel to a Dodge dealership and explain the whole sordid affair to those men and make sure they don't rape my checking account. "No sir, I don't need my transmission flushed, I need a turn signal." Take it as you will.

I almost ran out of gas last night after I spent a few hours assisting my editor husband, from now on referred to as Captain Cowman, on the next edition of his magazine the Oklahoma Cowman. I am pretty sure my anal retentive editing skills were lost on him in the eleventh hour of publishing this edition, but I was there to support him and not doing all the errands I was going to accomplish after I clocked out. This was only the second or third time he asked me to help, which might have been the last invitation, and I jumped at the chance to work with him. After all, I am the one that has a communications degree and he is the one with the title, Editor:)

After I left him, I was jamming out... JAMMING OUT..... to some 90's on 9. We live about 10 miles from a gas station and I was a good 4 miles north of it when I saw something. As I head banged a bit, I saw the yellow light of my gas tank. I don't normally go that low, so it was an eery sight. How long had it been on? No one will ever know. Now, my car looks something like an Edmond police officer, so I took the liberty of doing a nice u-turn and hustled back to the station. I literally chugged into the station, only to find the astonishing price of gas! $3.19?!?!? Are you____________. (insert my favorite curse words) Get your shit together Libya! Grab your ears and pull your head out of your asses! Those might have been the thoughts that went through my head, closely followed by thoughts of purchasing a horse and buggy. Oh well. I made it home and to work. Joy.

My diet coke can just blew up on me. I knew it was frozen, but like a Pavlovian dog I opened it. Bills are due, my checking account hates me and I broke a $1200 thingy yesterday. Score one for me. Hell.

So, if you are having a "week" feel free to join me in giving it the bird. We are halfway to the weekend, which you can still get my birthday presents in the mail!!

Cheers!

A Horrible Smell

This is going to be short and sweet, but it will explain how odd I am.

I got home from happy hour last night and my nose was instantly accosted with a foul, foul smell. Circle K was just reading in the recliner, immune to the pungent aroma coming from somewhere.

In a matter of seconds, I tell him about the smell and walk around my home sniffing around like a bloodhound. I instantly jump to conclusions and decide there is a hole in my roof that let snow into the attic and it is now destroying the roof. Or, our dishwasher took a shit and it leaked into the walls, which would have to be replaced once I bought a new dishwasher. Or, it had to be a dead garbage disposal that was going to require a plumber.

The smell wasn't conquered last night and it hit me like a Mac truck when I cruised around the house this morning. Resigned to parting with money to fix our problem and too scared to look under the couch for fear of finding a dead animal, I set out to make coffee and then it hit me. Literally the smacked me upside the head and told me to simply take out the trash!!!!

(Please don't think that our home is horrible. I doubt a rat entered our home and croaked under the couch, but I was being irrational.)

TGIF. KCK

Monday Obsession: Cooking style

I was reading somewhere the other day that the woman of the house used to spend 20-30 hours a week preparing and cooking for her family. You can do what I just did: stop, take a deep breathe and thank everyone who has ever invented a faster way to prepare food! That got me thinking about my own kitchen prowess. I am pretty okay decent and I can damn sure follow a recipe!!

Along those lines of thinking, I decided to find a few recipes I want to try out. Ones that don't take a mere few minutes to create. We have a whole deep freeze full of beef from a friend of ours (let me tell you quickly about the amazing filet's the other night- simply a slight cute into them and then you could finish with your fork!! Like butter!!!)

So, I thawed out a ginormous chuck roast to use in a pot roast. People- do not fear the chuck roast. They are so simply!! Purchase a crock pot and go to town with them!!!! Anywho- after I thawed this giant hunk of meat in the fridge for a couple of days, I made a grocery store run and decided to dive into the creation of a rather large Sunday evening dinner, al la like my Grandma does!!

I settled upon the Pioneer Woman's Beef Stew with Beer and Paprika. Let me tell you the time is well worth the wait. It took about two hours from browning of the meat to shutting the burner off to cool. It calls for two pounds of meat- I haven't a clue if I used that much or more!!!

KCK's additions to the recipe include: Add two bay leaves when you start the initial simmering and leave them for the duration.
I used half a container of baby portabella mushrooms and added them when the carrots and potatoes went in! AmAzInG!! Let me tell you!

To accompany it I made homemade cole slaw and then made a loaf of French bread, with a twist!I rolled the dough in a mixture of basil, rosemary and garlic powder before popping it in the oven. Chingy said it was the bomb, I almost broke my arm patting myself on the back!!

COLE SLAW: (again I don't' measure)
1/2 bag Walmart brand shredded cabbage, carrots cole slaw mix
Mix mayo, red wine vinegar, sugar, celery seed, salt and pepper to taste and right amount to coat. Toss to mix! Simple and yummy.

Left over cabbage mix will become part of a beerox recipe later this week!! And the rest of the mushrooms will get sauteed for our Valentines day Filet's!!

My stomach is growling! I better get to work. Become obsessed with meat and eat all the beef you can y'all!!!

My Obsession Mondays

People do all sorts of fun days of the week blog crap. I am falling in line. I declare Monday's to be "My Obsession Mondays." I want you to want to be like me.... and I want you to have everything I have. Therefore, you need to know what I have:) Joking. Just wanted to share.



I am not trendy, nor am I a curvebender. I just like to overshare. I want you to get a kick out of the crap in my life.



Today isn't going to get things started off with a huge bang, so I hope to amp it up later. After Ft. Worth I got some sort of crud:( Cry for me, you know you want to. Well, that crud came with all the typical cold, blah feelings and the one I hate the most. DRY nasal passages and dry throat. You know that feeling. Like sandpaper in your nose when you draw a deep breathe.



Drumroll please... Ayr Saline Nasal Gel. My brother told me about this stuff around NWSS time and I finally found some at Walgreens. It was a savior this weekend as the air got more dry. It helped me a ton and is currently setting on my desk. I feel like I used a ton but haven't even put a dent in the tube. Great value.

If you are sick, get some. Honestly will keep you somewhat sane.

Hope everyone gets healthy again. Heard of too many people being sick. Let's kick it!