Brief Recipe Swap - Super Easy Recipes

Recipe's

Chicken Salsa Crock Pot Recipe - Juli Dimos

Put chicken, and a jar of salsa in a slow cooker and cook. Server over whole-wheat pasta or brown rice.

Pulled BBQ Pork - Rebecca Leslie

Buy a small pork shoulder and put it in the slow cooker all day on low and then break it up (It pulls apart so easily) and add bbq sauce and put on buns. Serve with baked beans. SO GOOD! (I buy the pork at Costco and break it into smaller pieces and freeze it.)

Chicken Mash Up - Erin Salsberry

Throw a huge can or two (probably 2 for your fam, more for company or leftovers) of freakishly processed and cubed chicken and a can of cream of something soup into the crock pot. Cook on low all day (or just all morning on high, it only needs to heat up since the chicken is already cooked). Break up/shred the chicken, add salt and pepper if you want and serve on buns. I'm sure there is a recipe out there somewhere, but I just guess and add stuff until it looks right.

One Pot Meal Polish Sausage - Brandi Wittmer

polish sausage, cubed potatoes, and green beans. Add the amounts you think your family will need, cover with water, and cook until the potatoes are tender. I slice the sausage, and when I use canned beans, I dump in juice and all. I usually serve it with cottage cheese and buttered bread. My kids love it! My daughter can even do this one without help

Emily Clark's Weekly Menu

1) taco salad with crushed chips (tortilla or doritos) on top
2) grilled cheese with tomato and any soup
3) salmon in a pan (buy "Magic Salmon Seasoning" or use lemon pepper and a little wine), rice and salad
4) shrimp linguini and salad
5) veggie quesadillas (mushrooms, squash, etc) with avo, salsa and s.crm. Maybe a can of beans.... Read More
6) mac-n-cheese and steamed broccoli/cauliflower
7) meatball hoagies (frozen meatballs, marinara, mozzarella) and sliced fruit or veggies

Woah, long time

Blogging seems to be falling out of style in my life. I have discovered it is a little easier to bite off the little pieces of facebook. Although sometimes fb feels like I stuck my mouth on top of a water hydrant and asked lucy to turn it on a little and she kind of turned it on all the way.

So we were bad parents and made Lucy skip school today in favor of family time up in the mountains for a few days. Phew! I have been desperate to get up here and I am not sure why. But I have wanted to breathe the fresh cold air, get away from house stuff, get away from the city a little and just have quiet. And our dog Cherokee is in heaven up here. She is running all over, super excited, sniffing everything in site. and we did not name her cherokee, but it works. like lately i have taken to calling her cherry-icky. she smelled so bad the other day.

It's funny having a dog. I don't know what compelled us to get her. But she is here none-the-less and we love her. We adopted her a couple of months ago. she is 7. and awesome. generally.

I think I just needed to push our already full house over the edge.

You see, in my minds eye our house looks like a cartoon house that is bursting at the seams ready to explode, and for whatever reason, I thought on top of having a 10 month old, we should bring a dog into the mix.

Now our house is cracking, but through the cracks you can see lots of happy screaming and yelling going on. Mercy finally has someone to boss around that actually listens to her. Z still disregards her or just plain laughs in her face. Or cries. if she is too loud. which is often.

My favorite thing to do at night lately, if I happen to be making dinner and jon is home getting the kids all crazy-like, is to put in a pair of ear plugs, pour a generous glass of wine. and happily go about my business. then i enjoy a very pleasant low hum of background delight while whipping up my short-cut culinary mishmash. favorite recipe lately - ramen, ground beef, onions, and frozen mixed veggies. kids like it. can't say too much for the health benefits.

lucy has taken to hip-hop. wants to sing hip-hop, wants to be hip-hop, wants to dress hip-hop (i would like to see her do that with the clothes i have purchase, hee hee, un..likely) err.. until she wants to be an artist, which is next on the list.

mercy is a hard one to pin down. pure joy emanates from the girl. and everything is 100 million miles an hour, or 100 million times louder than it should be. she is the main reason i need earplugs at night. and she hates getting her hair combed. but doesn't want to get it cut, because she will look like a boy. and declared the other day, she doesn't like cars anymore. and insists on putting her outfits together. i will be sad when she has to wear school uniforms next year.

and EZRA!!!!!! in love, woah, the boy has me wrapped around his little finger. i am trying to be strict, but I can't. he is moving and groving and growing very rapidly. i love it and can't believe he is 10 months already. he laughs, he poops, he pees, he eats like a linebacker, he makes his sisters and parents laugh. i am assuming a very typical youngest child.

jon just asked me what i was doing. "writing a blog post" say i. "what's it about" says him. "i have no idea" says i.

and still don't but blessing and have a wonderful start to your weekend.

