Must Haves from TV part 1

After reading this post from Brin at BoldButterBaby, I decided I need to help out those As Seen On TV products.

Although her points are valid, she's a bit of a Debbie-Downer about the whole thing. 

So today I'll be sharing with you 7 MUST HAVE As Seen On TV items.

Like, I don't know how you live without these things.

#1 

Deluxe Spin Mop

This is ingenious.

How can anyone possibly mop without this?

It must be backbreaking work trying to wring your mop out like a normal person.

This thing...well, it spin both directions, and like a dog shaking off murky lake water from his gorgeous golden coat, it goes from soaked to I-stuck-my-finger-in-the-electrical-socket-so-my-hair-is-dry in about 4 seconds!

Not to mention you it doubles as a salad spinner when you're done mopping the floors.

Talk about more bang for your buck.

#2 and #3

Flex Seal...according to the commercial, you can coat thebottom of your vehicle with this magical paste and it transforms into a boat!

I'm here to tell you it gets even better than that!

You can use it for all sorts of things.

Coat your jewelery with it in case you accidentally drop it down the drain....that way it floats on the top of the septic tank and you can retrieve it!

Or better yet, coat your chirruns swimwear with and trash the old arm floaties and life vests. 

And the best parts of all?

Spray it on the dog and when she gets a little stanky...just hose her down and the stank rinses away!

Then there's the magic tap.

Oh, how did we survive before this?

Chirruns running wild, spilling jugs of milk and bottles of soda out of the fridge.

And we used to have to PICK UP whatever drink we wanted and POUR it into our glass...the terror.

Now, the chirruns simply open the fridge and easily access the spout, spewing soda directly into their face, coating their hair and staining their clothes. How simple!

Not to mention we no longer have to do horrendous tasks like taking the lid off the milk jug everytime we want a glass.

Just imagine a world where recipes call for "a 3 second pump of milk" instead a 1/4 cup.

Stay tuned for part 2 of the MUST HAVES tomorrow!

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I'll be linking up also with these lovely blogs:

and 

Feature Friday 

Last Supper...I Mean Last Night's Supper

FOOD

 This is the horrible bread I told y'all about. It's supposed to be about thrice that size. (yes. thrice) This is two slices of it and the top. yuck. in the background though is a glorious skillet of taters!

 This is what I ended up making instead of the french toast. It's scrambled eggs with cheese and bell peppers and the skillet taters. Actually the eggs aren't really scrambled, they're sort of smashed. Scott doesn't like it when I crack the eggs into a bowl, whisk them, then pour them into a hot pan. He prefers to crack them straight into the pan and then smash the yolks open with a spatula. The texture is totally different.

For dinner I made chicken broccoli pockets with cheese sauce. It's not at all healthy but it is delicious.

 The sauce is made of cream of mushroom soup, sour cream, shredded cheese, salt, pepper  and garlic powder.I know it looks horrible.

 While I was making the pockets, I had some lima beans cooking on the stove.

 The secret to healthy delicious lime beans is butter. Tons of buttah. Thank you Paula Deen.

 And of course you have to brew some tea.

 So I forgot to take pictures in between, but I cooked a chicken breast in the crockpot, shredded it, steamed soem broccoli and smashed it, add them together, sprinkled with salt and pepper. Then you unroll a can of crescent rolls. You separate the triangles and in each traingle you put about a tablespoon of the sauce and 1/4 cup of the chicken/broccoli. then you just wrap it all up with the corners of the crescent roll. put them in a casserole dish, and bake them til they're golden brown.

 Then top them with sauce. Iknow it looks nasty but it's so good. Then top that with cheese and stick it back in until the cheese is all melty.

 The finished product. YUM!

Then, of course, you plate it up on your Christmas dishes in July. I should have separated them more because they were difficult to get out of the dish without tearing them.

Anyway, there's what we had last night.

P.S. In my kitchen, nothing gets measured unless I'm baking. So for this recipe, everything is just sort of thrown in to your taste. But if you want more specifics, leave a comment or email me at kimberleepannell at gmail dot com  

You can also follow my instagram for more food photos and such.

No, I'm Not Super Woman, Either

Last night I put the girls to bed and left Scott home while I went grocery shopping.

I timed myself just to see how quickly I can make the trip, for future reference.

I even had extra stuff on my list, so I'm pretty impressed with my shopping skills.

When I got in line at the register, it had been exactly 20 minutes since I left the house.

That's a good deal.
I was thinking by the time I got through the line, paid, and drove the 2 minutes back home, I would still make the 30 minute mark, which means in the future, I can convince Scott to watch the girls while I get groceries:)

False.

It took exactly 20 MORE minutes to get through the line.

Turns out I was in the ONLY open lane in the whole store, I was 4th in line, and everyone had full buggies.

And then everyone decided to pay with a check.

I mean, I pay with a check, but dang. These people were taking ages to open up their check book, write the amount in their register, hand over the check, sign the little keypad thing.

So after wasting my life in line, I got home, put groceries away, picked up a little, took a shower, and thought I would be super woman for a few minutes and start my bread maker on a loaf overnight so i could make fresh french toast for Scott.

Then I read my book for a while, lay down, and slept peacefully until 5am.

That's when disaster struck.

Actually, I'm sure it struck somewhere closer to midnight but I didn't know until 5 am.

My bread was HORRIBLE.
Turns out I used the wheat flour instead of bread flour, and let me tell ya, it ain't the same y'all.

And so ends the delusion of grandeur.

kbye.

Maddy Monday Friday

Well, here's the promised Maddy Monday Episode about food.

It's good to have a healthy habit.

So here's Maddy's advice.

The video is processing super slow on youtube, but I'm posting it anyway so if it doesn't work, just give it a few minutes and try again.

Ok youtube is having some malfunctions and I'm getting ready to smash my laptop with a hammer to let out my anger about it, so just go watch the dang thang yo'self.

Maddy Monday Friday

or copy and paste:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gOo-XB-slQ

Trash Day Tuesday

Well y'all.

It's trash day again.

I took the rubbage bin (that's Aussie speak for ya...I watched Undercover Boss, Australia and one of the episodes was Veolia environmental services. They have some odd phrases.) to the road this morning and was super impressed with how well we did. 

Well....sort of.

We weren't home friday thru Sunday.

Bu still it's a major difference.

Trash. Garbage. Rubbage. Waste. Debris. Excess. 

Last Tuesday we had a full can plus one bag that made the lid stay popped up.

Today we have one full bag from before we got our recycling bin and a half bag from the past week!

So realistically I think if we had been home the whole time we would have done about one full bag of garbage.

The bag was mostly diapers.
I decided not to keep them separate because I just tied most of them up in grocery bags at the end of the day. I know you can recycle grocery bags but they keep the diaper smell IN the diaper.

Then I also has the styrofoam thing from a pack of chicken (um...the little absorbent pads they put in meat packages are disgusting. When you freeze them, then thaw them back out, they disintigrate. blech).

I think I threw away one or two other things that could have been recycled but I could really wash off the nastiness and I didn't want that just hanging around.

I'm totally blown away because our recycling bin is almost overflowing.

I never realized how much space was wasted in the trash by boxes and bags and paper and bottles.

Normally we could produce a bag of trash a day.

With the recycling bin, I've been more conscious of breaking down boxes and flattening things out better, and somehow managed to minimize the volume of our recyclables by...I don't know...let's say tenfold.

Tenfold.

That's an odd word.

Apparently it has  a synonoym..."decuple".

That's like "double" or "triple" except it's 10.

Also, in Old English it's "tienfeald".

Who knew?

In other news, as I'm sure you noticed (probably, actually not), yesterday's planned Maddy Monday Food episode is delinquent. Truant. Playing hooky. 

I like to use synonyms for my friend who grew up outside the US.

You can never tell which phrases she knows and which ones she takes literally.
Not that she's dumb, she just grew up in a different world.