Trying to stay busy so as to not think about two years ago

So my conversation with my dad and josh went pretty much the same way. "Hey, how are you doing today?" "Trying to stay busy" "Yep" "I miss Jer" "Yep, me too". Of course my mom and I talked about all of losing Jer two years ago, what helps, what doesn't. The most interesting thing that came out of my mouth was, "Phew, I am glad it is two years already..." and in my head, then I got pissed, and the next words out of my mouth were "But I am really mad that it is two years". The paradoxes we face in life make me laugh a lot. But it is really nice having the kids around to keep me so busy, and so tired so I actually sleep thru this season. And to bring joy into the worn out tired places. Ezra was super excited everytime he saw me today. And in my head I have been calling him Ezra Jeremy all day, and my little bear, so kind of a little jer bear.

The things i loved about jer:

1. How I could wrap my arms around him twice, b/c he was so skinny
2. Watching him board through the powder and trees, it was poetic
3. His blue eyes
4. His face when he was in trouble
5. He showed up
6. His crazy ideas
7. The costumes and thought he would put into them
8. The way we would look at each other mystified when Josh and Jo got into a fight, and we had to clean up their mess
9. His style, I must admit, I liked how he dressed
10. How he didn't like to read books
11. His ripped off movie selection
12. Our earnest conversations
13-100000000000000. to many others to list

Jer told me not to be sad for him if he died. Or sad for me, he was very pragmatic. It's weird, I wonder if he knew somehow that the Perzee kids would be split in two. Anyway, I think he told me something like, "that's dumb, you are going to see me again, or we are going to see jo again"

oh jellyhead.

peace ya all,

juli

ps. I found this when I googled Jer's name. I think sometime I will have to meander my way down there when we have some time.

John,
I am very sorry for the loss of your friend Jeremy. This tragic situations make a permanent impact on us. Hopefully, as time moves on - you will be able to replace the pain with those special things that you and Jeremy did. You know those things that made him "special." Please let me know the date that he passed on and I will put his name on the "List" of those who's name will be read evertime that a person reads the list and it will be read outloud every year at the Garrett Berg Remembering Those Who Rode Memorial Ride in Splendora, Texas.

Please let me know if I can be of assistance to you or to Jeremy's family.

In Sympathy,

Mike Berg
"Motodad393"

May Jeremy Perzee Rest in Eternal Peace

Jeremy left this world on May 14 2007.

I have a friend that rode in the Memorial Race in Splendora the last time it was held. It was his first race and he loved it because it was so laid back. Thanks alot for honoring Jeremy:thumbsup:
I grew up in Magnolia, so there is a decent chance that one of these years I will be able to come to that race and hear his name and ride for him.

Brash Confidence

In response to my wonderful friend Abi's post http://justabitee.blogspot.com/2009/04/found.html. Here is my comment, funny week really.

Abi, I had a very similar experience this week, quite interesting. Someone hacked into one of my clients sites and it was redirecting to porn, on the biggest grand opening week for this company. They called in desperation, and it was the same sort of needle in a haystack thing. At one point, I told them to call the hosting place and said if that didn't work, to call me back, and with much brash confidence I announced "I will succeed, not to worry." Not sure what prompted that. About 1 1/2 hours later, we had fixed it. Seriously, where does that come from, the words coming out of your & my mouth. So here's to my sister in confidence, sometimes you have to say it first to make it come true.

Thanks to our friends from three years ago

Thanks to all of you who took care of us on one the worst days of our lives. Was just thinking of you all and started tearing up. A complete and utter blessing from God in our lives.

the world is spinning

Mercy was spinning in the living room the other day and stopped, kind of whoosey and looked at jon and said "I think God is tilting the world"

Jon noticed Lucy was being especially bossy the other day to Mercy and Gavin. And in a brilliant moment of parenthood, he pulled her aside and whispered in her ear "Do you like to be in charge?" and her eyes got super wide. Jon asked why and Lucy responded that "It was her favoritest thing in the whole world!"

Ezra is gooing at me.

one of the most shocking things i have heard in a long time

i just discovered the Curves workout about two weeks ago and am very much enjoying it.  one of the fun parts of being in Curves is it is all women, and they really encourage chatting with each other when you work out, that is if you can talk at all.  

so tonight, chatting with a few of the other women and the owner, the subject of eating meat came up, and one of the women was a die-hard vegetarian.  which is awesome.  and another lady loves to eat meat, which is equally awesome.  so the one who likes to eat meat of course was super excited about her steak the owner had just brought in for her and kind of egging on the vegetarian talking about eating baby cows, etc.  to which she responded "instead of eating baby animals, you should eat babies in china, there are too many of them over there anyway" in a joking voice, and after a bit of a pause, i reply with "daaaammmmmmnnnnn" and a big smile, kind of calling attention to a line she chose to jump over.  and i kind of got a smile out of her, and kind of got this sort of  "knowing" look, not sure if she was actually kidding.

i am a very non-judgmental person, and have heard of lots of shocking things in my life, this is probably right at the top.  and as i finished stretching and heading out to my car i couldn't help but think that something awfully bad must have happened in her life for her to make that kind of statement.  i kind of wanted to give her a huge hug and listen for a while, because i have a feeling not a lot of people get to the deep part of her, the place where that kind of hurt, pain, and hate is born in the broken part of her life.  for that to creep out of the cracks in her life must mean something is bursting and the walls are crumbling.