So I'm doing a service here, peeps.
Just hang with me as I enlighten/educate/inform/spread the word/give the lowdown.

Maddy Monday will return as soon as I have 3 extra hours in my day.

So probably next thursday sometime?

Linky Linky

I can't help it. These are just so fun, and I KNOW people are out there dying to know how my genius brain might end each sentence. 

Here goes.

If I had one extra hour in the day...I'd weigh a whole lot more from an extra hour of face-stuffing.

I wish my name...had a silent letter. Like, it could be "Kimbqerly"

 I think anything chevron is...annoyingly trendy. Like, 2 years ago it was ugly, or maybe it didn't even exist. I don't know, but now some cool person posted something chevron on their blog and everyone has to have it? whatev. I'm gonna start making stuff with paper-doll-chain-pattern fabric.

you can legitimately purchase this roller derby paper doll fabric here

My last nightmare...involved my mother. I can't even speak of it.

Sometimes...Maddy looks down my shirt, points, and says "boys" and my reaction is "no Maddy, those are boobies not boys" *that's probably not much better*

My last meal on earth would be...a family gathering potluck, like thanksgiving or Christmas. Those are the best meals.

I would much rather be me than_you_.

Mayonnaise...goes with EVERYTHING!

10 years ago, I didn't think...about anything but horses.

 Selfishly...I used to not want any kids.

My favorite show on TV right now...whatever is not on commercial and Scott doesn't whine about.

And, George Zimmerman...went through the system, was given a fair trail by a jury of his peers who deemed that he could not be convicted beyond a reasonable doubt of the crime he was charged with. I don't know what happened, but that's good enough for me. This is America.

Gar-baj-zzz

We just got our new recycling bin.

I'm inspired to be less trashy.

Starting this week, I'm challenging myself to reduce the amount of trash we set out at the road each Tuesday morning by 6:30 am or it won't get picked up. (actually for the past two weeks, they've skipped us and I had to call and get them to come pick up our trash a day late)

Anyway, it's completely ridiculous that we produce so much garbage.

Just from tuesday evening and wednesday morning we filled up an entire trash bag.

That included diapers, so it' snot totally my fault, but I can do way better.

Now that we can recycle, I'm challenging myself to a one-bag-a-week garbage quota.

I'll keep diapers in a separate container, give leftovers to the dog, and recycle like a mad woman. 

I will be amazed if I can get down to one bag.

I'm predicting 2 1/2 to 3 bags will be the reality.

Also this week, I've been caring for a sourdough starter.

I started it myself with active dry yeast and it's been going strong for 5 or 6 days.

I'm making a loaf of bread off of it right now, so we'll see if I'm a good bread-starter-caregiver.

In other news, Lillee is talking more than Maddy and sprinting around the house (on hands and knees of course). The child can crawl like a maniac.

Maddy doesn't like being potty trained. She prefers to run naked through the house peeing on things. It's been a smelly time.

And here's what you've been waiting for: totally unexplained, uncaptioned photos of my life.

I'm Revealing THE ANSWER!

Growing up, I remember my dad giving some very sound, sage advice.

Usually it was when a "friend" stabbed me in the back or I was having a hard time at school or I got in an argument with my mom.

I have to say, at the time I just thought he was being typical RonnyJack: silly, goofy, ridiculous and any other word word that you might apply to characters like Robin Williams or Jim Carrey. 

I know some of my readers face a a lot struggles daily, and especially with friend/family drama.

So, from years of experience and receiving this great advice, I'm here to share the great words of RonnyJack regarding how to deal.

"You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but don't pick your friends' nose"

See? You feel better don't you? I knew that would help.

Now you have THE ANSWER!

Please visit:

Maddy Monday: Old School

Today's Maddy Monday is brought to you by :

Motherhood: where touching someone's boogers becomes acceptable.

Modern technolofy is currently preventing me from piecing together a video segment, so we'll go old school today and show you some still-life-frames from the last few days.

Maddy got some super cute clothes for her birthday. I LOVE this skirt. It's supposed to touch the ground but she's so skinny I had to roll the waistband to keep it on her. P.S. that's my cup of sweet tea that she's hijacked.

I somehow missed taking a good picture of her apron, but you can sort of see it here. It's so cute it shouldn't even be allowed. Maybe it's not allowed. I should look into that. Here she's helping me chop taters to roast for dinner.

She's got mad knifing skills.

We also went out to eat BBQ because the local BBQ joint has a killer deal where you get a meal with drink included for $4 and kids eat free. So we all get our own meal with sandwich, fries and drink for $8 and a tip! As you can see, Maddy loves their lemonade.

When we got home, she wanted to play cowgirl. She also wanted Mame to play cowgirl. She smacks me in the head with the extra hat and says "HAT" as if that forces me to play. She also rode her rocking horse and shouted "yeeee--ahhhh" that's almost yeehaw.

Meanwhile, Killer was super chubby and cute and played with her toys. Also, she has a black eye where Maddy bludgeoned her with a shoe. This particular incident was accidental.

Thanks for tuning in to Maddy Monday.
Check back next week for a futuristic display of technology: an actual video!

Rough Hewn Cole Slaw: A Lazy Girls Guide to a Southern Meal

Today I'm liking up with: Creative Connections at

and  
and

and

Check out the link parties for other good reads.

  So last night we had a ridiculously complex dinner.

Ok, not complex. Maybe busy is a better word.

I had a bunch of extra food that I needed to cook before it went bad so I just made it all for dinner.

We had country fried steak, drinkable gravy, homemade navy beans, sweet corn, a salad and rough hewn slaw.

 Here's Scott's plate...notice he got the christmas bowl.

 Before we get to the slaw, here's the best part of the whole meal: the gravy. I would have been happy with a bowl full of this for dinner. Don't worry, I do have some self-control.

The secret? Leave all the chunks of flour in the grease. Oh and you have to use a cast iron skillet. It really makes a difference.

 Here's the finished plate. I know what you're thinking...corn AND cornbread? yes.

Salad AND slaw? yes.

Nothing green on your plate? Nope.

 And of course, I wouldn't be a true southerner if I didn't serve up some ice cold sweet tea in a mason jar.

  Ok, so I know you're dying to know what the heck rough hewn slaw is.

Have you ever seen rough hewn lumber? 

Think log cabin, rustic church building, fencing etc.

It's basically wood pieces that haven't been sanded and polished to be all pretty.

Well, last night I got my cabbage out and decided that the stupid food processor (although it is very quick an easy to shred things with the little attachment) was too much of pain to wash.

So I had this genius idea.

I'll grate the cabbage by hand with my trusty cheese grater.

*insert dead pan face with a twitchy eye and hate laser beams shooting toward that stupid grater*

Long story short I gave up withing 30 seconds, chopped the slaw up with a knife and threw it in the bowl.

It wasn't looking too pretty, let me tell ya.

I said "dang, it's gonna take FOREVER to chop this stuff up right".

Yes. I talk to myself when I cook.

then I had and actual genius idea.

Just pretend like it's SUPPOSED to look that way.

thus, rough hewn cole slaw was born.

See if I just said "coleslaw" you'd be thinking uh...that's some ugly coleslaw.

But since I'm calling it "rough hewn" now everyone's all "ooooh. ahhhh. that's kimb. she's so creative. I bet that rough hewn slaw tastes better than normal slaw".

true story.

it tastes the same though.

DELICIOUS!

I know this because...

 ok, so technically she get's this excited about any kind of food, but still. When's the last time YOU ate somethign that was so tasty, you smacked yourself with your plate when you were done?

 She was so hungry, she spent 5 minutes just trying to eat that piece of lettuce.

Let's be honest, that child isn't hungry.

She eats more than I do.

Last night she ate a whole country fried steak, and a full serving of everything else.

My little Southern Chub:)